1:35 MENG Panther Ausf. D

[hasenpfeffer]

Thanks for the votes of confidence, fellas. I'm sure it will turn out fine.

Edit - Changed out repeat picture.

Today I received that long awaited post from Poland. Inside of the somewhat crunched up box I found another, bubble wrapped and no worse for the wear.


Inside that box was a plastic snap container with many track links and 2 baggies, each with the different pin ends and some rudimentary instructions. Not that anything more is required.



So I set out to see how easy these were to put together, and timed myself for 11 links (10 of each pin). The pins are press fit and no glue seems to be required. They fit nice and snug once pressed in. Each pin has 2 ribs at the outside end just short of the head/nut to retain it in place.


You can see what I'm talking about in this picture. The last 2 pins are not inserted all the way in.


You can also see how clean these bad boys are. I haven't come across a misprinted link yet, but I'll let you know if I do and what the ratio is to good ones. It appears as though there will be no clean up which is kind of exciting. No cutting from sprues, no cleaning and no glue!

Anyway, the run of 11 links took me 6:45. That's 6 minutes 45 seconds. No rushing for time. The only thing is that I laid the parts out before starting the timer. I figure about 1.5 to 2 h to do both runs of tracks when I get to it. I can certainly live with that. Bonus that they fit the drive sprockets just fine.
Beautiful! Cast ID marks and the pins look awesome. Holes are clean and haven't required any drilling, etc.




I'll let you know more as I go along, like how they paint up and how strong they are. They seem pretty solid at this point. I want to say the tracks themselves were ~$32 and shipping was ~$15. Not bad considering they are coming from Europe.

[chromdome35]

Those tracks look great, I'm glad you are having a good experience with them.

The few things I've sourced from Poland have been of excellent quality.

[deafpanzer]

WOW! I think I have to try those tracks one day... thank you so much for sharing this with us!

[Joe Rix]

Those are some impressive tracks. They should greatly enhance your Panther. And the fact that they a relatively pain free assembly is certainly a bonus. Anxious to see the final outcome.

[kyledehart5]

Holy cow. Those tracks!!

[hasenpfeffer]

I have zero negative, or even average things to say about these tracks. They are fantastic. The only "bad" thing is 2 broken pins. 2. One of each type. It took 86 links/side and none of the links had any visible or noticeable flaws. Only 1 hole required the slightest widening since the pin wouldn't seat the 1st try. IDK, you be the judge.





And if you're interested, Here is a group shot with the PWD, kit tracks, Friuls, and Bronco - from top to bottom, L to R respectively.

[Joe Rix]

Wow! Those look great. And given your endorsement, those will be noted for any of my future 1/35 builds. Glad they worked out so well.

[Tojo72]

They came out real nice

[stikpusher]

Well those tracks sure do look the part! Very nice!

[406 Silverado]

When we were at the Nats, me, Brian ( chromdome35) and Russ (rbaer) were eyeballing some track links from a company called Scale Colors 3D and from what we saw they were on par with what I'm seeing here. These 3D printed parts are changing everything in modeling for the better.

[hasenpfeffer]

Aug 18, 2023 6:54:19 GMT -5 406 Silverado said:

When we were at the Nats, me, Brian ( chromdome35) and Russ (rbaer) were eyeballing some track links from a company called Scale Colors 3D and from what we saw they were on par with what I'm seeing here. These 3D printed parts are changing everything in modeling for the better.

Cool. Do they have a website? A social media page? How would one look at their wares? But yeah, totally agree that 3D printing is making huge inroads. Now if it would just start to come down in price a bit - win/win. Amazing what you can do with some CAD skills and a 3D printer. It might be the next leap I take... not sure that will be any time soon though.

[reserve]

Very nice sir they kinda put Fruils to shame, no?

[hasenpfeffer]

Aug 20, 2023 16:45:02 GMT -5 reserve said:

Very nice sir they kinda put Fruils to shame, no?

