Global Scale Modeller

Hello. This is a build log of the new Meng Panther Ausf. A Late model kit, and it's a very wonderful model. It comes with a ton of accessories and options for modelling specific tanks and the detail is super nice. Best of all you get the option of buying set of decal zimmerit and workable suspension if you want, and the first production run of this kit also has metal barrels included. The kit also comes with a photo-etch sheet that has just about everything you'd want and metal wire for the tow cables.



Parts of the kit have some really nice texture on them, including the armour, which you unfortunately can't see because historically each and every Ausf. A model had Zimmerit put on. Here's a shot of the drive sprocket which also has a texture.







The tank is almost ready to be painted, unfortunately I'm really bad at taking WIP photos. I wanted some suggestions from you guys, should I add two of the extra road wheels onto the turret or not? I'm building the tank in the photo at the top of the post, although obviously I'm not doing a one-on-one photo replication.



Here's a shot into the working suspension that you have to buy separately. You get a bunch of torsion bars made from springy steel that you sandwich in both the suspension arms and inside these black plastic blocks. It works rather well, I think. I have not yet built the tracks so look forward to seeing how those turn out!



I think overall the "decal" zimmerit is just a little bit easier than making it by yourself out of putty. The pattern is very realistic but getting the decals to adhere to your model is a bit of a pain. You definitely need to glue them down with Tamiya extra thin or CA-glue and even then it tends to lift and peel. I'll still need to do some gluing on the edges before putting on the primer. I'm kinda queasy just thinking of how these things will adhere to the metal sideskirts.



I'm going to be using this set of figures (plus possibly some others) on the diorama.



And here's some progress on the diorama. I decided to cast a concrete floor for the factory out of hobby concrete and added some ground-work onto it. This thing is getting heavy!

great work

Lovely work, but what's hobby concrete ?

digger303 wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:08 am Lovely work, but what's hobby concrete ?

I think it's just regular concrete but sold in small plastic buckets, to be honest. You just mix it like you would plaster but it gives a different finish.

TheNordus wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:15 pm

digger303 wrote: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:08 am Lovely work, but what's hobby concrete ?

I think it's just regular concrete but sold in small plastic buckets, to be honest. You just mix it like you would plaster but it gives a different finish.

Thanks.
I'm not really sold on the decal zimmerite, but I'm waiting to see how it goes after some paint and weathering. What's your gut feeling on it ?

digger303 wrote: Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:43 am
Thanks.
I'm not really sold on the decal zimmerite, but I'm waiting to see how it goes after some paint and weathering. What's your gut feeling on it ?

I think it's worked fine enough so far, although there's definitely some hassle trying to get it to fit on. You could certainly get a better effect with putty but I find that to be a huge bother and I personally just can't get a sufficiently smooth and level surface.

I'll reserve final judgement for when I put the first coat of paint on but I saw Andy's Hobby Headquarters on YouTube do this same kit with decal zimmerit and I think it turned out pretty good.

Unfortunately I've had to leave modelling for this weekend as I'm visiting my parents, but I hope to prime it on Sunday night.

Here's a quick update to show that I'm not dead yet!







Today I just barely managed to paint on the camouflage pattern onto the tank. I tried to mimic the pattern shown on the painting guide as closely as I could. For paints I used MiG's Olivgrün and Chokolatbraun and a new mix of Dunkelgelb I made by mixing a pot of Buff and Dark Yellow together. I rather like the lighter tone. I tend to have some pretty heavy paint spitting and overspray with my cheapo airbrush so getting a 'clean' finish isn't very easy.
I think the zimmerit pattern looks pretty nice with some paint on it, but I don't think it sticks onto the tank very well at all. As you can see, small bits keep falling off.

Right now I have the gloss coat drying so I can apply the decals onto it and then get weathering. I'm also slowly working on the wheels and skirts. Haven't even started building the workable tracks yet though.

Gotta say I'm starting to lose faith in my abilities. Maybe it's time to build a cheapo tamiya kit next?
I had a disaster because I was impatient. I applied an oil wash made with artist's oils and let it dry, then used odorless thinner to rub the excess off as usual. However being a git I kept fiddling with it and put on a matt varnish while the thinner and oils weren't yet dry. This manifested first as weird white stuff appearing around the details of the tank and secondly I noticed it left a grizzly effect under the varnish. I panicked and rubbed the whole tank with a piece of magic eraser/sponge and managed to dull down the worst of it. Here's a close-up shot of how it looks now:



Next up I managed to break off three of the side skirt hangers from one side of the tank so I had to glue the skirts on the bits of hangers and then glue that whole mess on the tank:








Here's a couple of shots of how the tank looks right now. I kinda like the dull tone the tank took after my mistake, but it will be really hard to replicate on the wheels and side skirts.



