Tamed Panther: “Cuckoo”

[Jakko]

Interesting captured Tiger tank…

Where?

...nice use of the back of PE bending tool, and good advice on gentle scoring.

Thanks. If you need a 90-degree bend, it's usually much easier to use the back of the tool than the front — if only because pressing down is easier than trying to lift up from underneath with some flat tool.

 

[Edbert]

Good advice, I'd have lifted the tool while keeping the large part flat on the bench. I do think your way is better, less stress or reliance on the clamping ability.

 

[Jakko]

Doing that is how I ended up figuring out that it's easier to press down for folds like this

On to the front mudguards. I didn't see myself making these with my limited skills, but luckily, my father was taught metalworking in school long ago, and still enjoys making things from it. A while after I handed him the mudguards I sawed off the model and the aluminium sheet I used for the side skirt rails, he gave me back two copies of them in aluminium All I then had to do was cut them to size, dent them, and add strengthening ribs and rivets …



The ribs are 0.5 mm plastic strip that I scraped down on one side to make (more or less) half-round rod, while I made the rivets with a punch and die set. The headlight is from the kit, set on a piece of plastic card glued under the opening I cut in the left mudguard (to match the real tank). I did have to bend and slightly shorten the power cable, because as moulded it doesn't match the real Panther G.

 

[Jakko]

With the mudguards added, I can start working on the tool racks on the sides:



They're not yet done, because I didn't feel like making those little clamps tonight anymore, the ones that German armour modellers all seem to think are so important to add With this kit, you get all of the tools and racks in both plastic and etched brass, but oddly, the bits of tube are not supplied for adding to the etched parts. I made them from 1 mm plastic rod for the upper ones (that the tow cable hooks onto when stowed), and 1.5 mm aluminium tube for the lower ones (for the tow shackle) — but the latter only on the right, because Cuckoo didn't have them on the left. Don't ask me why they're missing, but I can't see them in photographs. What's more, Dragon made two small mistakes with these tubes: the upper one on the plastic part is too long, the lower ones are too thin. For some other details Dragon missed, I used plastic strip.

I know all of this because I have these:



And this is how those tool clasps work:



(Photos of the Panther G at Bovington, taken by me in the autumn of 2000. Never throw anything away )

 

[KingCreole58]

Very nice scratchbuilding you got going on there.