Best place to store and present my tanks - tank shelf for my 1/144 tanks

Anyway if you collect tanks, ships,or airplanes, one question we all have! 
What is the best solution to store your collection and to present it. 
Over the years I found some nice boxes, where I was able to store my tanks. For the dioramas I use shoe boxes. So everything is fine. Or not? Actually I felt more and more the need to present at least some of my tanks. But everything I found so far was ether to expensive or to small. From Daiso, a Japanese Store I got some nice displays, but there I could store only 5 or maximum 10 tanks.
By an accident I found the solution for my problem. Ebay, or better Dennis!
He is the solution to all my problems (regarding to the storage problem :-) )
He sells hand made shelves via Ebay, and right now as I got my first one, I can say, the quality is extremely good and even much more important, the shelf has exactly the dimensions I wanted to have. That is no wonder, as Dennis is specialized in custom orders, built to any buyers specification. Any scale or any size, he can do it.
In one row I can easy present 9 up to 10 tanks and with 13 rows it will keep up to `30 tanks.
So no wonder I bought some more.
For all who are interested in the beautiful work from Dennis, here is his ebay name and his actions:


http://www.ebay.com/usr/doubledoor


http://www.ebay.com/itm/331054843257?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Normally I do not do any promotion and I will get nothing from Dennis for telling you about his perfect shelves. But as this is good quality and a more than fair price, you should give him a chance and check his auctions on Ebay.

Scammel tank transporter

My Scammel is a version I bought last year in Great Britain. The producer is GraMa models. 
It took me quite a long time to get the set done, first of all, the quality of the wheels where not that good and then the there was one wheel missing. Now I got a new wheel from GraMa and finished the set in the version for the European Theater.

some new 1/144 vehicles

Nothing big today, as I still work on some dioramas. But I show some of my new 3D products, which I finished over the weekend.

The trailer is for a new diorama which I still plan, the Kommandogereat will see action very soon together with some 8.8 Flak. The Krupp just got assembled and painted, I have him from Wargames South ( www.wargames-south.com) and is already several years old.

Famo with crane

There are several versions of the Famo with crane. First of all, the version with the Bilstein crane and then of course the version with the more heavier 10 ton crane. But besides these two versions, there were several field modifications. So today I can present another field version of a Famo with an 6 ton crane. 
This crane saw action with the 27. Panzerdivision in Southeast-North Russia. There the German mechanics built up this crane and used it for maintenance and tank recovery. 
My crane is build up with some 3D parts which should have been for something total different. But once printed, I saw that the design would not work in the way I thought, so I came up with combining several parts I had on my table and created this very special Famo.

Of course, everything I wrote about a real existing Famo with this crane is nonsense, but anyway I like my version.

Panther mit Raeumschaufel, Panther with Dozer

By end of the war, Hitler allowed to modify some tanks for a special job. They had to clean the streets. Okay, maybe cleaning is not the right word :-) they had to remove obstacles and tons of the ruins on the streets. I read that old unused Panzer III and Panzer IV should have been used, but in fact, I found pictures of a Panther.
So I designed the Dozer and added it to a F-Toys / Dragon Panther. As I could not find the original turret, I added the one from my latest F-Toys Panther.

Once I find the original turret again, I will change the opening for the gun.

Nebelwerfer in 1/144

After some trials, I have now my first group of Nebelwerfers ready to see action. I tried to do the ammunition 3D as well, but there the dimensions are so small, that it makes not that much sense.

In the next step I will change some details, maybe the wheels, as this is an ongoing problem for me, to draw really good wheels. In this process I will change the axis as well, at the moment it is to big.
So here are the first pictures of my Nebelwerfer group.
If somebody is interested, so please send me a mail or leave a comment.

the first attempt

my Nebelwerfer

Culemeyer a very spezial tank Transporter in 1/144

As the war went on, the German tanks gained more and more weight. One big problem besides this fact was that the Germans know only one direction: back home. As they lost more and more battles, they needed vehicles for the tank recovery. At the beginning they could do it with a Famo, but as the Tiger saw action, you already needed 3 Famo for one Tiger. Not very efficiency! Under bad circumstances you needed two Panthers, oh sorry two Bergepanthers, it was not allowed to use fighting tanks for recovery. With the Jagdtiger and the Kingtiger it got much worst. And yes these tanks needed a much more help, as they were not as reliable as the later Panther.

