some Highlights from my last trip to the USA

Some weeks ago, my wife and I spent two weeks in Nevada and their National Parks. While driving from A to B we passed several ghost towns (real ones, and others just looking like). 
I was surprised how much interesting stuff you could find in these small villages. Here some of my highlights:

American LaFrance from the sixties

American LaFrance from the sixties

Beatty gold mine

American FaFrance fire engine

side view American FaFrance fire engine

not old, but I liked all the lights, Ford Californian Highway Patrol

old stuff of the road

narrow gauge train in Goldtown

old Ford fire brigade ladder?

Ford fire brigade

side view Ford Fire brigade

old Ford or Mack in something like a Museum 

old Caterpillar 

Ford in Moab

Triebwagen 51 great news

During the last days I was able to make some progress with the German Panzertiebwagen 51. If everything goes well, I will send it mid of march to the printers. The screenshots you see below, are all printable and the price is still acceptable.
I have to check the dimensions again and to add the wheels. I plan to go here with the dimensions for N-Scale, so that it will roll on all N-gauge rail systems.

Panther with Coelian Panther Flak Turret

Okay, this Panther never saw the sunlight, it is a so called "paper tank" as it was never built.
But, as I have several Panthers left and I got the turret from CGD Hong Kong (link) for a really good price, why not a Wehrmacht 46 tank?
The rebuild is absolutely simple and easy, paint the turret, use the adapter CGD delivers and put it on one of your Dragon / Cando Panther.
Heresome information from Wikipedia.

Panther with Coelian turret 

Panther with Coelian turret 

Panther with Coelian turret 

1/144 set of German trailers for your Luftwaffe trailers

As I will sell a lot of my planes I thought how to make them more attractive for a sale at Ebay.
So I designed some of the most important small trailers, the Germans used to get their Fighters ready to start.
In the set is 

• the Anlasswagen, a unit used to start the engines for the planes
• a small trailer for Oil / Grease
• a small trailer for all the electrical components
• a trailer for loading the Batteries of the planes

Here is a picture of the painted version:

1/144 Anlasswagen Luftwaffe

So if you like my small trailers, here you can buy them Panzerfabrik 144

Crossley RAF Crash Tender

I am a bit pride, this is my first complete lorry I have designed and printed and it works in the first attempt. 
The Crossley crash tender was a widely used lorry on all air fields, even the US used it, as they had not that much fire trucks when they opened their first air fields in GB.

So here are some sources where you can find more information about the Original.

link 1    Link 2

Crossley Crash Tender in 1/144

Crossley Crash Tender in 1/144

American Air Force Fire brigade

Crossley Crash Tender and GMC Fire Truck

Crossley and GMC Fire trucks

back view of GMC and Crossley

On some of the pictures you can see two other lorries. The GMC was used by the US Air Force, but it was more the second attempt. The first fire truck they used does not fulfilled the job as good as needed. Therefore they used the well proved GMC and put a much bigger tank on it.

I used one of the new Revell GMCs as they come in parts and I just added the 3D printed structure.

The British lorry will be converted into a real fire engine in the next weeks. So be surprised.

To buy the crash tender, please follow this link

Pionierlandungsboot 41

Today I can present one of my first Highlights for the young year 2016!
The German PLB 41, Pionierlandungsboot 41 of the German Wehrmacht.
The Germans used it on all theaters, Mediterranean Sea, East sea and North sea.

More information are here: PLB 41  or here: PLB 41 (both only in German)

Some technical details about the PLB 41:
Length: 19,30 m 
Beam: 5,93 m
Displacement: (empty) 35 tons; up to 75 tons loaded
Engine: 2 Deutz SA 6M with 120 PS
Speed: 19 km/h
Armament: one 2cm AA gun
Crew: ??
Capacity: one 40 ton tank, 150 troops; 20 up to 40 tons of cargo

As the ship was build in two half, it could be transported with special flat rail wagons.
I saw pictures of versions with and without the small house.

And for comparison below the technical data of the American LCM (3)
Displacement: 52 tons loaded;23 tons empty
Length: 15 m
Beam: 4.3 m
Speed: 8 knots (9.2 mph) loaded; 11 knots (13 mph)empty
Armament: two .50-cal M2 Browning machine guns
Crew: 4
Capacity: One 30-ton tank, 60 troops, 27 tons of cargo

fresh from the printer

PLB 41 with the AA gun

the ramp can be shown in different positions

two new Pionierlandungsboote for my 1/144 collection

first painting is done

actually this load would be too heavy!

both ships, one with camouflage

rear view of the Pionierlandungsboot 41

PLB 41 with ramp open

tank III leaving the PLB 41

At the moment I sell the camouflage version at Ebay, so if you are interested, check Ebay

Or if you want your own unpainted version, you can buy it here: Shapeways

My Highlights in 2015

I used the last days, to check what I have designed in the last year.
So here are some of my highlights:

German Schnellboot S-100
I like the model, it is a nice model but it was very hard to get it. I had to buy a lot of 1/1250 ships before they sent me my Schnellboot.

A nice idea for 2016 would be to build the older version as I have plans and tons of pictures of it.

Panzerfähre IV
My first complete tank design and it worked in the first attempt.
I designed the complete tank and later I separated one of the tanks, so that you could show the complete ferry or only the tanks.

order your Panzerfähre at Shapeways

complete Panzerfähre at Shapeways

Rübezahl my German Traktor

order your Rübezahl at Shapeways

Sherman mine roller

Schienenwolf

Panzerjägerwagen 51

okay the design is still under construction and I haven`t opened the drawing for several months. But I have it on the list to get it finished this year. And as with the Schienenwolf, I collected some experience with rail amour, I plan to build the Jägerwagen with the Panzer IV turret as well.

Siebel Ferry
Not only that I finished the first Siebelfähre, I built a complete diorama for it.
More Siebel ferries will come soon as I have two more under construction.

At the moment I paint two more of them, in the version as schwere Flakfähre in two different versions. Version one will be armed with 3 Flak 8.8 while the second version will have the 2 cm Vierlingsflak as AA-gun.
So this is the diorama with the evacuation of the last Tiger tank form Sicily, the next two will be so called "Kampffähren", fighting ferries.

the last Tiger in Sicily

Flakfähre with 3x 8.8 Flak