1 Kompanie PzAbt 101 Tiger 131 Walter Hahn Project Diary

[Wildboar44]

I have read that contrary to some beliefs, the convoy lights were green. Not blue. I can’t back this up with a solid reference right now but I believed it enough to go with green on my initial production Tiger 1.

Thanks Mr Jim. I'm plugging for green too. Other than a Notek rear light , the glass cylindrical versions I like yourself cant find any solid proof of what is correct for what vehicle or period

[jarndice]

I have been following the discussion on the colour of the rear Convoy light on Tiger1s for years on this and other Forums,
A definitive answer is offered only for an alternative definitive answer being given shortly after followed by a definitive rebuttal and so the discussion continues ad nauseum.
I fear the passage of time may deny the definitive truth ever being discovered and so you may as well make your choice certain that you are as likely to be right as you are to be wrong.

[Wildboar44]

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When I started my build there were not many options for a Travel Lock for the Mid-Productions Tiger 1. Ludwig-Hobbie-de has one on his website but it was a little out of scale for me to use. I ended up making one out of brass as styrene would seem to flimsy. I was mooching around the internet over Chritmas and I came across these cast alloy Travel Locks from Hagan Minitures-de. They were not on there German Website but on their sister company on Ebay imperial-modellbau.
I must say for a few Euro's they are pretty good and worth buying if you dont want to fabricate one. Sadly though, the cast chain they come with broke at the slightest attempt to bend it with or without heating

Tiger 1 Travel Lock 1/16th Scale

Tiger 1 Travel Lock 1/16th Scale

An alternative to Correcting the Heng Long Tiger 1 Turret :: Ludwigs-Hobbie-de Correction Kit

When I corrected the offset Turret on my Heng Long Tiger 1 I adopted the cuttings and grafting method to re-position the turret in its correct location. Although this kit was available then, I was not aware it was available from Ludwig until all my work was done. I have listed it here as I think for those not confident about cutting up their pride and joy it is a great kit that works without the hacking about. http://www.ludwigs-hobby-seite.de/Tiger1zubehoer.html

Ludwig-Hobbie-de Correction Kit

Instructions
http://www.ludwigs-hobby-seite.de/Bauan ... dapter.pdf
These are in German but you cant follow the pictures to see how clever this kit is


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Until the next update

[Wildboar44]

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So today was a chance to add the Commander Cupola. I decided to use the Hachette example as the Schumo periscopes fit almost perfect and the cupola has a base plate that has locating pegs for an easier install. The height of the cupola needs reducing slightly which does present a few challenge's as it not one but two parts that need altering and those changes will affect the mounting of the periscopes , but as below its a simple fix.

1-The Turret base was left in a 50/50 solution of water and Dettol ( House hold disinfectant )to remove all traces of Acrylic paint and cellulose primer.
2-The Hachette Cupola seems to have the correct scale height and shape/angle of periscope covers but does lack a few details missing (And one to be removed). I would estimate from photo's that about 1mm/1.5mm needs to be removed to lower the Cupola the a (near) correct height.
3-The base plate does feature these locating pegs which make mouting easier as I wont have to fabricate an upstand collar to fix the cupola down.
4-These are the two parts that need to be lowered by the same amount.

Hachette Cupola. Click for larger image

5-By placing a sheet of P400 wet and dry abrasive on a flat surface the Cupola base was honed down placing pressure evenly all around.
6-The base now sits inside the Cupola top by just a little more than 1.0mm or so.
7-Carefully cut off the Cupola lid base locating tube as neat as possible as you will need to glue this back on after honing.
8-Repeat the honing on the Cupola Top until both the base and top of the Cupola are flush.

Honing down Cupola base with P400 wet and dry. Click for larger image

9-So now that the Cuploa had been lowered the Cupola top now sits flush with the mounting base, this has created the desired effect but sets another challenge !
10-The 7 Periscopes from the Schumo KT0038 - 1:16 King Tiger set ( Yes King Tiger) they fit a treat and the loaders periscope is superb (But more on that later)
11-The Periscopes just simply drop straight in the slot for a perfect fit.
12-But the Cupola base plate now that its lower cannot sit on its locating pins as there is no room for the periscopes

Lowered Cupola now fouling Periscopes. Click for larger image.

