JagdPanther, late version

Around the time I moved to my present home I was just beginning the heady times of redicovering the length and breadth of this hobby. After about 4 years away from the hobby a chance encounter with a chap whose name I've long since forgotten on a pre-internet( as we now know it) hobby BBS netted me a copy of Modell Fan magazine when he returned from Europe. Unexpectedly but happily I discovered that the magazine was running a program where you could place non commercial hobbyist adds for free. In my best German( which is never very good) I put out a general request for information on 1:10 armor models. Well! In the veritable torrent of mail( note NOT email!)from Europeans that came of that it was the beginning of my rebirth in the hobby! This was about 1988-89. Over the following years I made connections with numerous people in Europe, one of these was Franz Pracht..

Franz Pracht was a "modeler's modeler" as someone termed him. At times his work was spectacular and others( like original aspects of this JP ) were "ok". I believe he started out making copies of Maier's Panther hull parts; it is rather obvious from the floor plate from this JagdPanther model as you can see the cast in maker's plate that was unique to Maier's products. I beleive this was an early stage of Mr Pracht's work and as he developed his own work more fully; the latter examples of his work I've seen and own are his own creation. The upper hull of this JagdPanther is fully original to Hr Pracht. On the whole I enjoyed getting models from Mr Pracht and I miss his work. Mr Pracht quit making models quite a few years ago as far as I know, I believe he was more elderly than many and I've not heard of him for quite a few years; I hope he is well. I'd been told when he quit he moved to part of the former east Germany. I had had the opportunity to purchase all his equipment, molds, patterns and inventory when he quit but couldn't find a way of raising the funds at the time. I do regret not doing so... alas water under the bridge! I did however over the years manage to purchase 4 models from him; A Coellian, Panther II/F, Panther G and JagdPanther. The G was eventually sold to a local chap who, to my knowledge never built it. I retained the other 3 models. I more or less finished the bulk of work on the other two but this JagdPanther has the distinction of being bought first and not yet been finished. So what follows is a detailed account of what I will do to finally finish this old kit from Mr Franz Pracht.

As it was purchased there are a number of things I HAD to change:

1. The road wheels were terrible! long since replaced with Maier wheels/ my tires. Tire to be revisited with my later style which fit Maier's rims better.
2. Intended for electric, changed.
3. Exhaust stacks were nasty! Replaced
4. Rear engine deck as delivered not quite appropriate, new grates made.

As you see it as of this writing there has been already done much work which I will itemize later, both on the model proper and the Maier 3 speed gearbox/ engine I am installing. Some of these aspects of the model can be seen in the following series of photos

In this next photo you can see that I have had to fabricate a new top cover for this Maier 3 speed gearbox. I did this as I didn't wish to damage an original cover when I relocated both the oil filler cap and the shift mechanism control arm post. I had to do this as the main gun mantlet sits practically right on the gearbox cover; scant few fractions of an inch remain clear. I made a new smaller the oil cap, stamped "OEL" and filled with red paint as the original; also a shift locator dimple on the top cover again filled with red paint as it was on the original. I only could find clear acyrlic nothing like the blue colored stuff of the original. I also had to make a new left hand drum brake for this gearbox. I could see no apparent signs of damage but it was horribly out of true when it turned on its shaft; the shaft ran true with no wobble even when I oput a dial indicator on it. It didn't make sense. When I pulled the drum and put it on a ground and true 10mm shaft rod the wobble was plain to see so either it was made wrong so long ago( in which case this gearbox could never have worked right) or perhaps someone swapped it from another gearbox? Still beacause of the wobble I can't imagine where it could have worked. This caused so much drag on the left side of the gearbox I don't see how it could ever have worked. I can only imagine some poor fellow's frustration with this gearbox, as I would have been when I started out with this hobby, not being familiar with the gearbox's function and not being able to get it to work properly only because of this bad part! In all truth the internals of this gearbox appear little used, considering it was made probably 30+ years ago, perhaps it never was used much because of this defect?? With the new drum the gearbox functions are as they should be. Oddly making the drum was my first opportunity to turn a part in grey cast iron, an interesting experience. Brake action seems appropriate now. Shifting gears is good. I used good grade air tool oil up to the appropriate level. As I bought the gearbox it was pretty clear that someone had remounted it on a longer base plate. Original versions of this type gearbox had just a bottom plate with mounting bolts; this plate is similar to the later electrically shifted versions Maier made. Shortly after I received the gearbox I resealed and reseated it on the plate. The starter which had been installed with this gearbox was not original and used a reduction motor driving a tooth(timing) belt which engaged an appropriate pulley. The pulley was riding on a gigantic INA HF1616 roller clutch bearing whereas Maier used a INA HF1012 on his original starter. The bearing engages an ingenious drive housing coupled to the hollow flywheel inside of which is the clutch plate. The bell housing fits over this clutch yet is fully inclosed in the flywheel which it doesn't come in contact with. It makes for a very compact assembly as you can see. I replaced the pulleys with gears as was used originally and transferred the clutch bearing to a gear carrier as may be seen in the photo. The flywheel and cooler housing were painted red when I received the gearbox but I removed that. As far as I can determine the engine/gearbox assemply is good to go.

