Dragon 6268 Panther G (Late) - Update 19.03.14:

[Hinksy]

Hi guys,

I know I said I was going to start a few 38(t) builds as a mini project and thus far have built Trumpeters 38(t) E/F and am just finishing Academy's Early Hetzer right now - I'll be building the pair of Marder III's in my stash later on this year.

I'm going to be going away for about 12 weeks in May so have decided to move onto a bigger build to fill the gap between now and when I'm going away.

I've looked in the stash and have chosen Dragon's 6268 Panther G Late - a beautiful kit indeed!



www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/dragon/dr6268.htm

I've got Friuls for her and a bit of bling but need to make sure I'm building the right version as apparently the kit comes can be built as a MAN version or an MNH version. It appears that the MAN version has the single wheel roller on the final drive housing or the later skid shoe seen on some M.N.H manufactured vehicles at the end of the war.

Does the box art show the MAN version? I think it does as the MAN version has the mini-turret loops for adding wire to hold cammo foliage in place.

Apart from the roller/shoe thing, is there anything else I must be mega careful about using or omiting?

I have an RB Barrel for a late Panther G but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near a coorect replacement. Is there a 'recognised' replacement barrel for this kit that I need to get?

I have found the entire Griffon set including a stonking amount of PE and the barrel that comes with it is a perfect match for the kit barrel in that it has all the other gubbins on the breech end of it to make up the correct breech - I don't think this can be bought alone and I'll have to buy the whole PE set. Still, not bad for £15!

www.luckymodel.com/scale.aspx?item_no=GRM-L35001

If anyone can shed light on anything else that might come in handy that would be great

Cheers fellas,

Ben

[bullardino]

Sorry, I won't help but I wanted the front seat

Count me in

[Tojo72]

I seem to remember reading in FSM that the spare tracks have trouble fitting in the racks,may have to work on them,I know I did for the Panther G w/Zimm kit

Where you going for 12 weeks if I can ask ? Does that mean no modeling during that time,that would be tough

[Hinksy]

Mar 4, 2014 9:16:25 GMT -5 bullardino said:

Sorry, I won't help but I wanted the front seat

Count me in

Cheers Luis and Tojo

Tojo - I've mentioned the spare track hangers below and have pm'd you re the '12 week vacation'.

Re the track holders - The spare track hangers in the kit are too wide by a fraction but now I have this Griffon set I'll be using the PE replacement for the rails.

I've ordered the Griffon set, mainly for the barrel but I'm getting into my PE a fair bit now so will make the most of the PE in the kit.

Gotta start sometime I suppose! It has the potential to be a lot of fun.



I'll put the finishing touches to my Hetzer build over the restof this week then its straight onto this Panther! It's been nice building a kit that could be assembled in a matter of hours but I yearn a more challenging Dragon kit now and what's better than a Dragon Panther with Friuls and full Griffon PE set/barrel


Ben:)

[Tojo72]

Have fun with the PE !!! should be a challenge,but if it comes out right,it's worth the effort.

[Deleted]

Hello, I don't know which factory made those turrets with the foliage loops, but here you can find some pics of them, also notice that those turrets lack the MG attachment ring on the cupola.
www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=SquawkBox&file=index&req=viewtopic&topic_id=217201&page=1

Eddy

[deafpanzer]

AWESOME! You can do it... PE will make your Panther look great. Hope you are going for that camo scheme shown on the box. I think I have same kit in stash so I will be following you closely. LOL

[elco]

Panther? Check i am in

[Deleted]

nice choice like a "G"

[Hinksy]

Mar 4, 2014 12:24:51 GMT -5 deafpanzer said:

AWESOME! You can do it... PE will make your Panther look great. Hope you are going for that camo scheme shown on the box. I think I have same kit in stash so I will be following you closely. LOL

Hi Andy,

Elco - it's nice to have you aboard, matey

Andy - I thought the mention of the letters 'P E' would get your attention! I found a nice link here to a review that milmod did of the set I've ordered (link below). Obviously a lot of it might be too much for me but I'll be picking up my new Micro Soldering Iron at the East Midlands model show at the end of the month along with some super fine Solder. I'll deffo be replacing the spare track hangers, rear stowage bins and all the bits on the engine deck.

www.militarymodelling.com/news/article/pe-for-panther-g/3354/

First off I THINK I am building the MAN version i.e. the one on the box art with the single steel wheel at the rear and final drive roller wheel instead of the skid shoe (I'm hoping someone can clarify all of this for me)!

