Building a Mid-Production Normandy Tiger 1

[SovereignZuul]

Abe, when it comes to those maddening details you can trust David 100%. To some of us those details are a form of pure insanity we bathe in, and enjoy... lol.

[DavidByrden]

Yes, there were plenty of Tigers with Feifels in 1943, but then the question becomes; where does Europe end?

Anyway, I believe that you have a "Heng Long", which has a few problems even for its own supposed date.

To fix the problems that it has, out of the box;
- Delete the tail-light on the right hand side. There is a cross-shaped hole in the mudguard for it; that hole should be on the left of the mudguard, not the right.
- change or replace the turret bin. Its shape is wrong. And cut off those bolted side supports from it.
- Rotate the cupola so that the hatch hinge is 72 degrees right of forward.

To backdate it to January, you would;
- remove the S-mine system (the 6 small molded strips), and turn around the antenna tube as I described earlier.
- cut off the small rod molded on the hull bottom rear.
- remove the shields from the exhaust system.
- change the wooden rods stored either side of the turret, so that they are longer, there's only 5 of them, and the holders are further apart.
- open two small holes above the driver's visor.
- change the Feifels so they have two drums on top instead of a single chamber
- Get a different turret bin. There are two or three possibilities. Since the provided one has problems, you may as well do this.

The changes on the second list are optional. If you pick a specific Tiger, it probably won't need all of them.

David

[Abe Froman]

Dave, thanks for the info. Achtung Panzer No 6 and Haynes Tiger Manual in post. Need to do some serious studying!

Have cut Cupola for turn around and have bought the Tamiya stowage bin and mantlet. Have cut the RC antenna mount off for relocation. Got early metal tracks on the way. Bought the single chamber metal Feifelf filters by mistake ( anyone?) so will have to fabricate the earlier ones.

Thanks for S mine info..is this the hull ones? or does it include the 2 x 3 way launchers on the turret?

Anyway, apologies to TFTM...will sod off any start my own thread so as to not bore his wonderful build thread which is truly inspirational.

Tarra a bit

[Abe Froman]

Abe, when it comes to those maddening details you can trust David 100%. To some of us those details are a form of pure insanity we bathe in, and enjoy... lol.

I know...I Just found out who David is on the Tiger1 site..

As for the craziness...believe me its the same with all forms of modelling....building the 32" Millenium Falcon is a laugh too

Must admit to really looking forward to getting stuck into the Tiger once I know my a**e from my elbow ( as much as I want to without being comitted, LOL) I must admit though its a lot more nuanced than I had thought of initially...hey ho here we go!!!

Will get some pics taken and start the thread and will be following this thread religiously, although its a mid rather than my early, so where it applies, but the level of quality work will always drive me with my minor skills onwards.

I Haven't done a great deal of modelling since I was a lad, getting back into it, but the hobby has changed a quantum level, so many aftermarket parts, reference and etch!

Thanks everyone...Its a whole new world out there!


Off to my own thread. Feel free to dive in and point out any errors as I go.

[DavidByrden]

S mine launchers were on the hull only. The turret items are smoke bomb launchers.

David

[Abe Froman]

S mine launchers were on the hull only. The turret items are smoke bomb launchers.

David

Dave, So so much to learn...DAMN IT, thought I could crank this Tiger out quickly....

Yet another project...excited though

Thanks Dave

[tanks_for_the_memory]

Hi fellas,

Sorry I've been a little inactive of late. It's just been busy, busy, busy here.

Anyway, a little more progress made and hopefully there will be a lot more in coming weeks.

More recoil shenanigans

First off, I did some more work on the electrics. My recoil motor was still playing up so I ditched the old unit and replaced it with the one from a Taigen turret I acquired ages ago. I must say that the complete turret and recoil package is excellent value because you get the re-tooled turret with better detailing plus the recoil unit in one go. Too bad I didn't have this turret when I started because my old HL turret is too far into its changes for me to go back now.

Interestingly the Taigen recoil unit comes fixed to a much smaller metal base plate than the old one, but since I have already adapted the latter I had to take the plastic unit off and transplant it. In the pictures below you can see the two side my side:

The new style Taigen unit with the smaller base plate is on the left, the old one on the right.jpg (34.84 KiB) Viewed 3208 times

The same view with the units turned upside down - or as they actually sit in the turret.jpg (41.38 KiB) Viewed 3208 times

The other modification was to make a direct connection between the turret electronics and the Taigen 2.4-ghz Digital Control Unit in the lower hull. This I achieved simply by cutting the three wires away from the plug which connects to the upper hull and adding a new three pin connection which now meets with the Taigen plug which comes straight from the turret. This means I no longer have to trust the ancient wiring which caused me so many problems in the past. The upper hull board now simply feeds the turret rotation, headlight and MG...

The three wires which serve the turret from the hull board have now been cut so that I can connect the turret directly to the Taigen 2.4-ghz Digital Control Unit in the lower hull.jpg (18.86 KiB) Viewed 3208 times

Hope that's clear! (Probably not). After that rather boring post more work on the turret next...

[tanks_for_the_memory]

Correcting the thickness of the upper turret side armour

A while back I showed you how I reworked the weld beads along the top edges of the turret. I was quite pleased with the result, but there was an unfortunate side effect.

The real turret was, of course, constructed from thick steel plates bent into a horseshoe shape (no doubt David can help with the actual thickness). On the unmodified HL Tiger these plates are simply far too thin where they show along the top edges of the turret. Unfortunately my weld beads now looked far to wide and the turret sides even thinner. The newly tooled Taigen turret is better by the way and the Hobby Boss Tiger almost spot-on.

The weld beads along the turret before I attempted to restore the thickness of the turret sides.jpg (23.01 KiB) Viewed 3204 times

A similar 'before' shot of the weld beads around the back of the turret roof.jpg (23.76 KiB) Viewed 3204 times

So what to do? This was a bit of an adventure for me because I risked ruining my turret completely if I botched the job. For that reason I didn't take any work in progress shots. Essentially I rolled out thin sausages of Magic Sculp (as I had done for the weld beads) and then pressed these around the upper edges of the turret. I then used my trusty tools to shape the edges so that they gave the appearance of scale thickness at the top of the side plates. It wasn't easy because the thin strips of putty were prone to falling off, but after I left them to cure for an hour or so I was able to press them down hard so that they stuck in place. I then worked on them a little more to get the edges as clean as possible. After leaving to dry overnight I was then able to sand the top edges so that they looked as flat and flush as I was able to get them.

Here you can see how the illusion of thick armour along the side of the turret has now been restored.jpg (27.44 KiB) Viewed 3204 times

A close-up of the same area after working with Magic Sculp.jpg (23.64 KiB) Viewed 3204 times

The corrected side armour on the other side of the turret.jpg (28.74 KiB) Viewed 3204 times

The curved armour at the back of the turret is harder to work on but although far from perfect I'm pretty happy with the result!.jpg (27.06 KiB) Viewed 3204 times

Now I'll be the first to accept that it's not perfect - but I hope you will agree that it's a darn sight better than leaving it as it was before!

The completed work around the turret sides.jpg (32.58 KiB) Viewed 3204 times

[Steenv]

God job with the detail Work - Its gonna be a fantastic Tiger

[DavidByrden]

The turret walls were 80mm thick. At the top edge, they were chamfered, leaving about 40mm flatness.

David