Deff stop by soon! Just ask for James Im here most of the time haha nights mostly. We dont actually CARRY echelon, but there stuff is in my database so that means I can easily order them. If any of you guys have spare time and want to help me put together a decent list of what to order haha that would be sweeet.
On a more depressing note… I have eyt to make any major progress on my build. I woke up early this morning to get a decent start before I had to come to work, when I went to my car to grab something I realized it had been stolen Soo thats what I had to waste my beautiful saturday morning on. At least I am off at 7 so I might get a few hours in before bedtime.
Well I wish it was my kit haha. Cuz that is easily replacable. Unfortunately my car was stolen laaate last ngiht… sometime after 2 am. Not so easy to replace. Work was the worse today… It was sow then busy slow then busy so every hour or so it slowed down, i had to rethink all that had happened this morning. Now I am at home and all I keep thinking about is whats next? My car wasnt even that great. Beat up primered and 220K miles. I mean whats to stop them from jsut breaking in our house… Sometimes I hate populated areas… anyways… enough depressing stuff…
I got the model washed and dried at least. I have been unable to sit still so I cleaned up my desk area and reorginized all my supplies. It looks much better and will make building much easier. All I need is one more small table for some surface area and il be set.
As this is my first tank I am confused as how to start. Normally with autos, I just assemble all the body pieces and paint. is ti the same for tyhe tank? Start with lower half then upper? Do I attatch all the PE pieces then primer? Then Paint… ahh im jsut a wreck tonight. Prolly call it a night and get soem rest…
1:30 (AM) and still up…so if this cuntains erors im just tired.
When building armor, you want to have all the parts that will receive the base dark yellow and camo in thier final locations while you paint. That includes all hatches and PE. However, leave the upper hull and tracks loose otherwise you’ll have one heck of a time trying to paint the tracks if you can’t paint them and the road wheels seperately. I usually seperate the hull and turret for basic painting and then just check every once in a while to be sure my camo still lines up. Glue everything together before you start weathering, except where you won;t be able ot get to the tracks if you do that, then leave the uper hull loose.
Sorry to hear about your car, hope everything gets worked out soon [:(][:)]
Very sorry to hear about your car James.[:(] I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping your car is recovered! Don’t worry about starting your build, we’ve all got quite a bit of time to work on them. I can’t even start doing research until my books arrive from Amazon.
What kind of list are you looking for? Is it for aftermarket parts? Your DML Premium Edition Panther D should be quite complete, the only thing you would need is to determine the paint scheme and markings. Unless you really want AM parts, nothing wrong with that! If you’re going to do the welded buckets on the intakes, then I’m sure the other members of this GB can advise you, I have no idea how to do buckets!! [%-)]
The lsit I was gonna put together would be for the echelon decals. Not for myself… I already know which decals I will be ordering. This would be so I can carry that line in the hobbytownUSA I work at. I actually got the list pretty much finished. Once Its complete I will post it up here since it seems theres a quite a few guys who know there stuff.\
I deff dont need any aftermarket stuff for my kit. Its overwhelming all the stuff it has already. I jsut want to increase the inventory here at work so I can help out the modeling comunity. I hate hearing from customers they have to go online all the time to find the stuff there looking for. But we only have so much room, and can only take budget so high.
As for my car, it was recovered this morning. It was left on the freeway a few miles from my house. The took my sparco steering wheel, seat shift knob. My headlight pieces, stereo, misc. interior pieces. My brand new 3in Skunk2 exhaust… I made the mistake of leaving my 10 fav cd;'s in there also… so those are gone… about $300 dollers in snap on tools… I think thats it.
About $2000 dollers worth of parts and other stuff. Liability sucks… but so does being a broke fulltime student living on my own making $8/hr in the Bay.
Sorry about your loss. At least your car was recovered, that’s something.
So its a decal list. Doubt if I can be of help. I have an Echelon set coming in for my Panzer IV ausf H, but don’t know what else they carry. I really like that you’re trying to add AM items to your store’s shelf stock. I hope the word spreads about that so more modelers can go the store instead of going online.