On the turret walls are tiny dots to mark where the foliage loops need to go. They can be simply painted over if not wanted. The box art Panther has these and the little kit supplied loops look easy enough to work with.

Here is a link to the Dragon webpage where this kit is shown. At the bottom of the pitures before the text begins is shown the 3 options for paintings and markings:

www.dragon-models.com/d-m-item.asp?pid=DRA6268

The centre one has all rubber rimmed roadwheels so I assume that one is not a MAN variant?

*The other two show both have rear steelies and the left hand one shows the box art Panther '421' with what appears to be an olivgrun basecoat and DY patches - hard edged.

Obviously, this IS NOT my build, I found it on a website belonging to 'MIS MAQUETAS' and was really impressed. I hope you don't mind me using your photo This is what I'll be hoping to build:



*The one on the right is from an Unidentified unit and is green and red with a tiny turret number '121' Gary Boggs built this one and sent me a photo of his awesome build - here (I understand Gary want's to do some further weathering on this one - cracking build):

Gary Bogg's Panther G:



This review below is by Cookie and makes for some interesting reading.

www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/german/dml6268reviewcs_1.html

So, it's a choice of one of these two schemes - the first will be harder but I won't get anywhere without pushing myself so I'm probably going to opt for the box art version!

To sum up - if any of you Panther Guru's can assist with splitting up the parts and helping me ensure I only fit the correct MAN parts that would be brilliant. I'm not going to go stupid with being accurate as that's when it stops being fun (for me) but it would be nice to get the basics correct.

Work in progress begins - this weekend! Actually, maybe Friday!

Thanks in anticipation of your help and guidance that will be coming my way fellas! LOL!

Ben

[danb.]

Nice choice on the panther I'm a jealous man I built this kit last year for my street furniture dio your ? On the MAN version you can tell a MAN panther G there should be a bracket on the rear quarter of the turret which was for spare outer road wheels to be stored it's a tiny flat bracket with 2 holes in it it should be in a PE fret or you could make it and also the MAN factory fitted crew heaters onto the left hand fan housing that will be in the kit as standard this was a later modification late 44 early 45 apart from that there is not too much to modify to make it a MAN panther I have bought the latest Panzerwrecks MAN panther factory book so if you need any answers drop me a PM anytime

Dan B

[Hinksy]

Thanks for that Dan

I'll be starting this little beauty on Saturday - a lot of the small stuff i.e. muffler brackets etc will probably be with the Griffon kit so I'll look into that and see what I can do and what needs leaving as it will be done in PE.

I found Osprey's book 'Building the Panther G' on Amazon and ordered that for a Friday (tomorrow) delivery and as the Griffon stuff is coming from Lucky Model it could be here pretty quick unless Customs get their dirty mitts on it first! They said 7-11 days delivery/

Got the Friuls, got the PE and Aluminium Barrel and got the kit - good to go!

I'm not sure if the book will help or not but it was cheap and can't hurt - I think it focuses around this later Panther from what I've read plus the actual one I'm building is on the cover!



First update on Saturday - wish me luck!


Ben

[wing_nut]

Gonna try my best to keep up with this one. I love Panthers

[afvfan]

I couldn't for the life of me figure out why you would announce a build log 6 months ahead of time, then it hit me that you Englander's do dates differently!

[pantherf..-Email Not Valid]

Mar 6, 2014 9:50:25 GMT -5 Hinksy said:

Thanks for that Dan

I'll be starting this little beauty on Saturday - a lot of the small stuff i.e. muffler brackets etc will probably be with the Griffon kit so I'll look into that and see what I can do and what needs leaving as it will be done in PE.

I found Osprey's book 'Building the Panther G' on Amazon and ordered that for a Friday (tomorrow) delivery and as the Griffon stuff is coming from Lucky Model it could be here pretty quick unless Customs get their dirty mitts on it first! They said 7-11 days delivery/

Got the Friuls, got the PE and Aluminium Barrel and got the kit - good to go!

I'm not sure if the book will help or not but it was cheap and can't hurt - I think it focuses around this later Panther from what I've read plus the actual one I'm building is on the cover!



First update on Saturday - wish me luck!


Ben

MOST excellent book!  (I have it)  Are you building the Panther like the box art, with the last roadwheel station a steel wheel?  I converted my 1/16 Tamiya Panther into one and WAS going to use the same camo but too many others copied it (and with out the wheel(s) swap too) so I am going another route with the paint. 


