After all your kind comments on my air intake grills (thanks all!) I hurry began on the next thing at my list.
This time the MG34 ball mount, and I am glad there is only one of them on the Panther…
This is what it looks like in the kit:
And here is a photo of the real thing, the Bovington Ausf G:
My critical rivet counter eyes did find the holes in the ball a bit miss placed and the smaller, sight hole, far too big.
The hole in the mount has a wrong shape and as Bob Morey earlier has posted the bullet traps are missing.
The holes in the brass ball was threaded and plugged with bolts.
Before my best friend Dremel was used to get a nice rounded shape the bolts needed to be cut.
I simply used my WW2 original Drachtschere…:shock:
Felt nice to use this Panzer tool doing this model work.
New holes was drilled.
In order to fill the to big hole in the mount I used the same A+B metal putty I used on the sprockets – fantastic stuff!
Think I shall use it making the zimmerit pattern later.
Now my friend Dremel (and tons of patience) was used to create a new hole.
This work took days and do I envy you guys with a mill.
And done!
Please note that I add a cast surface to it even if I later on will cover it with zimmerit.
The zimmerit will not cover all areas and I plan to leave some as war wounds with the cast metal surface to be seen.
As a matter of fact the whole item looks far better to look at with this surface awaiting the zimm to be added on and good feelings is important for me.
Here is a comparison with the real thing and I am pleased with the end result.
The red oxide looks far to red on the photos,
sorry!Probably due to a bad photographer...
looks much better live.
The MG is from Steve Winstone. I also have the Armorpax one but as this later on will be a fully working ball mount I have found out that Steves shorter one suit better here.
Thanks for watching
Kent
Having a real tank to look at would help too! 