Thanks, Mark. Yeah, I guess you could say that. The Fruils were cool because of the weight and the fact you could burnish them to look awesome. Cleaning up metal flash and drilling out the occasional hole was the price you paid. The only very small , super nitpicky thing I could say bad about these 3D printed tracks is that you can see the print lines if you look very (and I mean very) closely. They are as close to perfect as I've ever seen. The pins even go into the middle loop from each side, so you can represent a full pin on spares.

That being said, I have the primer and the base color on these bad boys. MRP Extra Dark Rust. Probably very similar to the Tamiya Dark Iron color. Hard to tell from the photo.


Also put down the camo. I was not too concerned with the overspray. I used Tamiya Red Brown and Tamiya Dark Green. I think it turned out pretty well as I was kinda going for a dense, field applied camo job.


I'm also very torn about the color of the turret numbers (outlined in white). Pretty much every source for 51 or 52 Abteilung shows them as black. The picture of the tank I am trying to (somewhat) replicate really doesn't look like it has black numbers. I suppose it could be the angle of the sun reflecting slightly off the surface, but they look a long way from that (standing) crewman's cap, or even the shadow. What do you all think?

[chromdome35]

Aug 21, 2023 9:42:10 GMT -5 hasenpfeffer said:

I'm also very torn about the color of the turret numbers (outlined in white). Pretty much every source for 51 or 52 Abteilung shows them as black. The picture of the tank I am trying to (somewhat) replicate really doesn't look like it has black numbers. I suppose it could be the angle of the sun reflecting slightly off the surface, but they look a long way from that (standing) crewman's cap, or even the shadow. What do you all think?

Maybe they are red, I've seen red bordered with white.

That leads me to a question, if one was going to paint these and not use a decal, how do you properly align paint masks to make the interior color perfectly centered?

[deafpanzer]

Love your work on the camo!!! I am leaning toward to red numbers with white outline based on the pic you shared.

[hasenpfeffer]

Aug 21, 2023 10:38:38 GMT -5 chromdome35 said:

Aug 21, 2023 9:42:10 GMT -5 hasenpfeffer said:

I'm also very torn about the color of the turret numbers (outlined in white). Pretty much every source for 51 or 52 Abteilung shows them as black. The picture of the tank I am trying to (somewhat) replicate really doesn't look like it has black numbers. I suppose it could be the angle of the sun reflecting slightly off the surface, but they look a long way from that (standing) crewman's cap, or even the shadow. What do you all think?

Maybe they are red, I've seen red bordered with white.

That leads me to a question, if one was going to paint these and not use a decal, how do you properly align paint masks to make the interior color perfectly centered?

Really by eyeballin' it. The trouble is more with getting the 2 different size numbers as you can't just resize it to be shorter and narrower. The actual "line" width has to be different too. Go back to Post #77 to see my test samples. I'm still trying to tweak that "line" difference to get the visually acceptable border.
Below is a pic with the mask for the interior of the number in place for the "4"s.

[hasenpfeffer]

Aug 21, 2023 12:30:31 GMT -5 deafpanzer said:

Love your work on the camo!!! I am leaning toward to red numbers with white outline based on the pic you shared.

Me too. I suppose even if it's wrong it will still look good. I was measuring against the balkenkreuz as well. It looks to me like the cross is just dirty and that is why the black isn't as intense. The white has the same faded effect there that is not present on the turret numbers. Tough call. Like I said before - need time travel.

[stikpusher]

Those turret numbers are NOT black. Perhaps red, blue, or even green, but certainly not black… nor yellow… nor a white skeleton outline over the camo base. I have read of different companies within a battalion using different colors, to help ID them. But I don’t know of any system like the Luftwaffe had where certain colors were assigned to particular squadrons by order as a standard.

[Steve Zuleski]

Looking great from here, Dave!

[reserve]

Yeah I would think the pic shows red with white outline, myself.

The RFM tracks I used reminded me of ModelKasten tracks which I used a few times but with better molding. Fruils were very nice but I think these new printed and plastic sets have sharper detail. Kind of a moot point, tho, since Fruil is going under

[hasenpfeffer]

I suppose it's been a little too long since my last post. I managed to get the markings on and most of the preliminary painting done. There is still soo much to do, but I thought you might like to see it in the meantime.