The book covers 'other' Panthers too but the kit you bought is screaming to be built that way!


(BTW... you're my newest best friend building a Panther kit)







Jeff

[danb.]

Bring it on fella Osprey books are good sometimes they can be a bit dated but on the whole quite helpful your making me wanna build another Panther now

Dan B

[Hinksy]

Cheers Jeff,

I was planning to use the box art/book cover tank as it looks excellent but like you say - it's been used by a lot of guys and something different could be nice but at the same time I've never attempted a very hard edged scheme like this before and think it definately kicks ass!

It's not going to be a quick build so along the way I'll pick up ideas for different schemes.

Glad to hear the book is good - a few Osprey books I've had have been dissapointing but I'm always interested to see what they have to say and what ideas they can generate.

If you have any sources of info (links to relevant info and photos etc) covering suitable optional schemes or anything like that that you can let me have I'd be most grateful buddy

Thanks again Jeff,

Ben

[Hinksy]

Hi fellas,

Why can't anything EVER be simple!

I was looking into a PE kit with barrel for this build and looked on the interweb and was told that I needed Griffon GRM-L35001 (a big pack with PE and barrel designed specially for this 6268 Dragon Panther G kit and copper tube and other bits too).

It now seems that I should have ordered GRM-L35001BP as this comes with the barrel.

I've E-mailed Lucky Model as I want to get this potential mess sorted before commiting to the build so I'm afraid I'm going to have to build something else before I start on this.

So, this is going on hold until I get everything sorted (I got my Panther book today too just to rub salt in the wounds) so I'm off to the stash to pick something else to start - DAMMIT!

Leave this with me for a bit!

Ben

[elco]

Don't know if you have the duel in the mist books or the Canfora panther book, lot's of G's in it with nice camo's

[afvfan]

Sad to hear about the delay, Ben. Between this and your 12 week trip, maybe I wasn't so far off when I misread the original date you posted.

[pantherf..-Email Not Valid]

On hold?

But, it's Friday night and I just popped some popcorn! 





Jeff

[Hinksy]

Mar 7, 2014 19:29:33 GMT -5 pantherf..-Email Not Valid said:

On hold?

But, it's Friday night and I just popped some popcorn! 


Jeff

Yep - on hold (but not for long). I just want to get everything right before I kick off.

In the meantime I shall be building a Tamiya M4A3 Sherman (105mm) on the Allied section for something totally different!

Sorry Jeff - keep the popcorn warm

Ben

[Hinksy]

Hi guys,

I know I'm in the middle of building a Tamiya Sherman at present which should be finished by next weekend.

In the meantime I thought I'd update y'all where I'm at with this Panther G. It's going to be this years 'BIG' build i.e. lots of time and money put into making it a killer build

So, we have the kit - Dragon's 6268 Panther G Late & the Friuls:



And we now have Griffons dedicated PE upgrade set and replacement barrel/barrel cleaner tube which was delivered this morning - sweet!:



www.militarymodelling.com/news/article/pe-for-panther-g/3354

The main reson for me buying this upgrade set was to obtain the somewhat luxurious metal barrel and barrel cleaning rod round holder. I did a lot of research into what set I needed to order as there are two for the Panther G. At the time of ordering (about 3 weeks ago) it seemed that GRM-L35001 was the PE set that was designed EXACTLY to replace parts for the Dragon kit 6268, which is the kit I have. The other set available is GRM-L35001BP (this set was meant for super detailing general Panther G's).

I ordered the one for my kit only to be told by Lucky's website that it didn't come with the barrel or tube! However I'd seen on one review of this kit that L35001 was a bumper pack and gave you all sorts of stuff for my kit - including my barrel!

I emailed Lucky who confirmed the set I'd ordered did NOT come with a barrel and I should have ordered the code ending BP - dammit!

This set arrived this morning and guess what - it was the 'Bumper Pack' and packed loads of extra stuff including the barrel, cleaning kit holder tube thing, detailing wires, plastic 1mm round stock and 7 BIG Frets of etch! RESULT!

I didn't want to start this build until I'd received the etch set as after looking at the etch layouts it would seem that a lot of the parts used early on in the build i.e. exhaust brackets and Jack Mounts etc.

Looks like I'm good to go now so I'll be starting this one after the Sherman.

Cheers fellas,

Ben

[wbill76]

Sounds like you'll be neck-deep in the bling on this one Ben!