RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Updates 9/07/2013 - Detailing the spare track links

Before showing the result of my little color experiment, I'd like to show how I detailed the spare track links.

The spare track links that come with Heng Long do not have holes in the guide horns, but as you can see in my previous post the track links already have them.


Heres how I did it. Get a fine diameter drill bit and just start drilling the outline of the hole.


After the outline is drilled, you can knock out the hole. Careful at this point not to break the track guide horn as it has been weakened due to the hole. Fortunately Heng Long has used tough, good quality plastic here.


I then used a fine scale file to smooth out the ragged edges of the hole.


Another detail I wanted to add was the track pin. I wanted some of the spare tracks to have track pins in them. To do this you have to add the corresponding holes for the track pin. This was done using a larger diameter drill bit.


I used some spare track pins used for the 'real' tracks (the actual drive tracks used in HL panthers. Since I am now using metal tracks, the previous plastic ones I just cannibalized for spares)

Cool stuff man, love you're updates. Looking fw to the red primer Secret

here are a few of my atemps on the JP

Superthinned flat red, and a tiny drop of white. Later I misted thinned buff over it. Also neutral Wash from MIG is good on red to tone it Down.

After Wash Camo and chipping

Good Afternoon,
Amazed as always on your skills for fine detail, Jeff. Max, beautiful detailing on the road wheels, Sir.
regards,
Painless Wolf

Updates 9/8/2013 - Priming and painting the swing arms

Thanks for kind words maxmeker and PainlessWolf. PainlessWolf I have also read your build thread and your Panther looks mighty fine already with the details that you have added.

As for the build skills, I too started a total novice with scratch building parts and assembling PE but I have built up my confidence while working with them with the over a year I have been customizing this tank. Just take your time, don't hurry and if you make a mistake don't rush to fix it. Let it sit for a couple of days so you can come up with a plan of action.

I always think of it this way, we all do this hobby to pass the time. If you finish your build quickly what else will you do to pass the time after? (As for me, I don't want to buy another tank - no more space to put it in the house without the wife getting into a fit)

Also having a build thread and regularly posting to it , helps tremendously in improving your skills.
Presenting to a particular audience and knowing someone else is reading your posts forces you to organize your work and lay out your build steps into some kind of coherent order.

Unfortunately all the skills I build up during the detailing phase of the tank is over. I am now again entering yet another uncharted territory.

So with that, here are the result of my little experiment. I decided to do some test painting on the swing arms first. At least if I make a mistake on the swing arms, it would not be seen as the swing arms are well hidden by the road wheels.

But first I had to prime the swing arms. I washed the swing arms in soap so the primer can get a better grip.



Since multiple coats of paint add thickness to the parts, I taped over the part of the swing arm that slides into the road wheels. This will prevent that part from getting paint and thus hinder road wheel rotation. I also masked off the screw holes of the swing arms using blue tac for the same purpose.




With that done laying the primer is an easy task.


With the swing arms primed. I carefully painted it using my pre-mixed red oxide color. I also painted 2 of the swing arms using my modulation color (dark grey) to see how it would look when painted with the red oxide color. I then sprayed a layer of Kleer as a protection layer. The result are below.


Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures before I sprayed the Kleer so what you see is the final color. As you can see the 2 swing arms on the top got the modulation color of dark grey before the red oxide color was applied. This has turned to a sort of dark brown which surprisingly I like. So parts of the tank that has just primer on it will turn reddish red oxide and parts of the tank that got a spray of dark grey modulation color will turn to a brownish red oxide color.

I also switched to a new lens in all of my photographs from this point on as I think this new lens renders colors more accurately than my macro lens which I used during the build phase.

From these results, I then picked the redder, brighter hue color as my red oxide color. I wanted the brighter, lighter color as adding Kleer will add contrast and darken it. Adding weathering effects will also again darken the color further so I wanted a lighter color from the start so that it doesn't get too dark that the details of the tank will not bee seen when its finished.

Red oxide is a complicated color to simulate and here are my ingredients for it. (I used Tamiya acrylics for this paint.)

Batch that got rejected
20 parts - flat red XF-7
1 part - buff XF-57
1 part - red brown XF-64

Batch that got selected
20 parts - flat red XF-7
1 part - yellow XF-3
1 part - red brown XF-64

The yellow adds a orange hue to the red and the red brown adds a tinge of brown. (But darkens the color considerably).

Here are swing arms painted.

Good Evening,
Thank you for the vote of confidence, Jeff. I am learning to slow down and enjoy the build for what it is and what it means to me. Like you, I am beginning to think about how to add another display cabinet for these Tanks. They are wonderful in how when one is completed and I get to run it, it invariably takes 40 years off of my age and I am a young boy again with the world's coolest plaything to enjoy. Excellent work on the primer red. The darker one looks like the Tamiya Hull Red color. Looking forward to your next step,
warm regards,
Painless Wolf

Updates - cont'd - Adding base coat to lower hull (WARNING: Longish post )

I got the idea of lightening my red oxide color from maxmekker. He said he adds a drop or 2 of white to tamiya flat red for his red oxide color and I thought it was a good idea. I went to my hobby shop but they ran out on Tamiya flat white so I bought hobby color flat white instead. (White is white right? )


I just add this flat white to my red oxide color to lighten it. Add a few drops (depends on your taste) before applying. If I want color modulation, I'll just add more drops to the lighter exposed areas of the tank and none on areas I want to be darker.

