Replicating the scale thickness of the side armor. The upper part is 5.15 mm thick, while the lower is 2.85 mm. The wheel mounts will be replaced, being inaccurate.

The frontal armor and roof now have their scale thicknesses.

@FlorinM – Florin,

Thanks for the reply; I’m glad I could be of some help to you. I was unaware of the aftermarket Spade Ace metal tracks for the Maus, thanks for the tip. When I do go and build my Maus I won’t be adding an interior as you are doing. I know just how much research, effort and time it can take to render an accurate interior, I’m currently in the middle of doing just that on Dragon’s latest s.IG.33 auf Fgst.Pz.Kpfw.III(Slf.) kit release. Fortunately, there are a few good aftermarket cast resin interior components on the market that have been very useful to me, but I’m still having to scratch make a lot of items. And very few photographs exist of the interior for that vehicle so I have to take my best guesstimate using interior photographs of early Stug III’s. Quite the opposite in your case as there are some good reference photographs and drawings available on the Maus.

I see you’re going to be going all out on this build. Looks to me like you will be adding a complete interior to the hull? Will you be adding the electric drives and engines too? Will you also be adding a complete interior to the turret? Porsche, IMHO, was a genius, far ahead of his time. I like that you have chosen to render the thickness of the armor plating. I would like to know your method for calculating the scale armor thickness. Have you created a scale chart for the more commonly used German armor thickness or just for this vehicle?

The Yoshida Designs photo-etch mesh screens – or single dimension gratings do come very close to matching up with the Jentz & Doyle PT No. 6-3 scale drawings so these could be used as templates for creating them in 3D via your intent to scratch make them. If you’re interested I could scan the photo-etch sheet and send that out to you? The internal gratings over the electric motors, on the edges on the forward upper hull, sit at an angle on the real vehicle so that portion of the photo-etch mesh screens don’t match up well with the drawings.

You have a lot of work ahead of you but it looks like you're thoroughly enjoying it! I know I am. It’s good to see someone putting a lot of effort into a project. I hope you won’t become discouraged with the sometimes lack of feedback, quite common around here. But I am sure a lot of folks are stopping by to have a look at the progress you are making on this project.

Keep it coming.
~ Eddy

The Spade Ace are the simply the best metal tracks I've ever seen.
You mean the big ol' brick on a Pz. III chassis? I've always liked it, I'm considering it as my next armor acquisition, but I want the StuPa (the one the allies called "Brummbär") also. So the matter is not yet decided...

You are right, I want the interior of the hull to be as detailed as possible and yes, the turret shall receive a similar treatment.
I don't have a scale chart for the Maus nor any other German vehicle, but it is very easy to calculate, you simply divide the real life thickness by 35.
Replicating the armor thickness is crucial when building a vehicle with interior, for if you don't do it, you'll have dimensional issues do deal with (the thicker the armor the bigger the Boo-Boo).
Let me demonstrate. This is the turret as provided. Big, roomy, you might say. But you can't fit the MP Kugelblende on this, its walls are too thin...

But in reality the turret is not that spacious. The armor subtracts nearly half a meter from the exterior of the "roomy turret", and there is the breech of each gun, ammo racks, and so on...

That being said, the Maus now has all its armor replicated in scale thickness (the frontal curved armor of the turret I've made out of Milliput).

With regard to the Yoshida Designs photo-etch scans, I'm grateful for any help I can get (I'll PM my e-mail address).

Speaking of the turret, it is just a tad smaller than a M4A4 Sherman, and, at 55 tons, significantly heavier. The soviets needed no less than ten coupled FAMOs to pull it from the hulk of V2 when they wanted to combine it with the V1 hull.


You will notice that the horribly rendered close defense weapon was shaved off and a hole was drilled in its place. The hole is for a Nahverteidigungswaffe left over from a SmartKit.

This is very important. Dragon have molded a step on the lower turret, and it's not supposed to be there. It must be removed, so that the profile looks like this:

Details were drilled into the roof of the turret . The bolt holes around the loader's hatch are for securing the deep wading "Schacht" - where do you think the modern Bundeswehr Leopards got the idea from?

The loader's view port was blanked over.

This is the correct position and size of the MP Kugelblende:

@FlorinM –Florin,

You’re making good progress on the turret. From the thickness of the armor plates, that you’ve rendered, there doesn’t appear to be room for any of the crewmembers to be eating a small sized TV dinner in there?

Scans of the Yoshida Designs photo-etch screens have been sent. Hope this will help you out?

~ Eddy

Yeah, and with the breech of this little baby inside, there won't be that much room left...

There are two large rectangular welded plugs on the rear armor of Maus Wanne V1, the one with a simulated weight instead of a turret on top, these are specific to that vehicle and that vehicle alone, being ABSENT on all the subsequent hulls.



If you want to build any machine other than the V1, these MUST be puttied over.


The holes that form a square pattern in the middle of the hull are the mount points for the detachable auxiliary fuel tank.
The brackets supplied for it by the kit are way too small - two thirds their actual size. By extension so are the same brackets as rendered in the Eduard PE set 35252 for the Maus, which, by the way, is a waste of money.

Wow. your work is fantastic. And I don't even know what I'm looking at since I know nothing about the tank. The driver and radio operator must have sat tandem in that cramped hull. And a turret the size of a Sherman! Ridiculous! Well, you're doing a great job. Please keep going.

One question: How did you do the square weld marks in that last picture? It almost looks like an exacto carving blade but I'm not sure. Great job! Thanks again!

The square weld marks in that picture are actually the kit's weld marks, I just covered them with putty and sanded them smooth.The holes that were plugged were for the built-in flamethrowers, items that were discarded very early in the program, but not before the plates for the V1 were cut.

HA. I just noticed that you said they don't apply to your variant. Thanks for clarification.

Across the middle of the hull there was a rectangular bar that does not exist on the real vehicle. It must be removed, as it impedes the full rotation of the turret.

The radio operator's periscope opening was moved back from the wrong central position rendered in the kit. This is its raw shape, it requires further refining. The driver's station shall receive a transparent episcope.

@FlorinM - Florin,

Go, Florin, Go! You're really working fast and moving around on the kit as you go.

You're paying close attention to your reference books, good on you. This build is shaping up to be one of the most accurate Maus renditions to date.

~ Eddy

Detailing the exterior is almost complete, I'll soon move to the interior, and then things will really slow down. As I said, the kit, in spite of its age, is not that bad and my references are growing steadily. I'm enjoying this build, that's for sure!

Florin, I understand fully well about how putting together an interior can slow down the progress. I'm almost ready to post an update on the interior that I have been slaving over and it's only partially done. But I'm 1/3 of the ways done and that is what counts.

Stay motivated and focused, your doing a good work.
~Eddy

The turret ring. To enlarge the turret ring diameter, a thick, tough cardboard circle of a very slightly larger diameter than the interior of the turret ring was forcefully inserted on the top hull. While doing a dry run I've found that the turret ring should be moved by 2 millimeters to the front. An easy fix!
After carefully using a compass cutter this is the result. The diameter of the turret ring in 1:35th scale is an impressive 9 centimeters, compare it to what was provided.

This is the new, improved top of the hull. I've added a new ring for the turret, drilled holes where appropriate and added four weld lines.

A little corrective work needs to be done on the suspension mounts.
This is how they are supplied

And this is how it looks after



Repeat times 11.

Hopefully this is the last correction to this old kit. As a counter to a potential shot trap a rectangular plate was welded under the turret overhang. An omission that was easily fixed.

Just wondering if there was any progress on your build. I've been following all the great work you have put into this beast. Very impressive work. Don M.