The drive shafts presented a small challenge.
The instructions indicated that the cross-joints were to be made up from short lengths of wire that could not be aligned to the U-joints.
I could also see a potential problem in assembling the finished U-joints to the engine, and the various transmissions.
To correct this I scratch built cross-joints using paper and wire, they are the small red squares in the photo, a partially finished shaft is next to the cross joints.
Once assembled to the drive shafts the U-joints operated like the prototype and would allow me to adjust the different angles of the shafts.
Note: that U-joints are assembled 90 degrees from each other.
The U-joints are to be butt glued to short tubes that represent the drive shafts to.
This looked like a job that would take three hands with two thumbs on each hand to accomplish.
To make the assembling easier I rolled 4 small tubes 6 mm long that would fit in to the connecting tubes on the transmission and engine.
This allowed me to assemble the various parts with out gluing them together to check how well the various shafts fitted.
I could then disassemble the shafts, and trim the drive tube length, and reassemble the drive shafts to re-check the fits.
Here we found another part that was incorrect, part No. 95 is used to make the two drive shaft tubes.
the tube for the connection from the turret transmission to the engine is about 3 to 4 mm short, while the tube to connect from the turret transmission to the front transmission is 3 to 4 mm to long.
The result is that the connecting tube can be seen on the right end of the drive shaft.
A fair amount of work but the result is a convincing looking drive line.
The rest of the interior assembly is straightforward.
Here we see the seats and seat platforms installed.
The seats have been painted with a brown wash otherwise they would be the same color as the transmission.
The radios would normally be located on top of the transmission on the right side, you will need to scratch build them they are not included in the kit.
The engine compartment is finished; the cooling pipe around the engine is made from copper wire. The hose couplings are one layer of paper glued around the cooling pipe.
The interior is finished with the exception of the 75 mm main gun rounds and side shell racks.
You can see some of the shell storage in the fighting deck.
Each shell is composed of 6 parts and we will need to make about 70 of them.
I have not glued the deck plates in position because I am pondering wither or not to super detail the interior.
D#% all that drive shaft work and you can barely see it!
Most of the weathering that you see in this photo is how the kit is supplied and it gives you an idea of quality of the printing that Halinski has lavished on this model.
The Panther Ausf.D interior photo is courtesy of AFV Interiors located at http://kithobbyist.com/AFVInteriors
The model is a good representation of a Panthers interior (the 6 hole shell rack on the right was used only on the Ausf.D).
To super detail the interior we could use small diameter solder to represent the electrical and hydraulic lines. A couple of fire extinguishes could be built for the engine bulkhead and the zerk fittings could be added to the hull sides.
We will stop here for this month after the shells we will be starting on the exterior of the Panther, assuming I don't go nuts and detail the interior.
Right about now I can hear my paper model cronies chuckling and yelling go for it.
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