13-With a sharp knife and a file remove these tabs all the way around the Cupola base. They should all look like this once you have filed/cut the tabs off.
14-Now all the tabs have been altered the Periscopes fit a treat with the Cupola base holding them all in. They are loose for now.
15-16- The Periscopes are framed perfectly inside the loops. After painting they will be installed.

Removing tabs from base to allow Periscopes to fit.
Click for larger image

17-The inside of the Turret roof was sanded down for a good key to bond a styrene base plate too.
18-The styrene base plate is 2.0mm thick and it is important to leave enough working room around the turret bin area as later on I intend to remake the back wall of the Turret bit when I cut off the Heng Long one and add the Tamiya one.
19-Using a Jakar compass cutter the missing circular section of the turret roof was cut.The outside diametre matching the old upstand aperture and the inner circle a few millimetre's smaller than the centre hole of the Cupola base aperture.The Heng Long turret roof is 2.0mm thick as was the styrene card used.
20-After gluing back on the Turret lid mounting post to the Cupola base plate a hole was drilled/filed into the replacement turret roof section to allow the post to pass through into the turret.

Building up the Turret roof to mount the Cupola. Click for larger image

21-The replacement turret roof section was used to mark the centre hole for the base plate below.
22-Drill three 4.5mm holes into the new roof section. This was aligned and marked by placing a few spots of black paint on the pegs on the bottom of the Cupola base.
23- The finished base, if you spent time getting the diametres correct when using a Jakar cutter you have almost no filling to do.

Final fitting of Cupola Base plate . Click for larger image.

24-This is the final result. Not much you may argue, but lowered by 1.5mm the pictures do not show how the overall affect looks. The profile of the Cupola will be lowered further with the addition of a "weld bead" around the base which will create the effect of losing another 1.0mm. This Tiger 1 Mid Production has 25mm thick roof armour so there should be a slight gap between the base of the chamfer of the Cupola and the roof top. The Cupola will be left off while the loaders hatch and Turret bin are corrected so it is a loose fit for now.

Finished Lowered Hachette Cupola

Finished lowered Hachette Cupola.jpg (96.99 KiB) Viewed 4029 times

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Next update will be detailing the Cupola Top by adding in the missing parts and correcting others.

Thanks for watching ::

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[HERMAN BIX]

Jeez you have a lot going on here Mr Boar.
Those Hachette bits certainly add value to the construction.
I for one appreciate your commitment to replacing all the lost images, and to recording your path so others can follow.
Nothing worse than a descent build thread that stops abruptly and leaves the viewer hanging !!

[Wildboar44]

So it has been a while, work has taken a big commitment recently but now I have had a little time to myself in the evenings to carry on my Tiger build.



Detailing the Hachette cupola
Having lowered the cupola and made sure the periscopes fit well inside It was now time to add some of the missing details to bring this up to a Mid-Production specification for this build.

The first item was to add the armoured collar around the cupola hatch pivot shaft. There is also an extended tab that made sure you raised the lid high enough to swing over the top of the periscopes when opening and provided a "park" feature once fully rotated to prevent the lid swinging back.

Armoured collar and tab made from Styrene tube

The next item to be added were the two small tubes that extended vertically one on opposing sides of the cupola. These tubes were designed to hold the base poles of a frame that unfolded to form an "umbrella" that covered the hatch and gave the Commander some shelter from the elements when operating with the hatch open in the rain. These were formed from brass tube 1/16"x.014" (1.58mm x 0.353mm) and glued into holes drilled into the cupola base.

Rain cover base locating tubes

Rain cover base tube near armoured collar

Next little feature was the stop extension that was welded to the back of the forward facing Commander periscope. This made sure the lid when swung forward stopped at the point directly over the aperture ready for it to be pulled down closed. This was formed by drilling into the back of the periscope hood and a small 2mm brass stop plate was fabricated and bonded in.

3mm drill holes to make slot in back of periscope cover.

Brass hatch stop

One feature which needed to be removed were the 3 rain channel slots moulded into the cupola base. For a Mid-Production Tiger produced Dec 43/ Jan 44 these features had not been introduced. The slots would be correct for a Late-Production Tiger produced after June 1944. I filled these slots will Milliput and re-profiled with a small file.

Rain drainage slots incorrect for this Mid-Production Tiger. Introduced in June 1944 on Late-Production Vehicles.

Now period correct.

Using Milliput the sides and back of the periscope hoods were given weld beads.