Another problem with this model's lower hull, well almost a problem is that being based on a copy of Maier's it is slightly undersized, apparent on the interior. The brake shafts of the gearbox that protrude from both sides: on a Maier original hull they have about 1 maybe 2mm clearance on each side. Not so on this one, maybe just maybe a fraction of a millimeter on each side, no more that a thickness of paper. Made very precise location of the gerabox a must. Remember aluminum castings shrink about 1.25 to 1.5% from the pattern size so since the Maier original hull floor plate was used as a pattern with no additional material added to make up for this shrinkage a ~1.5% narrower hull is the result. I tell you my heart skipped a beat when I first trial fit the gearbox to lower hull as I wasn't sure it would fit!! I tell you a flea could not fit between shaft and hull wall.

The rear engine deck "all akimbo". My replacement grates sit on top of the partially dissassembled original deck. Also visible are my replacement "Flammvernichter" type exhausts which were not altogether easy to make. These tiny vane things were somewhat neve wracking to cut on the mill... Keep in mind these parts are stationary, they don't spin, they were put in the stack to swirl up the exhaust gas stream. I can't make the cuts far enough to accurately simulate the original unit. Original units were made up of many plates welded together. Using the thinest(.015") slitting saw I dare the cuts would be extremely close together towards the center or the part which would be too weak. My simulations of the exhaust system needs to be functional as opposed to 99% of models out there... I cheated by making only 27 vanes not 28; I hope no one will count!

03/18/2008 The present tasks are to prepare the rear plate. I decided to recut the rear access hatch way as it was irregular as cast. This required making it somewhet larger but I will be able to make the access cover plate itself the correct overall diameter. I plan to finish and seal( exhaust pots) up the rear plate components prior to setting up the intermediate exhaust components and control servos. I hope to fire it up with a few weeks. The engine was used little as is apparent from the internal appearance of little discoloration of the piston crown so there may be a break in period required.

Rear plate almost complete. Rear deck will be the next target.

Engine and gearbox mounted; exhaust system complete. I've begun mounting the radio system's servos. The giant servo on the bottom plate is for the brakes; on these early manual 3 speed Maier gearboxes the brake and gearshift cotrols are reversed from the later versions. I plan on using servo savers on both the gearshift and brakes on this model; unlike the later version the servos is directly interacting with changing gears and should the unit refuse to make the shift( there are no synchros here) the servo may damage itself. And the brakes are just that: the harder you pull the better they work up to a limit... I should really have servo savers on all my brake servos in all my tanks. Oddly I knew enough to put them on my very fist Maier Panther but have not installed them since; since is because I can set the travel limit via the programming on my whiz bang Futaba 8UAP radio. Still if I used the trim tab it may cause the servo to come to grief.

Jerry here. I've not been entirely sitting by on these models. I just about finished the radio installation; this and my Panther F will be my first on 2,4GHZ systems. Also I've been working on some of the small detail parts. Below you can see the extra C-hook holders I've decided that me JagdPanther and Panther F will carry. Also see the Wecohe jack and the upper clamp for it. The clamp was a Wecohe part but I wanted it to be functional so it is. Jerry 03/01/2009

I will be posting on this and the other models I'm working on more frequently now as I push to finish them.