And with that I started spraying the red oxide to the lower hull. I already like the color of the Flammevernichters and decided that this would be its final color so to prevent overspray in future I taped it.


I decided to paint the tank in sections so that I can stop if I get bored or tired and just continue on to the next section whenever I feel like it. The sections I painted was the tank's lower side and the bottom of the sponsons. I can only work on this hobby a couple of hours on the weekends (and none on weekdays as I get home late from work) since I have to do err.. other household stuff. Red oxide was not applied to the bottom of the tank. It wont be seen anyway so I decided I'd just save the paint.



And here it is painted. I haven't sprayed Kleer on it yet so what you see is the actual color of the red oxide mix without the gloss. (Notice the orange tinge on the red which I particularly like. Also shows our collection of porcelain to good effect )





The darker portions that looked wet were handling marks from my still sweaty hands. Couldn't help it as I had to pick up the tank and hold it at the bottom. Anyway I'll just spray Kleer on this to protect it as this is the final color of the tank at the bottom sides anyway.

Why no base coat on top of red oxide for the bottom hull and under the sponsons? Again here is my rationale for it:

Quote from 'The Panther Tank - Quest for Combat Supremacy by Thomas L. Jentz - emphasis supplied

Starting from mid-September 1944, directly after Zimmerit was dropped , the panther left the assembly plant without the coat of Dunkelgelb RAL 7028 [jeff1101: dark yellow] camouflage paint. At the assembly plant, camouflage patterns were sparingly applied in patches leaving much of the vehicle surface covered only in red oxide primer.

There have been countless debates on various internet forums related to this topic with regards to the passage "camouflage patterns sparingly applied in patches" from the quote above. It runs the gamut of the reasonable, to the extreme in which some believe red oxide was actually used by the Germans as a camouflage color.

Although I am not a proponent of the extreme case where red oxide was used as camo color, I do believe that red oxide or at the very least primer was showing in portions that are not too accessible to spray painting on the panther.

Assembly firms such as MAN (on which this panther is based), MNH, and Daimler Benz all received panther parts from suppliers pre-painted with primer. Prior to the Sept 1944 directive all these were base coated in dark yellow before final assembly. If you see the Littlefield panther walkaround in svsm.org http://svsm.org/gallery/PzKpfw-V-Panther-Restoration you can see the tank is completely basecoated in dark yellow. Even the underside of the sponsons and the bottom sides hidden by the big road wheels are painted dark yellow.

These areas are hard if not impossible to reach by a guy with a spray gun to paint dark yellow after the tanks has been assembled. The only conclusion here is that the dark yellow was applied before the wheels and the swing arms were attached to the hull sides. And in fact this would be correct if we look at the pictures (from the same site) of the Littlefield panther during various stages of its restoration. Here you see the lower hull without the swing arms and road wheels but already painted in dark yellow. (from the same site)


Now imagine Germany in late 1944. The army was losing the war in all fronts. There was a great demand for panther tanks to replace tanks already lost in the battlefield. The factories have to churn these tanks out like crazy! And in fact the last months of 1944 saw the greatest number of panther tanks produced by these 3 assembly firms ever in the course of the war.

Basecoating parts with dark yellow (or any basecoat for that matter) prior to assembly was a time consuming task that was simply discarded at the start of the Sept 1944 directive. Why not simply assemble these parts (since these were already coated with primer from the suppliers) and just apply camouflage once the panther was fully assembled?

And I believe this is was what they did.

Updates 9/13/2013 - Red Oxide Paint WIP

Been squirting some paint on the tank for a couple of days. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been painting the tank in small sections both to minimize mistakes and also just to practice.

I decided I wanted to paint the cast parts of the tank first. These will be a darker shade of red oxide from the rest of the tank.

I took some pictures before I disassembled the tank (again) since it was getting to be a pain to paint some of the more hidden parts. (i.e underneath the gun mantlet)



I broke the rain guard for the gun mantlet when I tried to lift it up a bit so I can paint the underside. Anyways this can be glued back. This gave me a good opportunity to paint the mantlet top unobstructed.

Good Morning,
Your Build encourages me with every new step, Jeff. I can't wait to see this thing in action.
regards,
Painless Wolf

Updates 9/15/2013 - Tank Red Oxide Paint Finished

I have been spraying the tank with my simulated red oxide paint for the better part of the day and its now finally finished. I plan to mask some of the red oxide when I apply the camouflage so that it will "peek" in places.

Example:

from Thomas L. Jentz - Panther Tank Quest for Combat Supremacy
Radiator Cooling Fans

Due to the demand for improved cooling and to strengthen the fan blades that were bent when hit, starting September 1944, a redesigned fan was installed. Panthers with the new fan were marked with a red cross painted on the intake grill.

To replicate this I masked the intake grill with a cross shaped tape. Once the camouflage is applied I can remove this tape to reveal the red oxide color.



And here are the rest of the pics.

Looking good, lot's of time and effort put into this build. Can't wait for the next instalment
Alan