Panther Ausf. F

Stefan Schacht
nice start, count me in

Dave Flitton
Watching

Spanjaard
me too 🙂

knubbels
Dear Scalemates,
thanks for your interest in my project.
I added a few more photos.
Parts I added so far:
turret:
-scratchbuilt missing periscope covers
-scratchbuilt "Nahverteidigungswaffe"
-scratchbuilt rear hatch rain guard
-scratchbuilt rear hatch bolts (punch & die)
-scratchbuilt rear hatch handle bar
-scratchbuilt correct commander's cupola flip-over hatch with stop "Ausf. F"
-scratchbuilt correct antenna base for "Ausf. F"
-mounted IR-equipment incl. cam belt for elavation gear (the cam belt is made from a candy wrapper foil)
-scratchbuilt armored slot for cam belt of the elavation gear
-scratchbuilt lifting hooks from phone cables
-corrected rear pistol port

hull:
-sanded down the enthire hull roof
-scratchbuilt the hatches as "Panther Ausf. F" with sliding panel
-scratchbuilt correct Ausf. G cover of the front hull fan
-scratchbuilt correct rear hull plate from old "Matchbox Panther" parts and PVC
-replaced the air intake covers with those from "Revell Panther Ausf. G"
-recreated the major weld beads with a motor drill's burr
-scratchbuilt the gun cleaning & antenna storage tube

Suspesnion:
-replaceded swing arms with scratchbuild ones from a fruit box's crampoons
-took "Revell Panther Ausf. G & Ausf. A" road wheels and basically
=>for the middle ones I sanded down 2x outer road wheels to wafer thin, glued them togerter ans put 2x of them together as the duble pack the Panther used
-replace the idler wheels with those from OKB Griogorov
-replace the drive sprockets with those from OKB Grigorov

all:
added photo etched parts from the "Panther Ausf. G sets by "ET" and "Voyager".

I'll keep you posted
knubbels

Tom B.
That´s some serious rework going on there! Definetly watching this one as I also want to build a Panther F or something on the same hull 👍
A little interesting bit about the Panther F is that AFAIK the interlock on the front plate was different than that of other panthers. While it is perpendicular to the front plate on other Panthers, it is in fact horizontal on the F. There is also a different panel-line on the roof than on normal Panthers.
I always find such little details to be extremely interesting 🙂

knubbels
I very much agree with you Tom !
Originally I planned to use the "old Hasegawa" just for parts but got the bit between my teeth to make something nice of it. Basically I didn't want to discard the turret which is the best part of the kit.
Now I am kit.bashing the aforementioned Hasegawa with the Dragon "Flakpanzer 341", the "Revell Panther Ausf. G & Ausf. D/A".
Now I'll get back to the Panther and proceed with the suspension a bit.
Cheerio, Marco!

grimothy
I want to watch this one too, I wanna see how the tracks fit on the Panther so I can get them for Dragon 1/72 Ersatz M10. Also, that is some SERIOUS reworking in the running gear, nice job!

knubbels
Thanks for your comments.
@grimothy: actually this turned out quite "comical". as mentioned above my idea was to use the Revell road wheels for the Panther F.
To have good details front and back I modified them by thinning and glueing the "nice" fronts from the Panther D set to the back of those from the Panther G kit.
When I tried to fit them to the swing arms they fit nicely but only individually !
As soon as I tried to align them they pushed each other. After confirming the distance of the holes made for the swing arms were OK I remade the swing arms, tighter.
Same result. So I bought the swing arm set from CMK (72030). Same issue!
In the end I had to admit that the "redesigned" Revell road wheels were the issue. They kept bumping into each other in the middle.
So after a lot of grinding the connector between the front and rear discs of the outer road wheels they fit !

knubbels
...also I replaced the gun barrel of the KwK 44 L/71 by the more accurate ABER 72L-38.
All the while I added the belt drive for the IR gun laying and its armour guard to the turret along with the loops to attach camouflage.
The OKB tracks are really nice but I should have warmed the up in water before I put them in shape. That would have avoided breaking them. Well, my first time with these tracks but I learn 😉
Last but not least I replaced the right-hand stowage box by a scratch-built armoured one for the IR-set.