@petbat …thats the basis of a plan … 
@Armournovice …Gil, looking forward to seeing that. I had a look round the El Alamein allied cemetery and laid a wreath while we over there on Ex Bright Star in 97, quite a sombre place, but very moving thinking of all the blokes that fought there.
Got the majority of the Zimm applied.
Ended up using 2part epoxy for the hull areas and super glue gel for the turret.
The zimm looks excellent John I’m not sure if I’d tackle that. Neat work.
Thanks Matt. The Cavalier Zimm is really nice to work with and all in all a very good fit without much extra work needed. I have used it quite a bit in the past but I am down to my last set now and it seems hard to find these days … not sure if the firm is still running ??
I did a little Googling and it seems Cavalier went OOP in 2011.
lol … Ditto, all the info sort of fritters away from around late 2010 onwards … pity, it was a very good product
All the Zimm is on now.
Have also started some PE … I’m not going to be replacing everything with the etch, just a few key parts to enhance the detailing.
Added some cut to size plastic strip for cupola vision blocks and some PE for detailing.
Now all the Zimms on I will start to blend in the joins and edges with Mr S 500 … Enjoy 
Great detailing John, this will look really sweet when it comes together. 
Nicely done John. If you haven’t already, make sure the edges of the zim are flush with the hull. When I have used Cavalier resin, I found that no matter how thin the glue I applied there was a slight gap which was the thickness of the glue between the parts. It showed up after a wash was applied the first time I used it. A little thin cyano added to the edge using an old blade fixed it on later builds.
Thanks Peter, I had noticed that so over the next few days will tackle it with cyno like you said and surfacer 500 
Sealed all the Zimm edges with Mr S 500 and built up a few areas where I misjudged the cut … Whoops 
Not going to spend to much time with extra detailing the rear as when it’s finished, it going to be semi buried with hardly any of it visible.
Have done a mix and match of the kit parts and PE for hull stowage as from the pics the LH side is free of tools, so will replicate that for the RH side and just have them laying about on the ground.
Just have to add the spare track hangers on the rear frames and the securing pins and chains.
Hull top is done and nothing more needed to add to that.
Excellent details John. Very nice work.
Thanks matt. The vehicle build is the easy part of this. The fun will begin when I try to align it all up height wise and get the front wheels at the correct position on the collapsed bridge and building all that.
No pictures yet, but after a break away working on the Mk 10 Stillbrew I am going to be back on this now finishing off the Panther with the few bits of PE and the correct fitting off the tracks. I have re-positioned the 3 front wheel stations to as near as I can do using the photos of it. Will paint the lower hull first as it will be easier to get to all the wheels etc like that.
Will start on the ground work and the 2 ends of the broken bridge later tonight after I get off duty.
So, I did a quick mock up after I cut out the oasis sections for the lay of the ground and the ends of the bridges.
Nothing is glued yet, just wanted to give people an idea of how it’s going.
You can sort of see the repositioned 3 front wheel stations and hull zimmerit.
And hopefully I will get it looking as close to this as I can… Without the figures…
On mine, the Panther will be sitting about an inch lower in a dug out area I have yet to do.
After looking at the photos again, I will also be making one of the bridge ends about 2 inches longer as the gap in between is probably a tad to much…
A question for any bridge experts
That’s obviously the Panther after it came a cropper… The question though.
You can see the very long thick wooden beams, one of which is still in situ on the RH side. But would those beams have been the only thing used to span it ? I can’t see any framework or location points on the RH end of the bridge in the stonework that would act to support them ?
Also, would there have been any planking running over the long beams ?
Any help or pictures appreciated
Hi John. The girders would defiantly have been braced together Look at the pic and you can see bracing on the one of the dislodged girders (or possibly a central column, though I doubt that) and what looks like a diaphragm/cross member on the remaining beam, which may have joined one of the fallen ones.
Hard to tell exactly what the bridge would have looked like, but given you are building a wrecked one, I would base your expectations around this image. At a guess, I doubt this one had a central pier or column (as per my comment above), hence the inability to hold the panther’s weight.
See also:
https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/em7700_8_chapter02.pdf
or google “Wooden Road Bridge” to get some ideas.
Thanks Peter, I did wonder about those pieces and that makes sense now tied in to what you said. And as you say, due to it being broken, I can allow for a bit of artistic expression
