Defending the Hauptstadt...Berlin '45...

[Mini Me]

Allen, all looking good. I like the idea of the dangling pistol port cover......just drill that bad boy out and scratch one out of styrene. I'm sure you can kick up a bit of chain to do the dangly thing.

[Neil Merryweather]

You're off to a great start Allen,but can you finish it? looking at previous form, I won't hold my breath ....
Prove me wrong,big boy

[Nicko]

Really enjoying the history lesson you're providing alongside the build Allen. I knew nothing about these things.... glad you are feeling better.

Nick

[Jim R]

Glad you're feeling better Allen. Very interesting background. Desperate needs call for desperate measures. Those shell cases will take time but are such an important part of the dio. Excellent, neat, scratchwork on the hull.

[Allen Dewire]

Great progress Allen, lovely clean scratchery.

Thanks Mick, I have always enjoyed doing the scratchy. Good that it wasn't too hard. Hope you are well my friend...

Allen, all looking good. I like the idea of the dangling pistol port cover......just drill that bad boy out and scratch one out of styrene. I'm sure you can kick up a bit of chain to do the dangly thing.

Appreciate it Rick and as a re-thought, it's better to have it closed. In combat, with a crew of 3, it most likely wouldn't be used for its purpose of self-defense. I have some plugs from a Brummbär kit and plenty of chain for them though...

You're off to a great start Allen,but can you finish it? looking at previous form, I won't hold my breath ....
Prove me wrong,big boy

So true Neil and looking at my history, you are correct. Now that retirement is finally sinking into my melon, I have taken a new outlook on our hobby and bringing things to an end is one of the top priorities of this big boy!!!

Really enjoying the history lesson you're providing alongside the build Allen. I knew nothing about these things.... glad you are feeling better.

Nick

Thank you Nick and it's always good to let everyone know the background on what you are building. The battle for Berlin was a brutal and ugly fight to the end. I lived in Berlin for 5 1/2 years as a soldier from mid '85 till late '90. The city and its history are totally fascinating. I could write a book over my time living there. I never thought I would be able to walk through the Brandenberg Gate in my lifetime......But in 1990...........I did!!!...

Glad you're feeling better Allen. Very interesting background. Desperate needs call for desperate measures. Those shell cases will take time but are such an important part of the dio. Excellent, neat, scratchwork on the hull.

Thanks Jigs!!! I'm back to almost 100% health wise and the mojo is flying. Jim, It was a very desperate time...Fanatics fighting to the bitter end, too many civilian losses and soldiers that knew the war was lost and just wanted it to finally end. I do love my scratchy and have a look below my friend...

Feeling much better, but still having crappy cold weather outside, I drove on with this project. I went to finish up the turret and when I tried to glue the barrel halves together, there was a slight problem. One half was molded about 1mm shorter than the other. No way they would line up correctly and I didn't want to use one of my alu barrels for it. So, I hacked off the muzzle brake, trimmed the pins and hit her with TET. Needs a cleanup and a scrape to be done,


Then I could also glue the muzzle brake together properly aligned. In between, I kept scraping off the mold lines on the shells. The ones in the bowl are done. Those on the left still need the scrape treatment. Yesterday I attempted to make a hollow punch thing to mark the shell bottom to show the firing cap. A few hours later, I gave up as my attempts were too big to simulate what I needed. Plan B came into effect and I went for it,


I punched out 46, 1mm discs from a strip of 0.10mm sheet. I will glue these on the case bottoms to represent the caps. In the bowl are 22 shaved shells that will receive them...But how? Using my old melon and trying to think like Henry Ford, I came up with an idea,


The Henry Foam assembly line to act as the third hand I needed to accomplish this task...Now I could dab a drop of TET with the left hand and add the disc with the right hand. I found my needle pin wasn't up for the job here, so I used my extra fine tweezers to do it. Less than 10 minutes later, we were done,


There are a couple that are a bit off center, but I'm happy with the results. The caps will still need the firing pin indents from the PaK. I'll do that with a pin mark and a 0.25mm drill bit. First, we have to cut off the shell heads and drill out the casings...Maybe I should apply to get a patent for my Henry Foam Assembly idea!!!..
Trying to snip off the heads with my fine cutters, as well as my normal sprue cutters produced unsatisfactory results. After 3 attempts with each, I fell back on my trusty JLC saw. This time I used one with a handle. This worked quickly and very good with clean cuts too. A quick swipe/scratch with a blade and they were done. Then came the touchy work of drilling them out to look like fired round casings. It's easy to do using 3 things from your tool stash. The pointed awl, a drill bit that's smaller than the inside diameter, and a drill bit that is just under the size of the inside diameter,


Mark the middle of the casing with the awl. Use the smaller bit to drill the starter hole and center it if necessary. Once centered, use the bit with the pin vice and drill the shell out to about 2-3mm in depth. The shells in the bowl are drilled and done. Yes, some of the firing caps do look a bit thick, but I will run them over a sanding stick to thin them down before indenting them...

