Dragon 1/35 sd.kfz.184 Ferdinand

[Si Benson]

Thanks for all your positive feedback chaps :smiling4:

After a lot of blue tac and masking tape had been applied and much scrutiny, I had nothing left to do but get some colour in the airbrush and hope I hadn’t missed anything!


To say I was pleased would be an understatement! It’s gone far better then I hopped :smiling4:
Barrel and wheels next…….

[scottie3158]

Si,
Looking very good indeed.

[Andy T]

To say I was pleased would be an understatement! It’s gone far better then I hopped :smiling4:

I don't think it could have gone better. Very nice!

[Guest]

thats good to know (although I was making no quotes) as the Dragon Jagdtiger track links look crazy:
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I’m now a little confused about Jagdtiger tracks, as the Porsche and Henschel vehicles apparently had different tracks (Gg 24/800/300 resp. Kgs 73/800/300) but I can’t tell them apart in photos — which isn’t too surprising, since the 800/300 in both designations is the width and pitch in millimetres. In any case, both consisted of two different types of link: a “main” link with guide teeth and aggressive pattern on the outside, plus “intermediate” links to connect them, like the instructions show.

[Si Benson]

Andy, Scottie et all…..thanks again chaps :smiling4:


With mojo flying high I headed back to the bench straight after dinner and got the wheels and barrel painted.

[David Lovell]

Hi Dave,
I did like your 72 nd elefant/ferdinand, you made a cracking job of that

I had planned on just free handing camo but when I saw this scheme I knew there was no way I’d get it neat enough.

As to the Bison, well I seem to of misplaced it :thinking:……I got a little 1/100 Pz III on the go if your interested

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Some of this really small stuff is so well detailed ,nice bit of airbrushing on it as well what on earth did you mask the ferdinand for you should have braved it free hand ,still the big boys looking great you must be chuffed well done. Dave

[Tworrs]

Very nice camo there Si.

[Richard48]

Blimy Si you had me thinking for a bit rember the little zvezda 72nd one I built ,couldn't remember using masking tape or silly putty (hope you don't mind a pic)
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n1213868[/ATTACH]
Then the light went on i used masking fluid pretty sure did the whole thing yellow masked up with the fluid and squirted the green looking back now would have made a better job the other way around still looks like yours is a bit big for this way of doing it ,good to see it making it way to the airbrush though. Is the little bison next up ?you do realise I won't stop haggling about that one. Dave

Wow thats a nice Ferdinand Dave.Love the camouflage.Must do some more 1.72nd stuff soon.Got a few in stock.Have you seen the First to fight kits from Poland?.Seen a few on youtube.Look good with some tweaking.
Richard

[Jim R]

Now that's what I call super successful masking.

[Si Benson]

Been adding some weathering over the last few days. Think I’m getting there.

Still have the recovery cables to put together and paint up.

Haven’t even thought about the tracks yet:flushed:

[Si Benson]

Leaving the beast and moving onto weathering of wheels and sprockets……two lots of drive sprockets as, unusually it has them at both ends :surprised:!

[JR]

Looking great Si, can't see you having a problem with the tracks .
Nice paintwork.Whats with the two sets of drive sockets ? Please.

[Si Benson]

Looking great Si, can't see you having a problem with the tracks .
Nice paintwork.Whats with the two sets of drive sockets ? Please.

Cheers John :thumb2:

Porche designed the chassis and it was driven by twin petrol engines each driving a generator supplying power to drive motors at the rear on each track. It has no return rollers and Im guess but having a sprocket on either end helps keep the track tension?

[JR]

Cheers John :thumb2:

Porche designed the chassis and it was driven by twin petrol engines each driving a generator supplying power to drive motors at the rear on each track. It has no return rollers and Im guess but having a sprocket on either end helps keep the track tension?

Thanks Si. We need Allen or Jakko to tell us more on this maybe ?
Twin engines must have been fun getting them to run in a synchronised fashion.

[Guest]

The engines didn’t need to be synchonised, as they drove electrical generators like Si mentions: the petrol engines just provided the electrical power that went to the motors which actually powered the vehicle — just like in a modern hybrid electric car.

In any case, if two (or more) engines are mounted to the same crankcase, they work fine with a bit of decent design work. The M4A2 Sherman (and its derivative, the M10 gun motor carriage in your latest diorama), for example, had two diesels attached to a common crankcase, and was considered pretty reliable. The M4A4 even had five engines on a single crankcase and ran fine.

One tank in which two engines caused much more trouble, though, was the Whippet from the First World War: in that, each engine drove one track. The idea was that the vehicle could be steered by changing the RPM of one engine only, or by speeding up one while slowing down the other. In practice, of course, it’s just about impossible to have both running at exactly the same RPM, so the driver was constantly busy tinkering with both to keep the vehicle going in a nominally straight line.

Not sure of the reason for using a sprocket at either end, but only driving one, though. The front one was mounted on a crank, so it’s basically just an adjustable idler with teeth on it.