Com-Central.net

- JimWeb

The trouble with a lot of this is there is nothing but rumours to go on

- keef

Is it me or is the drive sprocket to low?

- davemarian

- JimWeb

They quite clearly show the edges of the glacis plate which are ,typically, for a Panther machined flat and not cut with a blowtorch. I'm sure if you do a greater comparison you'll notice other minor (and I stress minor) anomolies.

Hello!! I'm pretty sure that the edges of the glacis plates were never fully machined. One of the original ideas with the Panther, was to flame cut the plates and weld up the sometimes large gaps. This (for the most part) eliminated the second process of machining the edges and bevels prior to welding. This process is described in the Spielberger book. The linked pictures look like a factory cut and welded front plate. just my .02 DAVE

- davemarian

I can't find my Spielberger book at the moment, but it gives a brief description of flame cutting the plates and fitting to the weld fixture without much in the way of machining before the hulls were welded up. I guess this allowed plates from several different suppliers to be used without the need for ultra close tolerances. The resulting large gaps were then welded up and the hull assemblies were then machined for the suspension pivot points, final drive mounting locations, etc. The Panther hull that I have measured is almost 2" out of square, the hull is a trapezoidal shape which is ok because of their post welding machining technique. DAVE