Tiger 1 Build Update 2

 Since the original post I have managed to build up the Tiger to the point it will receive it's base coat. The Photo Etched has been a huge learning curve that has tested me quite a lot.

The interior of the hatches have all had a big upgrade with multiple parts with up to six bends to a single piece. Front mud guards were less tricky but still full of challengers.

Less bends on the righthand turret hatch but the small catch is actually three parts! The crew will be all over the hatch areas so I felt I should add the detail and now wait to find out how much is hidden by the figures!

View of the rear of the turret, a lot of the PE requires the original details to be filed off the model to be replaced with the brass parts. I have in plenty of cases felt the added detail was not worth the extra work. Here it seemed well worth it, about 40 minutes a clasp I was not so sure.

Each clasp set has four parts, the base plate that requires two bends on a area about half a mm if that, these then allow the hasp to be fitted into the two bent arms. Then the lock has it's upper wire bent to go through hole in the clasp. Finally a upper piece fastens to the tank box and threads through the back of the clasp!

Adding the side skirts last night and today took up a chunk of my modelling time and I had a fair bit of fun bending the skirts after looking at lots of photo's of Tigers. Seems the skirts were easy to damage in Normandy due to the narrow lanes in the Bocage. This will hopefully come across on the diorama. 

Very shinny at the moment, hopefully the primer will deal with that tomorrow. The rear guards were the most challenging and I had to go back to do a few changes to get them right. 

One flaw with the kit is that you can't have the turret facing forwards if you have the hatches open as the lugs force the turret to be put on to the side and when traversed hits one of the forward hatches. Simple solution is cutting off the lugs, will be glued in place when fully painted so no problem for me.

Half the wheels awaiting priming in the base colour. I won't fit the wheels until I have added mud and other effects to the lower parts of the tank. This will allow me to work a lot of effects onto the wheels as well. Tracks will not be even looked at for awhile yet.

Still need to add the exhausts and housing but these will be done post painting the body of the tank as using the airbrush. The AA MG will also be fitted once the tank is painted and tracks added, too delicate to risk getting knocked about.

I have two tournament first prizes to start in the next three to five weeks so not sure how far I can get with this. I should get the tank done for the most part as I am off for a little over a week and we don't have many trips out planned.

Tiger I Build Update 1

 

My next diorama is this Tamiya 1/32 scale Mid Production Tiger I. I am giving myself a window of three months to build the kit and assemble the rest of the dio. I have added the Voyager Models PE kit that really ramps up the complexity and of course detail. I also ordered a metal barrel on a friends recommendation. So far resisting the metal tracks but if I struggle with the plastic ones from realism then I will probably go metal. Rather not as that will help ramp up the costs above what I probably can sell it for. The figures are mostly plastic with at least one will be resin, all depends on if I can get more figures that fit with the scene I am planning.

Some of the detail is insane, love the hatch parts, these will be late added items I suspect. Already decided a few parts don't add enough to be included and being stretched with some of the bending and gluing I have done already.

Covers for the exhaust, the bolts are being added to the cover plate which is about 6mm across. 

Plastic rod to replace the Tamiya rods fitted into the exhaust. I missed a trick I should have tap drilled them mounting hole a little deeper to make a more solid fix, lesson learnt.

One of the two finished, well sort of. I need to dial back on the corrosion I think, though they are mostly hidden by the exhaust shrouds so may need to be a bit OTT. I am using ENML binders that allow me to keep going back to it so can change as much as I like.

First real challenge was the two clamps that hold the jack in place on the rear of the Tiger. Two of these parts require folding, took me about an hour and a quarter to get this done.

I invested in a small PE folding vice tool. Already very happy that I did, it's going to get plenty of work on this build.

The wing nuts actually made me smile, lets see if that's the case when I have done a few more. 

I plan to do as much as the basic build as I can before adding as much PE as possible though bits like the metal grill covers needed to be added before some of the other clutter. The PE instructions are rather cluttered and sometimes don't make as much sense as I would like but with a lot of looking and cross referencing I seem to be doing OK.

I will add the wheels close to the end of the build as I want to do a lot of the weathering of the under side of the tank before fitting the wheels and tracks so as to be able to get right into the shadows.

Tracks are going to be such fun, build, paint and weather. Will be adding track sag at least I hope I will.

Between sessions on the Tiger I will be working on the figures and a bunch of other projects just to keep things fresh. As to how many will be wargaming related rather than just painting remains to be seen. However I am in the process of sorting my first game in years so that should provide a spark.