For the transport of the Moeser Karl the German Army used a special trailer, from a company called Culemeyer. First designed to bring trains to locations without rails, with an additional plate you could use them for tanks as well.

So here is my model of such a Culemeyer trailer. I designed the version with the 6 axis. 

Here you can find some more information about this trailer: 

Johann Culemeyer

trailer and trailer

Johann Culemeyer in english

pictures from Google

Culemeyer parts in 1/144

the set ready to load

Culemeyer with Jagdtiger

As I designed everything with 3D, I can offer you to order online at Shapeways your own model.

Neger German one man Submarine in 1-144 small diorama

Today I present a small diorama with my two German submarines. These type of submarine was called Neger, they were one of the German "Secret Weapons" with which the war should have won.
For technical clearance, the Neger was not really a submarine, as they could not dive. They simply swam close on the water surface. Besides this technical fact, they were very dangerous for the soldiers, a lot of them never returned.
One of the first mission happened at the Anzio beaches in Italy where they should destroy the American / British landing fleet.

The submarines are 3D printed and painted in black. Most pictures show this color for them.
The rest of the Diorama is really handmade.

T-34 with Mine cleaner

Today I introduce my latest version of the Russian T 34.
The Russian produced some T-34 with mine cleaners. There they had two different versions.
As I do not found a sketch I had to take the dimensions from the some pictures I found on the web.
So here is my T 34 with mine cleaner.
The mine cleaner is a 3D product.

T 34 with mine cleaner

T 34 with mine cleaner

T 34 with mine cleaner

T 34 with mine cleaner

 And here some pictures from original T-34 which I found on the internet.

tank trailer for German airfield

I finished today the work on my new tank trailer. I'm not 110 % satisfied as there are some details I will change for the next time. And yes my wheels should get better, I know, but ! I work on this to improve my drawing skills with my 3D program.
The trailer has no existing Original, but as the Germans used what ever they found, so it is fine for me.

the tank truck is from Panzer Depot

Here you see the structure from the printing.

new Bunkers in the scale 1/144

This week I got a very nice shipment from Prague.
From the Czech company called Fort Models I bought some Bunkers.
They are all from the Czechoslovakia Border protection what they built during 1935 -01938.
On some of these Bunkers the Germans trained later their raid for the Belgium Bunkers at Eben Emael. For more information see here.

LO vz. 37 type C-180

LO vz. 37 type C-180

LO vz. 37 type C2

LO vz. 37 type C2

K-S-31 U Besidky

K-S-31 U Besidky

Okay, the last Bunker is in the scale 1/230, but I like him as well and the quality is outstanding. All Bunkers are made out of porcelain.

Widerstandsnest 28 in Bernières-sur-Mer Bunker R 600 with 5 kwk

At the Atlantic coast you can find a lot of German Bunkers. Normally they belong to one of the Regelbauten, a list of standazid types of Bunkers. Not so in Bernières-sur-Mer. Here we find a special combination of two  Regelbauten. This Bunker was armed with a 5 cm Kwk gun. The Bunker is located on the beach, directly on the boulevard of Bernières-sur-Mer. This section of the beach was attacked by the Canadian and British troops.
On D-Day 1944 the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division landed at this spot. After some hours of fighting they liberated Bernieres-sur-Mer.

My diorama shows the Bunker with the 5 kwk gun, some days before the Invasion. The obstacles are wrong, mostly you could find them in the Nederlands, but I added them as otherwise I had the feeling, the diorama would look so empty. The Kuebelwagen is from Wargames South (link) and the 5 kwk gun comes from CDG (link), a famous producer of 3D printed tanks and accessorizes. 

R600 with 5 kwk

The bunker itself was designed by myself and printed in with a 3D printer. To safe material I made the top separate and glued it later. So it was no problem to install the gun inside the Bunker. The officers and the crew are all from the German railway gun Leopold from Dragon.

Here some interesting links with pictures from the Original which I found:

http://en.tracesofwar.com/article/862/Bunker-Wiederstandsnest-27.htm

http://en.tracesofwar.com/article/14139/Widerstandsnest-28-Berni%E8res-sur-Mer.htm

http://en.tracesofwar.com/article/14141/Widerstandsnest-38-Saint-C%F4me-de-Fresn%E9.htm