A close-up shot of the underside showing the vallejo mud products I used to weather the underside (which will remain unseen after the skirts go on) and the wheels. I painted the rims of the middle wheels bare metal because they tended to rub on the guide teeth of the panther tracks.





And there's a segway to the bane of my existence, the 'workable' tracks. You have to put in two small pins on the both sides of the tracks to link them together and they seem to stay in without any glue. Fiddling with the microscopic pins is a huge pain and I've managed to lose at least 4 of them already, and they even give you different pins to go on the inside and outside of the track! I thought 'dog's dangly bits to that' and just used what I happened to be able to grab. The cleaning of the tracks was also a huge pain, you really have to carve the sprue gates off them for them to work properly. And you have to glue the guide horns on too! I'm 100% sure I won't be spending money on Meng's accessories next time. I wish people would just copy Dragon's DS tracks sometimes. Of course Friuls would be ideal but too bloody expensive.

Next up I have to build the tracks and paint them. Once I've got the tracks on I can put on the side skirts and paint the camouflage on them, and then I can move onto detail painting.

Please do leave any comments and criticisms you feel like!

Fantastic work on your Panther Ausf.A !!!

I had it on pre-order so I got it directly from Japan when it was released and I went for the full treatment, i.e. working tracks & suspension and zimmerit decals. I bought sheet "D" if I remember correctly?

I haven't begun painting mine yet because I wanted to see what happened to the zimmerit decals first and it's not all great news sadly...
Some of it started to peel off after just a couple of days and after a couple of weeks I had to make repairs - and one has to be very careful with Tamiya extra thin because it totally eats the decals...
The paint will obviously help it to stick but I wanted to be sure since it's a lot harder to remove the zimmerit decals after you've painted it!?

How's your zimmerit holding up? It's almost been two weeks since you painted it?
I must say that I like the tone of your paint job! Really well done! I can't see any of the issues you wrote about so either you've removed all of it or it's too small for me to see?

Assembling the tracks was a bit of a nightmare... I mostly do Friulmodel tracks where I haven't got working tracks in the kit, but the pins on this one were way too fiddly if you ask me?! I lost more than a couple pins to the carpet monster - and why they had two different ones I don't know because it took me a long time before I could spot the difference!

I'm eager to hear about your zimmerit because I need to do my paint job soon...

Jens wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 12:24 am
How's your zimmerit holding up? It's almost been two weeks since you painted it?
I must say that I like the tone of your paint job! Really well done! I can't see any of the issues you wrote about so either you've removed all of it or it's too small for me to see?

I'm eager to hear about your zimmerit because I need to do my paint job soon...

Hi Jens, unfortunately I was so disappointed in my modeling results between the Tiger, Panther and Jagdtiger I have tried to build within the last month or so that I almost gave up on modelling for a while. The Panther is currently sitting in it's box in a cupboard. I had to glue the edges of the zimmerit down with Tamiya extra thin before painting and after painting I still had to use CA glue to glue the worst offenders back down. However, it hasn't gotten any worse since my last update.

TheNordus wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:07 am Hi Jens, unfortunately I was so disappointed in my modeling results between the Tiger, Panther and Jagdtiger I have tried to build within the last month or so that I almost gave up on modelling for a while. The Panther is currently sitting in it's box in a cupboard. I had to glue the edges of the zimmerit down with Tamiya extra thin before painting and after painting I still had to use CA glue to glue the worst offenders back down. However, it hasn't gotten any worse since my last update.

It is how I feared then...
I sort of knew it even when I just read the press release about the Zimmerit decal sheet, although it only said "zimmerit sheet" when I made the pre-order. But unless we try we'll never know.

I built the Tamiya Sd.Kfz.184 Elefant with its zimmerit vinyl sheet and that was a horror story in itself and I said I wasn't ever going to do anything like it again and yet here we are?! (that kit still sits just with primer and nothing else in the corner of shame...)

The only comfort we can have is that the real zimmerit were a bit "how you do it" and depending on where, and by whom, it was applied it flaked off and could look really bad as well - not unlike this decal sheets! Still, if a product doesn't work it's better not to release it but they were eager to get in on the market before Takom, and they won the race. Pity because the actual kit is so well made...

At least we can recommend others to not use the decal sheets!

Now get that cat out of the cupboard and make sure it doesn't beat you!

Kiitos!

Wow that is really looking nice!

Jens wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 9:36 am
At least we can recommend others to not use the decal sheets!

Now get that cat out of the cupboard and make sure it doesn't beat you!

Kiitos!

Tack detsamma! (Gotta watch out we don't get warnings for talking non-english on the forum though)

Yeah, the zimmerit definitely would look better if you made it out of putty, at least if you're good at getting a smooth coat of putty on the model unlike me.

Unfortunately I'm gonna have to stop modelling for a while as I attend my grandmother's funeral and visit home for the next 5 days. After I finish this Sd. Kfz. 222 I will return to making build logs on the forum though.