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This will be picture heavy. I will answer any questions. My goal is to make the HL Jagdpanther as correct as possible. Obviously the front lower plate was way off, also it is missing a lot of detail and is full of deficiencies.

20180319_110710 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180319_111356 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Both motors are removed, my plan is to remove and replace the bottom plate at the correct angle, then re-seat the motors onto it and a fabricated platform.

20180319_113620 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180319_201819 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180319_210007 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180319_210342 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180320_100241 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180320_110855 by jon newsom, on Flickr

You can see where the screw holes line up use as a template on the new platform. It ended up raising the the sprocket and extending it only a bit and now actually looks more authentic also. After some test fitting of the track I bolt the motors down.

20180320_110916 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180320_123545 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180320_133717 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180321_102347 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180320_135256 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180321_104548 by jon newsom, on Flickr

I used a hole of tape as a stencil to get a perfect new curve for the wheel guard.

20180321_111144 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180321_111718 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180321_125759 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180322_104503 by jon newsom, on Flickr
Now I can turn my attention to the rest of the issues!

20180322_104546 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180322_113809 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Love my hot knife!

20180322_104603 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180322_121320 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Heat gun bends up those fenders nicely, I was going to do the voyager ones but this plastic and a heat gun actually come out better than metal parts IMO.

20180322_172827 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Like a dentist, I have to build up an area before I can do surgery, the fenders are just to short so Im giving them more foundation. this will also make them stronger.

20180325_163819 by jon newsom, on Flickr

As youmay know the HL outer wheels for Panthers/Jagdpanthers are dogshit. The Tamiya one is right, the wonderful wheel curve is ruined by HL's version, I cant stand them so the outer wheels will all be Tamiya.

20180328_163155 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Also the gun mantlet is to thin and the chin is to small, This is also being switched out for Tamiya.

20180328_163421 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Im going to make a "pumpkin front" so it is harder to see where the top comes off in the front.

20180328_163745 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Alot of crap to fill and I etched out the edges of the plates, Ill re sculpt all of that.

20180328_163933 by jon newsom, on Flickr

Much more to come!

Nice work!

Grateful my Tamiya one didn’t need this much work!

Nice upgrades and a good choice swap to Tamiya parts in these cases. Especially the mantlet area is way off in the HL version.

Some serious surgery there Jon, I'm looking forward to seeing more. Will you be sticking with the stock electronics, or will those be transformed too?

I'm really surprised by the differences between the Heng Long and Tamiya wheels though, I can't imagine that the stepped ones they've made would make them cheaper or easier to make (like most of their inaccuracies do).

Raminator wrote:Some serious surgery there Jon, I'm looking forward to seeing more. Will you be sticking with the stock electronics, or will those be transformed too?

I'm really surprised by the differences between the Heng Long and Tamiya wheels though, I can't imagine that the stepped ones they've made would make them cheaper or easier to make (like most of their inaccuracies do).

Thanks, as far as the electronics I am not an expert on it and I personally don't drive mine much so the stock RC equipment is fine for me, if I sell it the buyer can switch out what they like.

The HL wheels are horrible. They ruin the classic look of the Panther. My guess is that heng long took a Tamiya kit and copied it but did not want to be sued for a direct copy so they intentionally screwed something up? I don't know, I can't see the Chinese caring about copyrights anyway. All I know is that I come from the fine scale modeling world and I have been building Panthers since I was a boy and I could not ignore that. Those outer wheels are a key look to it, they remind me of a Spartan shield.

Major work going on at a high level, I will be following with interest. Not brave enough to start cutting the front up.

20180402_115039 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180402_115053 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180402_115110 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180402_115129 by jon newsom, on Flickr

This stuff is 1000% better than Milliput.

20180402_115205 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180402_115219 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180402_115432 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180407_111804 by jon newsom, on Flickr

After first round of wet sanding

2018-04-11_09-26-30 by jon newsom, on Flickr

second round- start with 80 then 120 then 320 grit

2018-04-11_09-27-05 by jon newsom, on Flickr

2018-04-11_09-27-53 by jon newsom, on Flickr

re-etch some detail that was too destroyed in the wet sanding. It is still better to do it this way than add the detail after sanding as it is to sharp and overdone. The sanding makes it just right. no detail should be overly noticeable on a model, all the detail should work together.

Next will be the final primer, followed by the final light sanding at 320 grit, followed by more detail work then start on the paint!

More to come!

20180422_161211 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180424_063552 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180423_062305 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180426_074621 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180424_063239 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180424_063527 by jon newsom, on Flickr

20180426_203504 by jon newsom, on Flickr

On this update you can see I reattached the fenders, added all the fender supports with metal pins, made the front of the blackout lamp correct, added the engine screens, moved the tube to the rear, reattached the engine deck hooks (in the right direction - why couldn't Henglong get that right?) added the handles to the engine door, added some fake lids to the top of the storage bins and a tarp to the engine deck, divided the spare track links and made track hangers for them with metal pins.

More to come, final primer coming soon!

Great work going on here. I will be watching this with interest.

Aljones34 wrote:Great work going on here. I will be watching this with interest.

Thanks for the kind words, none of this work is really all that complicated, you just must have the patients and the knowledge to know what is authentic and what looks good on the finished model. There are a lot of aftermarket kits for detail now but I usually try to do most of it by hand or building by scratch just to show that it can be done without spending a fortune. Also some of it is not necessary and after all the weathering and other detail only certain things will really stand out. For this model the most important thing was fixing that front end. The jagdpanther has a very distinctive sharp edge on the front that makes the front slope look amazing.