OK, so far this is what I’ve been able to research on my Panzer Ace, but I can’t verify how accurate it is:
Leutnant Freiherr Von Rosen was in command of 3 Kompanie schwere Panzer Abteilung 503 during the Normandy campaign. That battalion was equipped with the latest Tigers, but only the battalion staff and 1 Kompanie had Tiger IIs. The rest of the battalion still used the Tiger Is. I’m not absolutely sure Von Rosen had a T II unless he was considered part of the battalion staff since he was a company commander. If so then a T II is appropriate. Apparently these Tiger IIs (Porsche) were the “late” style with a step on the 88mm gun barrel. My DML kit is the Premium Edition and comes with the “early” style gun barrel without the step, so looks like an AM replacement is necessary. Aber has a really nice one available, # 35 L-15
Looks like this is the emblem for sPzAbt 503
The Tiger IIs of sPzAbt 503 all had zimmerit applied so I’ve got to decide how I want to tackle this. I know I have 3 choices: hand applied with some tool and epoxy putty, apply with hot knife, or use Cavalier AM. I’d like your input here as my confidence level with any of these methods isn’t very high. This is the only part of the build that worries me!! After that the only other aspect that concerns me is paint scheme and markings. Hopefully my research mat’l will clear this up.
heres an interesting link with pictures of German WWII stuff. Not a whole lot of info, on the kits used jsut real basic. But it gives some nice color photos. There are 4 diff panth D’s at kursk in that list but none that mention anything abour Barkmann… nor have the same markings… the search continues…
I jsut realized that witht he echelon decal kit comes this nifty picture of many diff tanks… so that should help with the paint scheme as well as which numbers… and there all tanks from kursk. Yay for me…
I know what your saying,that’s why I usually build Commonwealth armour because I just have to tap up my grandad for info who was a tanker from 1937>1949.Nothing like getting your information straight from the horses mouth.
I’ve read this Thread with interest, and as I’ve already built Whittman’s Last Ride (Tiger I #007) I can’t very well do it again. Still, I would like to join this Build, pending the answer to a few questions.
→ I see everyone building 1/35th scale armor. Is this build open to 1/72 scale armor? 1/72 scale is all I build, and I have a Dragon kit that might fit this nicely pending the answer to the next question.
→ Was there any German tank Ace that drove/used a Panther G (early) in the following markings:
3/Pz Rgt 12, 12th Pz Div “Hitlerjugend” Ardennes, 1944
Pz Rgt 27, 19th PzDiv, Warsaw, 1944?
There is another option for Pz Abt 1, Pz Rgt 1, 1st Pz Div “LAH”, Normandy, 1944, but there are literally no markings on this tank as depicted in these instructions, only a camo pattern. Ill do it only if it is the only version offered in this kit that was used by a Tank Ace, but I’d love to do one that has markings.
I’ve done an extensive search myself to find out of any of these marking options were used by any of Germany’s tank Aces but came up with zilch. I hope someone can help. Thanks in advance.
Ok another rookie question… I was about to start putting all the wheels together but was unsure if it would be easier to 1) assemble them on the tree then add to painted lower 2) assemble them then add to ower then paint all in one.
The first idea seems like it would be easier to apply the paint but then removing from tree already painted means some minor sanding and may or may not require more paint. The 2nd idea is prolly the easier of the two, but seems liek it may be harder to paint being that theres lots of small places for paint not to reach… how do you guys go about it?
I have a question. You’re building Albert Ernst’s Nashorn and I signed up for the Albert’s Hornisse. Do you think that since there’s so little difference between the Hornisse and the Nashorn that I should pick another Ace/vehicle to model? From the info I’ve gleaned so far, I haven’t found anything that associates him with a specific Hornisse vehicle. I don’t mind if I need to choose something else…there’s no bad subject in this Group Build. Let me know what you think.
James, I’m no expert and I’ve never built a Dragon kit before. Some builders like to assemble the entire kit in one piece (including tracks) and then paint. I think this works if you’re planning on doing a lot of weathering/dusting that will cover a lot of the painting (especially the tracks and wheels). Since I don’t know how to weather this way I use a different method.
This is what I usually do: Assemble as much of the wheels as possible including the drive sprocket and idlers. Assemble the lower hull with all the arms according to instructions. Now because of the interlapping nature of the wheels I then assemble all of suspension parts onto the hull with white glue. Once dry I assemble the (Magic) tracks and fit onto the suspension with the correct track sag, however I break each side of the tracks into two sections so that they can be removed after the glue dries. Once the glue on the tracks dries I remove the tracks, soak the hull in warm water to soften the white glue and then remove all the wheels, etc for painting. Then I continue with the rest the kit until complete. This method lets me paint all the major parts/assemblies separately and ensure good paint coverage. Again, this is just my way and may not be the best way to do it. My explanation may not be very good so feel free to ask for clarification. Hope this helps!
Soo thats what I had to waste my beautiful saturday morning on. At least I am off at 7 so I might get a few hours in before bedtime.
