Hi everyone. I am building the 1/48 Tamiya PzKW Mk IV J. It does not come with the hull skirts (Shurzen) since late in the war the Germans quit installing the plate armor and instead used a mesh. Does anyone know where I can purchase PE mesh skirts? I searched, but cannot find a source.
Thanks
Those Thoma schilde (mesh shields) were quite basic in construction, being interwoven mesh with a support on bottom and top sides. Basic metal J hooks held it onto the mounting tubes.
I don’t know of any 1/48 p/e sets with them, but they should be easy to make, as long as you can find the right size mesh. The top support bars are U shaped going from one side, over the top, to the other side. I don’t remember for sure if the lower support is the same or just a metal bar along the outside of the lower edge.
Later tonight I can try to get you a scan of the instructions for a 1/35 scale mesh and you could scale them down.
Frozin,
That would be very helpful. I did not think about using styrene mesh. For this build, I don’t need everything to be perfectly in scale. If you want to send me the scan of the 1/35 mesh, that would be helpful.
I am getting back to building models and have never scratch built much before. This will be a good project for me to learn new skills.
Thanks
Ok, so try as I might, I wasn’t able to do a proper document scan for this. Here are some pictures of the instructions with some measurements for 1/35 scale.
The middle piece is all 90 degree angles, along with the bottom corners of the last piece. The first piece has only the bottom and top corners square that meet the middle. The top rail of the first piece has only 5mm square before it has a slight downward slope.
As far as the mesh, in 1/35 household window screen is close to scale, so you would need smaller for 1/48. There are multiple vendors that have fine p/e mesh available, or perhaps you can find another source of fine metal screening. I used to have a bunch of water filters from industrial coffee makers that had a very fine metal screen. Very useful, but sadly I’ve used all I had already. 
Frozin,
Thanks so much for the information and patterns. I will put them to good use. It may be awhile until I get to making the skirts, but it will be a good challenge for me.
Blessings,
Kirk