Back from the Christmas break it's time for an update. First, though, thanks Jofaur86 for the links the info looks very useful and I shall certainly be taking a close look at it.
So, regarding my Panther build, what I realised was that in my eagerness to get started I made some assumptions that might not tally with the reality of nr.122. Specifically, I primed and painted the lower hull, it will be seen, in Ammo's '44' Dunkelgelb which I believed to be how Panthers were leaving the factory at the time. However, I subsequently learned (or not) that growing restrictions on supply of paint (and pigment for production, etc) along with a need for expedience lead to late production Panther G's (and armour generally) leaving the factory in a base coat of red oxide primer with camouflage colours being added by the unit they were assigned to. Oh well, whatever, as they say, taking another look at old, blown up, clackered nr.122 really doesn't reveal much. Here the only other pic of him I have;
However, I came across some suggested camouflage schemes for 1945 Berlin Panthers provided by 'Star Decals' that included a possible colour pattern scheme for nr.122
which, whilst this may not be the case, is as good as I can get given I am assuming they almost certainly know a lot more than me;....
In the end, it is not clear this is how nr.122 looked before it was sent to oblivion, or even earlier when it was nice and shiny, but it's enough for me to work with until I know otherwise (and probably beyond!). Of note is the suggestion in this scheme that the factory applied base oxide primer is left exposed with just the Dunkelgelb and Olivegrun camo patterns applied on top - no rotbrun So with this in mind, it was back to the airbrush, mutter mutter, splutter, splutter
Paint applied, wheels and idler attached. What became more than obvious was just how far off were my assumption about the Corleis suspension set up - in fact it I had loaded those torsion bar springs so much I think it was good for about a 15kg Panther!
This whole thing with this set up became a bit of a nightmare to be honest (some people call it a learning curve??), but that's another story too
Whilst the eagle-eyed will notice my big mistake
of fitting the self-cleaning later idler wheel instead of the earlier 'type A' cloggy in the mud idler which Damiler-Benz insisted on sticking with (literally) I should point out that I am aware of this but 1) am still not sure from the pics of battered nr.122 which wheel is actually fitted and 2) I don't have the type A to hand (though I think I saw them on Mr Forgebears website so it's all good as some odd people say). Anyway, to keep some semblance of a work-flow to continue I have perhaps temporarily fitted the new and improved idled that (appaerently) DB didn't fit (unless they did, anyone?).
On with the task in hand, the next move was to fit those stealthy-smooth looking new Taigen Premium gearboxes with all them fancy old ball races and nice lids and stuff;
Now I have to admit I was anticipating problems with fitting these because, as will be seen, I planned to install the final drive through further ball-bearings fitted it the shaft output casings as I had done on my KT (much is, understandably, similar to that tank in terms of design);
The difficulty, I thought, might be that these 'Premium' gearboxes come with their own additional mounting plate that is bolted to the standard gearbox mounting plate in Taigen tanks, as can be seen here;
As it turned out this was not an issue as Taigen had kept the Shafts in place (good) and the fitted fairly smoothly through the bearings, which was made easier by leaving them loosley fitted until the gearboxes were firmly located;
One thing I did do at this juncture, and it turned out to be a very useful move, was to make the lower original gearbox mounting plate easy to release from the outer underside of hull. The two screws that secure this plate from the top are not accessible with the gearboxes in place so I fixed them with Loctite and left the lower outer two relatively free. This work brilliantly because it means the whole platform to which the gearboxes are fixed can be swivelled forward by just removing those two lower screws. This makes it super easy to adjust the suspension as and when needed. This probably sounds somewhat convoluted
but if you are fitting this suspension to the Taigen Panther you will certainly know what I mean
Anyway, once the gearboxes were fitted I fitted the tracks and again set up the suspension
, which this time started to look more like it should and, indeed, act more like it should:
Whilst fitting the gearboxes, etc, I also took the time to upgrade the pathetic, flimsy, cables that Taigen badly soldered to the motors with a decent gauge silicon cable and put some nice bullet connectors on the ends in readiness for the MFU installation, etc. Here is also a view of the gearboxes opened (well, nothing new here really, just some nice steel cogs, ball bearings on all shafts, and 390 motors - then wired with brittle wire insulated by some kind of hard cheese - why do Taigen do this one wonders?
);
Lastly (for this update) one thing that become apparent was the load on the idler adjustment set up provided by Taigen. A similar situation I found with the KT (similar Taigen solution) I noticed that there was considerable flex in rear hull when fitting the tracks. This is probably ok most of the time but I found on the KT that adding a simple brace made a huge difference to the strength and stability of adjusting mechanism and general running of the drive chain. Consequently I replicated that upgrade here;
And this is it for now, the next steps will involve installation of the electronics and (hopefully) completion of the lower hull, which is when the fun really starts (well perhaps!
)
. Still, like a Rubic's cube it'll keep me amused for weeks I suppose 
for information, possibly? sorry if not in English, but from French magazines
