2023 Jagdpanther new build Part 10

[graham pipe]

Hello all and welcome to my JP festive season update.

So, a lot has happened since my last posting - namely moving house and taking up new employment. The JP travelled well in the back of my car having been driven in using motorcycle/garden machinery loading ramps. She spent the winter indoors whilst I fitted out my new workshop then in the Spring was moved by trolley into its new home. Problem - how to lift it onto the workbench.

The plan had been to acquire an elevating platform but like most things here in France, these are prohibitively expensive. So I was about to order one from Germany when it occurred that I only needed to raise/lower it on an occasional basis. Having previously lifted it manually, I didn't fancy doing so again and then that's when the idea of an electric hoist occurred. One was found on a large French tool site and duly acquired for the princely sum of 51 Euros with free shipping!

It duly arrived 4 days later and is a real little corker! 230 volt operation, 250 kilo capacity, 3 metre lift and with a long remote cable, it was just the job. I reinforced the workshop's roof truss with an extra crossbeam and triangulating bracing, bolted the winch to same, ran in power conduits and she was ready to go.

As mentioned in an earlier build log, the JP was fitted with nice, scale white-metal towing/lifting shackles but these were only good for decoration so were replaced with temporary steel ones from my local hardware store. Chain, steel cable and larger shackles connected the tank to the winch hook with the rear chains connected to the hull's rear lifting lugs. With balance determined, the winch joyfully hoiked the JP 1.5 metres into the air, the bench was slid underneath, then she was lowered onto oak blocks to take the load off the suspension. So, job done with a minimum of fuss.

Remaining tasks for completion were to completely revise and rewire the internal space, effect some repairs to minor damage incurred during transit and the unfortunate "crash" described in the previous episode, and to finally fit the gun unit.

The RC system and Tamiya DMD run on 7.2 volts but I had a 6 volt converter installed to drop the voltage from 24. Figuring that maybe 6 volts was too low and maybe this had contributed to the "crash" through the receiver shutting down into low battery failsafe mode, a 7.2 volt converter from Amazon was substituted to improve the situation. An additional mod. was the fitting of a 30 Amp breaker unit to reinforce the 40 Amp motor fuse protection.

The gun unit was removed from its wooden assembly/test jig and duly fitted to the glacis. Slewing with the 35 kilo servo was fine so all I needed was a digital forward/reverse switch to control elevation. I couldn't find a suitable 24 volt capacity unit so, for the time being, went "old skool" and used a small servo and brass contact wiper board removed from some redundant model years ago. Somewhat basic and a bit agricultural, this works fine and will suffice until I find a suitable digital option. It's mounted on a carbon fibre box mount on the left hand sponson top with just a short wire run to the elevation motor and leadscrew. Will probably switch to one of Armortek's new linear actuators at a later date.

Paintwork was touched in here and there and the roof and engine deck re-sprayed following final fitting of components previously temporarily installed. But I was lacking the mesh grille covers for the radiator cooling fans.

I did have a set of Armortek photoetch brass items acquired at the start of the project from a parts bundle from a UK seller. These didn't look "right" so, following research and my archive photos of The Weald Foundation's JP upon which I worked some years ago, I made a pair from rolled annealed brass tubing and stainless steel mesh of the correct scale weave, hole count and wire diameter. They were quite fiddly to make but once done, looked good. The aluminium fan covers were abraded, the grilles glued on with 5 minute epoxy then the excess glue carved back prior to full cure. Welds were simulated using Miliputt fine white putty in 6 places adjacent to the hold down nuts and bolts as per the real thing. The welds don't need to be that good because these grilles were normally welded on fairly roughly.

The M3 fixings used by the kit are, in scale, too big. The real thing uses M16 studs with nuts fitted on the outside which equates to an M2.5 bolt. The holes were already drilled 3 mm so not wanting to have to sleeve them, I used M3 hex head screws but with M2.5 nuts re-tapped to 3 mm. Just open up the thread with a 2.5 drill then re-tap - fiddly but it looks so much better and one can now get a hex socket onto them rather than faffing about with a small spanner.

As I had produced tooling to make these grilles, I have offered them for sale on The Craftsman Market. The first batch of 12 have been delivered to customers and subsequent batches are in manufacture. So, if you've got a JP or Panther and would like a set (or more), then please PM me for more details. You can check them out in the Market listing.

So, she's now done. Just got to apply the decals and some weathering when our current crop of wintery weather moves on. And I can't wait to get her out and running about our small piece of Normandy!

The next update should have some action video footage.

As always, you can click on the photos to view in a larger format.

So, Season's Greetings to you all and I hope you have a peaceful, restful Christmas.

[Bernd Schöllhammer]

Hallo Graham,
Sind die Maschengitterabdeckungen oder das Edelstahlgeflecht auch passend für den KT ?
Gruß Bernd

[graham pipe]

Hallo Bernd und danke für deine Frage.

Die Maschengitter und das Edelstahlgewebe könnten für den Königstiger durchaus geeignet sein. Wenn du den Durchmesser der Aluminium-Kühlgebläseeinheit des KT messen kannst, ich kann ihn mit der Einheit des Panther vergleichen. Wenn er ist größer, ich kann meine Werkzeuge modifizieren um den richtigen Durchmesser zu erhalten. Ich werde meine Daten überprüfen, aber ich bin sicher dass das Gewebe für alle großen Panzer die gleiche Größe hat. Warum sollte sich das Heer die Mühe und die Kosten machen, unterschiedliche Größen zu verwenden, wenn eine Standardisierung doch die sinnvollste Option wäre?

Gruß aus Frankreich

Graham

[Bernd Schöllhammer]

Hallo Graham,
Die obere Kante des Lüftergussteils für den KT
hat einen Aussendurchmesser von 95mm und einen
Innendurchmesser von 92mm.
Es wäre schön, wenn du mir einen Satz herstellen könntest.
Bestimmt haben andere KT-Besitzer auch Interesse.
Mit freundlichem Gruß
Bernd

[Damon Resch]

I would be interested in these for a King Tiger too if you decide to produce them Graham.

[graham pipe]

Hi Bernd and Damon,

The KT grilles are the same outside diameter - 94 to 95 mm. I will PM you photos of my grilles laid against a digital vernier along with a vernier photo of the fan housings of a friend's KT.

We can continue this dialogue via PM's.

Best regards,
Graham

[graham pipe]

I have measured my grilles and they are the same diameter as the King Tiger. Below are photos of my Panther grille compared with my friend's KT, both with vernier gauges showing the dimensions.