i have the DML panther kursk offensive kit #6164, and i have a problem fitting the two hulls together. if i put the back hulls togther, i get a gap this big in the front. 
and if i try to get the front hulls flush, 
i get a weird angle like this. 
any suggestions on how i can mate the two together? i am scared that if i glue the front pieces, and try to bend it down to put the two rear pieces together, i’ll bend it out of proporton. the front also has nice welding groves on it, so using styrene to fill in the front, it might hide the weld seams. HELP?!?!?!
Well something is seriously out of alignment for you. You might need to backtrack and see where you’ve put something on incorrectly. I don’t have the kit in front of me but I know that there was no engineered design flaw. You must have some pieces blocking correct placement. Good luck to you.
I had a similar problem with the Premium Edition Panther D,although not that extreme.I remember I had to file down quite a bit of the upper hul where it mated up with the lower.Ultimately,with a bit of patience I got it together.
It was the underside of the sponsons I had to trim,now that I think about it.Check that out.
[#ditto]
From what I can see in that last picture, It looks like the sponsons.
[2c] Also, another tip…you might want to put on the accessories (small parts) after the major assemblies, it’ll take out some of the frustration of knockin’ them off and having to put them back on over and over.
Steve
I’d love to help ya roo, but work just set their firewall to block Photobucket!! [|(] AAARRGGH!! I can’t see ANY photos on the forums![BH] Freakin’ firewalls…[banghead]
I’ll look at your photos when I get home and also at my Dragon Premium kit and see if I can help out.
The kit is OK and I can not remember this hickup.
It looks to me as if the upper half does not fit over the left and right bottom part tow guidehorns.
Sand away.
You could gain 3 mm there by the looks of it.
Johan
yeah i think that i might have to sand away. its a great kit, with no complaints from me, just can’t seem to figure out why this is happening with a good kit. if you look at the third pic, there are little lips on the bottom hull that fit inside the sponsons. not sure how i can get that lip inside there without breaking anything. but the bad fit in the front is from the little slit in the top portion, between the fenders and the front glacis, that the bottom portion slides into. sand away.
roo, if you haven’t fixed your problem yet, maybe this will help. My Panther kit is only barely started but I dry fitted the hull top to bottom and noticed something. There’s a little flange that juts out where the glacis plate meets the hull side. If the top hull isn’t pushed properly into place then the top hull won’t align properly.
First 2 photos show this properly in place
you’ll notice the alignment is fine
However if not properly set in place, ie resting on top of the flange, the upper hull will be out of alignment.
With the front glacis already glued on you might not be able to see if this is the problem or not. Try putting your fingers inside and to the front to “spread” the lower hull side a bit and see if the top hull will drop into place.
Hope this helps!
that was the exact problem bufflehead. although you were a little late on me finding this out, i actually had to sand down a little of the inside of that flange. for some reason the flange on the right side went in perfect, but the left side was a little too thick to fit inside. this might have been from me glueing the fenders and sponsons on. but nonetheless, i got it together with a little elbow grease. thanks a millon for the help as this would have surley helped me out if i couldn’t have figured it out, and now that its archived, it might help someone else out in the future. thanks again
roo