A few days back I mentioned I was expanding my horizons and build armour after a lot of years in modern jets. I have some questions as I have picked something I thought would be a fun project. Decided on a Jagdpanther and bought the Tamiya late kit. Got the Aber (sp?) and Eduard photo etch sets, the new barrel, and the Verlinden zimmerit. Silly question…does anyone make a Jagdpanther interior resin set? Just curious. Sounds like am tackling a lot of work but I figured why not dive into the deep end of the pool. How do you expert builders recreate the side skirt plates on a Jagdpanther? When replicating them, how do you make them look beat up and bent. I am assuming you can take .10 plastic sheet and make these, bend them a little using some low-medium heat source? Also, if I wanted to make a side skirt look like it had taken a pretty good “hit” that did not go all the way through, how do you replicate/simulate that? Thanks again folks for all the help given this wingy thingy builder. I have really enjoy reading your threads.
Man, you ain’t just jumpin’ into the deep end, you jumpin’ in with the sharks!! That’s a lot to tackle on your first build. I assume you’ve had lots of experience with PE and resin stuff with your wingy thingies. The Aber (you spelled it right) stuff is more complicated, detailed, and fidley than the Eduard stuff. You’ll have a lot of overlap, I’m sure. The side skirts are usually done with pe, also. Usually it’s a separate set. They are just bent, broken, and torn to represent the same, but be careful. Some modelers over do it a bit (my opinion). You can also leave a few off as they were often lost during maneuvers. As far as putting a “dent” in it where a shell didn’t go all the way through, I guess I’d use a ball point pen, or some other round or pointy thing depending on how big and at what angle you want it. Brass would be easier to do all this with effectively than thin plastic. I don’t have any info about interiors. I’d go to a site with a pretty good search engine and do a lookup on jadgpanther. Great Models has a pretty extensive data base and a real good search engine. You can buy it wherever you want, but they might be a good starting place to find out what’s available.
Good luck and welcome to the darker part of the dark side!!
You ain’t kiddin’ Bill…
I’m am the farthest from an expert, but this is what I managed with plastic. I didn’t want too much damage. I heated the skirts and Feifels up by holding them close to the light bulb in my worklight (It was close and convenient).
TWS (formerly Tank Workshop) now produced and distributed by Tiger Models makes a Jagdpanther interior (Fighting Compartment only), engine compartment, and a combo set containing everything. http://www.tigermodels.com/shop/tws
Jaguar also makes an interior set but I don’t know what’s in it.
You have chosen a wonderful kit to start with… Nice and roomy. While Bill is right you are jumping deep your first time it isn’t at all out of range. Which aber set do you have? Fenders, complete kit??? I have the JP as well under long term construction. I began with the eduard set also, though I much prefer aber now. The Aber fender set is a must it adds MUCH to the overall look of the kit, with the correct and detailed fender mounts ect. I used the eduard barrel on my Panther G and loved it… .which one do you have…?
Do some checking before you add the zimmerit. I don’t think the majority of late model JPs had zimmerit as most were produced after the cut off date of zimmerit. Early marks yes but not so much the late, you could save yourself a lot of work by checking that out…
While I am no expert by any means I will tell you what I did on my side skirts. I used .020 styrene (the actual skirts were I believe 5mm armor plate) Use the kit skirts as templates and make new ones that will fit the hooks on the aber fender brackets. Which moves to the next point. while it isn’t unheard of for the side skirts to be bent or damaged they were designed to be knocked off rather than bend and risk fouling the tracks. Shot damage where rounds have or almost have penetrated are more common than damage from hitting stuff.
Yep heat will do the trick but again these were only about 1/4 inch thick so most anything larger than small arms would penetrate.
Sluggo,
you did not say whose links you have.
are they the Tamiya set?
make a jig or guide by taping a ruler to a piece of glass or a flat board.
try building up the indy links in runs of 5 or 10, then joining these to make longer straight runs.
usually the around the sproket runs are done w/ a liquid cement (for plastic links) and then formed around the curve while still flexible.
As far as flags go, I’ve read that their use was hit-and-miss throughtout the war, but they were used more frequently early on than later in the conflict. The Germans soon realized that flags make beautiful targets! If you have a photo reference, that would seal the deal.
The only thing you should ensure is that if you use a commanders flag, the tank number should also reflect a commander’s tank.
