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I shall start a new thread for the Bergepanther "A" build, Photos coming shortly of that but for now some swatches.
If any of you guys or girls or gender neutral sorts have any pics of the "A" please feel free to spread the love and post them here

It begins again. It wont be very exciting for a while I'm afraid as it's all run of the mill stuff for now.
I think it's important to show the build quality from the start, one day this Bergepanther will be up for sale and this log will be excellent reference material as a picture says a thousand words.

I do hope that in a possible transition to a new forum all our build logs are not lost?...Phil.

Morning Phil, I will be following your build, I missed fitting the lights on my Panther, looks very tight in there.... Assembly of my Panther track next, rubber glove time, regards....Mick

Good morning to you Mick, I follow your build to and love the red oxide, i shall use the same externally on the Berge. Now I'm off to a car show today but expect to see some progress on your tracks when I get back (you will struggle with the washers and split pins with gloves on)!
Do you see the cross reference between our threads that's cool and economical
Regards Phil.

Hello Phil, hope you enjoyed the car show. I did the washing and ironing and yes I did notice the 'low ball' you bowled. Had a bit of a panic moment with the 'recoil' issue. The dry run/fit was prefect, every part lining up so I used a thin smear of adhesive and went for broke. The following morning I had around half a mil or less overlap between the mantlet bushes which locked the gun barrel tight, an omg moment . Careful sanding and all is well....smooth as a babies....Mick

Hi Phil,

Phil Woollard wrote:If any of you guys or girls or gender neutral sorts have any pics of the "A" please feel free to spread the love and post them here

Ok, here are some from my hard drive. All Ausf A from Demag with that plant horizontal zimmerit pattern.
Please note the first two are the same Berge (Italy) with an interesting field modify steel cabin over the driver/radio operater seats.

Kind regards
Kent

Well Mick there's nothing like a bit of lubricant, always works for me to!
Kent you have come up trumps as usual, great pics ( can I have that hard drive when your PC gives up the ghost?)
Looks like I'm gonna need some spare Panther wheels to dress the Berge correctly, do you know of any wheels for sale? All I have is old T1 steel wheels.
Hope to get a bit more done today as it's tipping down again in the UK. Maybe I should build boats)..........Regards Phil.

Kent,
Great pix. I like the field modified driver cabin roof. Similar to some US M36 and M10 for sniper protection. That would be a neat add on the "A" BergP!
Bob

Progress made on the rear plate, I just love all those unique parts for the Bergepanther, although you can hardly see the starter plate I have used M3 studs with nuts on the outside for added detail, the nuts should be castellated but I don't got nun (good modern English that).
The spade saga I will go into later, as I have to manufacture the pointy spade part from 2 mm mild steel plate, I have no bending machine so I'm thinking of contracting that job out as the bends are tight for 2 mm sheet.

Well I have bitten the bullet and splashed out £140 quid on a new bending machine, it's heavy duty as far as modelling goes and will bend up to 2 mm mild steel at 500 mm wide so it will cope with most of the Armortek fabrication of mud guards, fenders and brackets.
I haven't done an awful lot of sheet metal work since my apprenticeship many moons ago so I have had to brush up on the dreaded bend allowance tables, there are so many variables in material and bending machines that your best making a few test pieces from off cuts until you have it right.

Interesting stuff Phil. I found a 300mm formit from Warco to be really useful for sheet metal work, it has a press brake, sheer press and bending rollers. if you wanted to refresh on metalworking tools and techniques, the place to go is the YouTube channel by Ron Covell. He does a lot of very clever things with sheet. Search on "Ron Covell Metalworking DVDs".

Good to see build threads coming back to the Forum.

Stephen

Phil the spade is looking fantastic. Definitely will be heavy duty! Nice work,
Bob

A little progress. I shall mill the 2.5 mm slots into the spade to accept the stiffening braces, that will be a long job as there are around thirty of them.

Phil
This spade is a work of art.
Regards
Steve

Hi Phil, nice to see you back at it, I feel like I've missed so much.

Paul.