Weld bead added around periscope hoods

A very small detail was the addition of a brass sighting vane on the inside of the Commander's forward facing periscope hood. This was bonded in from the Voyager PE detailing kit.

Commanders Sighting vane in forward facing periscope hood.

Another odd feature that makes for some amusement in the fact that a 50+ Ton tank was secured when not in use by a dinky little padlock on the commanders hatch. This hasp was added which came also from the Voyager kit. The last small change given to the Hachette cupola was using a 1.5mm copper wire to form a shorter hatch lifting handle. The original plastic version was too long as can be seen from the filled in hole. The AA rail was then attached, this may be changed as the real AA rail was welded in a position on the extreme outer edge of the periscope hoods and not in the centre as with the Hachette example.

Commanders hatch locking hasp and Shortened lifting handle

The Cupola will be left off while the rest of the build progresses. This will ensure it wont get damaged.

Next item will be the Central Turret vent...

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[Wildboar44]

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Adding the central Turret vent
When it comes to Turret vents for the Tiger 1 we are very limited in what we can purchase. The need to replace the vent is due to the fact that in order to replicate a Mid or Late production Tiger 1 the vent for the Turret needs to be relocated from the rear right close to the Turret back wall and move it to a Central location on the Turret roof.

Original Early and Mid-Late vent relocation

This is an actual photograph of a Central Vent on a Late Tiger 1, as you can see it is made up from several parts, the top plate with drillings allowing access to the locating screws below, the base plate has six tabs that would have allowed a deep water wading sealing cap to be clamped in place over the vent. The ability to wade into deep water was a feature long since abandoned so the tabs were largely redundant.

Original Late Production Turret vent

But the replacement options when building Mid-Late variant's are normally limited to the Taigen set that contains the Vent, Loaders additional periscope cover and the top plate of the "Nahverteidigungswaffe" close defence weapon. The only drawback is that the vent whilst similar does not copy the original closely.

Taigen vent, periscope cover and Nahverteidigungswaffe turret plate.

I decided I would use the Top of the Taigen vent and build my own base. This is what you have with the Taigen example, The top Cover is correct, I drilled the holes fully through and then prised apart the components as they are just glued together. The separating spacer should have six blades and not the four of this example. The base I felt was a little to large in diameter and too thick.

Taigen set dis-assembled

The following solution was first offered by Sov's Tiger build , all credit for this mod goes out to Sov.
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=10204&start=220

On the left is a 2mm thick styrene base plate which is 1mm larger than the diameter of the top plate. The "Tab" plate is made from 1mm styrene. It just took careful use of a set of small diamond files and patience to get the best scale fitment and size.

New base plate and Tab plate from styrene

I glued two strips of 0.5mm x 1.5mm styrene together to make the six bridging spacers that separate the top plate and the base. The "tab" plate was filed down to the same diameter of the base plate.

Top plate with 1.5mm x 1.5mm separation spacers and shaped base and tab plate

The components were then superglued together, once again this will not be fixed in place until final assembly.

Completed Vent. not glued down until final preparation before painting

One thing that I have discovered by chance was that the vent was not located in-line with the centre of the roof. It was slightly offset to the left when looking from behind and should be almost touching the Commanders cupola. The offset was approximately 30mm on the real Tiger 1 roof.

Offset Vent from centre line of turret

For those of you who do not want to create your own version , there is this option from the Shapeways Marketsplace by FAWModels
https://www.shapeways.com/product/HCY8Q ... arketplace

3D Print 1/16 Tiger 1 Turret Vent

FAWModels Tiger 1 vent.jpg (28.41 KiB) Viewed 3729 times

This is not an endorsment of the quality or reliability of the source supplier, so please dont shoot the messenger
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Thanks for viewing, I have completed more work on Turret which I will upload in due course.

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[BarryC]

Fantastic I'm following along, I am enjoying your scratch build work!

Barry

[Wildboar44]

Jeez you have a lot going on here Mr Boar.
Those Hachette bits certainly add value to the construction.
I for one appreciate your commitment to replacing all the lost images, and to recording your path so others can follow.
Nothing worse than a descent build thread that stops abruptly and leaves the viewer hanging !!

Thanks Mr Bix, I appreciate your comments .

[Wildboar44]

Fantastic I'm following along, I am enjoying your scratch build work!

Barry

Thank you Mr Barry, but I can assure you I have to have a few attempts ! . Thanks for stopping bye.