A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

This section is to 'show and tell' about any customizing or re-modeling you have done (or are doing) to a Heng Long tank.
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This section is for posting a build log of your Heng Long tank.
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Jnewboy
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Jnewboy »

Estnische wrote:That’s great Jon. I’ve always wondered how much of these Trumpeter interiors could be retained in a RC tank. Thinking about a T34.
It would be interesting to try, very difficult though to have both. Take a look at these pics of my King Tiger, not a lot of room in there for a gear box & electronics.

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr
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Jnewboy
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Jnewboy »

Some more progress on the ATAK kit, mixing the Trumpeter kit with the Atak kit has some small issues but I moved through them fairly well. I was about to put on the MG34 mount on the front glacis plate when I started looking at the Henglong which I wasn't totally happy with so I decided to also make a copy of the ball mount and will use it on both models. I removed the inferior on from the henglong in preparation.


ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr
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Jnewboy
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Jnewboy »

Coming together, more shots of the interior and gun as I finish the Zimmerit.

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr
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Jnewboy
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Jnewboy »

Dont you hate it when the "real world" disrupts panzer production! :haha:

Back to work!
ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

Lots of minor detail work going back and forth, the differences between the two are getting harder to see!

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

Next is Dunkelgelb, camo then whitewash!
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43rdRecceReg
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by 43rdRecceReg »

An engaging project (not mainstream), and a feast for the eyes at the same time. :thumbup:
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please"- Mark Twain.
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Jnewboy
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Jnewboy »

As I was looking into how I was going to finish these models I decided that I would do heavy mud and that I could not justify hanging onto the side skirts completely intact, also many of the photographs of this tank show at least some of the skirts off, however most of the photographs are also being taken while they are repairing tracks in which they could have possibly taken off the side skirts and then could have put them back on.

So I decided to remove the side skirts and only put a few on each side of each tank. This was easy on the Trumpeter King Tiger as they are a simple glue on part.

However this was not the case with the Henglong. :/ It is actually part of the entire upper, one huge molded piece of plastic. :problem:

I wrestled with the decision and finally decided to stay true to the original goal which was to make both of these tanks identical. So I cut the bottoms off the Henglong leaving a gap as you can see in the pictures.

I put new styrene walls inside and then filled the gap with Apoxie sculpt - it’s the best, there’s nothing even close to as good as it is. I smoothed it and shaped it and then let it dry for about 25 minutes where it becomes less tacky and then I pressed in the Zimmerman pattern. (Yes this KingTiger had Zimmerit all the way down under the sideskirts)

I had made myself a template stamp using Amazing Putty that I stuck to the side of the tank to get the exact pattern. This was a lot of work but it turned out good. However it is not perfect and if I was the modeler I was eight or 10 years ago I would’ve been deeply depressed, probably sanded it all down and tried over and over to make it perfect. However with hundreds of tanks in all scales under my belt I realize that what really matters is the end result and I understand when building models and finishing tanks that small imperfections like the Zimmerit not exactly matching in some spots can be fixed in lots of ways other than redoing it.

In this case it’s going to be lots of mud, mud mud and more mud, also some skirts will be put back on.

Going back to the skirts themselves you can see in one of the pictures that the Henglong skirts are so thick that if they were to scale it would’ve been 1000 pounds per skirt piece of steel and would’ve ripped the little bolts right off :P

The Trumpeter skirts are much more realistic as they are much thinner and true to scale so I’ve decided to use those on both models. I discarded the Henglong skirts all together and divided up the Trumpeter skirts, two sections per side per tank. Next is camo, decals and white wash followed by weathering and then the glorious mud!

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr
Trumpeter with no skirts

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

The Henglong gap...

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr
New Walls

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

Pattern Template Stamp

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

Apoxie Sculpt

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

Stamped Pattern

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

Henglong vs Trumpeter ~ Henglong too Thick! :S

ImageUntitled by jon newsom, on Flickr

Attach sideskirts and paint camo next! :thumbup:
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Model Builder 4
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Model Builder 4 »

Great work and attention to detail again jon, neat stamping tool for the zimmerit as well :thumbup:

Cheers, Lee.
Me ? Addicted ? Never !! :crazy:
ronnie42
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by ronnie42 »

Hi Jnewboy Have you tried fitting the Trumpeter KT upper hull onto the HL lower ? Have the Panther and i think its a shame to hide the interior. The taigen lower is about 5 mm shorter ( easy to adjust by changing the angle of the rear plate ) but the Trumpeter upper is really nice./
Styrene panels on inside of the Trumpeter upper and it should be strong enough for rc.
Styrene panels on inside of the Trumpeter upper and it should be strong enough for rc.
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Jnewboy
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Jnewboy »

Model Builder 4 wrote:Great work and attention to detail again jon, neat stamping tool for the zimmerit as well :thumbup:

Cheers, Lee.
Thanks!! :thumbup:

Yes that Amazing Putty is great! I even made a custom airbrush handle with it, so comfortable and much cheaper and better than the Grex handle.
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Jnewboy
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Re: A Tale of Two Tigers ~ Jnewboy Customs

Post by Jnewboy »

ronnie42 wrote:Hi Jnewboy Have you tried fitting the Trumpeter KT upper hull onto the HL lower ? Have the Panther and i think its a shame to hide the interior. The taigen lower is about 5 mm shorter ( easy to adjust by changing the angle of the rear plate ) but the Trumpeter upper is really nice./
PA286122.jpg
Its a cool idea but they dont line up exactly. I would like to take a Trumpeter KingTiger and put a gearbox in it with all the interior detail, then hide all the rest of the electronics in the rear maybe? You would have to not build the engine and hollow it all out. I guess the main point of this build is to show that with some patience, skill and time you can bring a HengLong up to the quality of a Trumpeter or at least very close but of course it requires completely replacing parts like the gun mantlet, its the same sort of thing as the Henglong Jagdpanther, swap some parts out with Tamiya parts and it looks great... maybe thats cheating? :D
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