The score is now 24 (almost) finished and another 24 to do. I really don't think more than 48 are needed for the dio. The original pic shows more lying about, but this pic was taken after the fact and the war. If you look closely, you will see full rounds lying there too. I don't think a loader (in his right mind) would throw a live round out of the turret, even if it didn't fire in the gun (defective firing cap). But who knows for sure at the time and in the heat of battle.......

Once again, that's all folks and it's time for bed. All C, C, and abuse is cheerfully accepted. I hope to have some more fun at the table in the morn. Stay well and have a good night........

Prost
Allen

[rtfoe]

Brilliant, good read from start to now Allan. Been lurking and watching the process...arduous but well worth the effort on the shell casings. It's so good I can't add anything except to stuff tissue for Niagra falls....nobody's looking. It's going to be a cracker when finished.

Cheers,
Richard aka Wabble

[Lee Drennen]

Appreciate it Rick and as a re-thought, it's better to have it closed. In combat, with a crew of 3, it most likely wouldn't be used for its purpose of self-defense. I have some plugs from a Brummbär kit and plenty of chain for them though...

The “Dude II” knows his stuff. Great stuff so far my friend.

[Airborne01]

Loving this, coming along nicely mate!
Steve

[scottie3158]

Excellent work dude. All your hard work will make all the difference.

[JayCee]

Hi, Allan, this is coming on great. I think you can save yourself a job, as the gun was fired electrically, therefore no firing pin dents in the primers.
John.

[Allen Dewire]

Morning Guys,

Thank you all for the wonderful comments!!! They are greatly appreciated, but the winner is John (JayCee), as he knew the 7.5cm KwK 42 L/70 gun was fired electrically and not with a firing pin...I'm surprised no one else caught what I did there and there won't be any indents on the shell casing bottoms anyway. Top job John!!!

Prost
Allen, trying to keep you all on your toes.............

[JayCee]

Just trying to help, Allan.
John.

[Jim R]

Great stuff with those shell cases Allen. Real good problem solving.

[minitnkr]

Excellent SBS.

[Allen Dewire]

Just trying to help, Allan.
John.

Very much appreciated John, Thanks again...

Great stuff with those shell cases Allen. Real good problem solving.

Thanks very much Jim. It was time consuming, but they're finished now...

Excellent SBS.

Thanks Paul, but I didn't realize it was an actual SBS when I wrote the post. I guess it wouldn't do you much good in your scale though my friend...

I have been doing quite a bit on this of late and sorry for the late replies. I have found that one just can't sit at the table the whole day and play. Rather unhealthy I'm afraid. I have taken this month off from work as things are rather slow this time of year, so I take walks and ride my bike to get some exercise between bouts at the table. Now, moving along, we finished the shell casings,


I have no idea what to do with the left-over warheads though. In total we have 48 so far. If I do need more, then I have another 48 as backup. I then finished up the turret. I glued the muzzle brake back onto the barrel after I got it as round as I could with the scraper. Then glued it all together, added the lifting hooks and scratched a cupola cover for the turret,


The normal drum cupola was stripped off including periscopes and the parts were used for repairs on other battle worthy Panthers elsewhere in the Reich. To finish off the Panther, I added the tool/equipment holders that were welded on the hull, but stripped of all their tools,


And on the other side,


Of course, you won't be able to see them once the hull is buried in the street, but they were there,

For Reference Only


With the Panther done, it was time to plan out the street section. I had some blue foam in the stash that I bought at the Euro in 2016, but never used. I figured I could scribe the cobble stones into it and didn't have to be too large in size. I ended up having to use two thickness' as there was only one sheet of each in the pack of 4-6mm. No problem as 1mm isn't a big deal in size. I now give you a top-secret German weapon. The "SchwimmPanther",


Ok, Panther's never did swim!!! This size allows me to build up the dirt and cobble stones, scatter the shell casings and not have it too large in scale. It's not set in stone yet and I may change it a bit. Another view,


The chassis will sit a bit deeper as this is just a test fit. Now it was time to move forward...

I woke up yesterday and decided to get stoned...No, not that stuff we did way back when...Cobble stones folks. I knew I would need quite a few and I had the plan,


Cut the strips @ 0.5mm and chopped them off @ 0.8mm length. The leftovers would be used too as these were different lengths to fill the odd spaces. I made 20 strips and after chopping them up, I had about 300 cobbles. Looking at the reference pics to see how they were placed, I noticed something odd. The damn cobbles were twice as big in diameter as the shells. Huh!!! Wrong thickness of foam used!!! We are building a street scene here, not the Reichstag. Time to get stoned again!!! Using smaller thickness foam and an hour or two later, we had them done,


The big Reichstag blocks on the left and the real street cobbles on the right. You can really see the difference between the two. I think there are about 400 in the plastic bowl to use around the tank. Next up will be designing a base for the dio and then scribing the cobbles into the foam sheet around the tank......

It's ice cold here and the temps don't go above -2° the whole day. Nights are -12° or more. I just love winter. Thanks again for looking in and I hope to have an update soon. Have a good Wednesday and stay warm folks...

Prost
Allen