I made the masks for painting the numbers. I had an Alliance Model Works template for the unit markings on the turret sides. The Balkenkreuzen are decals. I'm not sure why I didn't notice it when I was painting my MiniArt PzIV, but the fire extinguisher decal is from that sheet. Nice touch for them to include it. I think they all should. The 544 on the rear of the turret looks pretty rough in these pics - hard to see that level of detail with the ole eyeballs, but I am going to see if I can fix it up a touch. I also finished the tedious task of a pin wash using 502 Abteilung Shadow Brown and some white spirits.








Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

[stikpusher]

No questions from me… I’m just enjoying watching you put together this excellent looking project.

[Tojo72]

Outstanding job on the camo

[406 Silverado]

Aug 19, 2023 20:57:45 GMT -5 hasenpfeffer said:

Aug 18, 2023 6:54:19 GMT -5 406 Silverado said:

When we were at the Nats, me, Brian ( chromdome35) and Russ (rbaer) were eyeballing some track links from a company called Scale Colors 3D and from what we saw they were on par with what I'm seeing here. These 3D printed parts are changing everything in modeling for the better.

Cool. Do they have a website? A social media page? How would one look at their wares? But yeah, totally agree that 3D printing is making huge inroads. Now if it would just start to come down in price a bit - win/win. Amazing what you can do with some CAD skills and a 3D printer. It might be the next leap I take... not sure that will be any time soon though.

I’ll post something up for you soon Dave. Sorry for being so dang late with this

Here you go Dave: scalecolors.com/product-category/sc3d-tank-tracks/

[Joe Rix]

You have done some really fine work lately Dave. Your camo came out exceptionally well. The numbers and decals seem to have come out just fine. It all looks tremendous from my view.

[chromdome35]

This is really coming along nicely. Very nice job on the paint and weathering.

I notice yours has the center rear antenna riser, was that a kit detail or did you add that?

[deafpanzer]

I can't get over how great the camo you have painted on your Panther!

[kyledehart5]

Looking awesome!

[hasenpfeffer]

Sept 4, 2023 18:52:40 GMT -5 406 Silverado said:

Aug 19, 2023 20:57:45 GMT -5 hasenpfeffer said:

Cool. Do they have a website? A social media page? How would one look at their wares? But yeah, totally agree that 3D printing is making huge inroads. Now if it would just start to come down in price a bit - win/win. Amazing what you can do with some CAD skills and a 3D printer. It might be the next leap I take... not sure that will be any time soon though.

I’ll post something up for you soon Dave. Sorry for being so dang late with this

Here you go Dave: scalecolors.com/product-category/sc3d-tank-tracks/

Thanks! I'm guessing their stuff must be pretty good since it's all out of stock...

Sept 5, 2023 8:02:54 GMT -5 Joe Rix said:

You have done some really fine work lately Dave. Your camo came out exceptionally well. The numbers and decals seem to have come out just fine. It all looks tremendous from my view.

Thanks, Joe! I dig the side turret numbers. It's the one on the rear of the hull that needs a little TLC. But really, in person, it looks ok.

Sept 5, 2023 9:24:31 GMT -5 chromdome35 said:

This is really coming along nicely. Very nice job on the paint and weathering.

I notice yours has the center rear antenna riser, was that a kit detail or did you add that?

Thanks! The riser is already present on the kit part. Both in fact, I think like most kits. I cut off the port side one and drilled it because I have a stretched sprue antenna to install.

Sept 5, 2023 11:43:35 GMT -5 deafpanzer said:

I can't get over how great the camo you have painted on your Panther!

LOL, thanks Andy. I think it's pretty good. But I'm not so sure it's THAT good. LOL.

Sept 5, 2023 16:44:42 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Looking awesome!

Thanks Kyle, appreciate it.

[406 Silverado]

hasenpfeffer: You would be right but if you contact them they'll cut you a set. At least that's what they said at the Nats.

Dude had a set of tracks assembled and was twirling them around his finger. Couldn't believe my eyes.