Tiger 412 - s.pz.abt 506 - Ardennes Offensive

[Tailend charlie]

Man that looks good. Now you have drive a tank around with the escape hatch open just to show it off.
This is going to be one heck of a detailed tank. Keep it up.

[grim_marmazet]

Today i've been working on the Turret bin. I wanted to make it look dented and shot through, just to add the feeling that this tank has been around. It was too hard to do this with the thick plastic Tamiya used for the walls, so I replaced them with brass.
The first picture shows the removal and clean-up of the bin lids, as I plan to make them functional. But the lids will come later.



The next picture shows the piece of plasticard used to make the bottom of the bin flat as Tamiya seem to have left a hole in it, probably for easier molding.



The next four pictures show the process used to shape the brass and add it to the bin. I cut out the plastic in areas I plan to have a bit of battle damage, making sure to leave a support in the middle just to keep the shape. I used paper taped round the bin, then used a pencil to mark the edges. I stuck this down to 0.3mm brass sheet and cut it out with scissors.
A very messy job with epoxy resin held it down to the plastic. Now im just sanding it down and adding some touches of milliput to fill a few gaps. I plan on using 1mm rivets from Scale Hardware to do the rivets on the top and sides of the bin. I cannot recommend these guys enough, there parts are amazing and shipping from the States for ony $3 and it always arrives in less than a week.






Once it's cleaned up and i've added the rivets i'll start on the battle damage.
Cheers,
Rik

[grim_marmazet]

A couple of questions for anyone who may know/

Firstly what was stored in the turret bin? The only reference I could find was from a wildly inaccurate British assesment of the Tiger saying it was spare track links. Is this true, or was it just for general storage?

Secondly the Aber side fender kits show a washer to go under the bolts that hold the fenders on (see picture). I cant find a good enough quality picture to confirm if these were really there or not. Does anyone know?



Cheers,
Rik

[Tailend charlie]

Hey Grim,
    From my Tiger tank reference book they used them starting Jan. '43 when they modified the side track guards to include triangle braces. Bin looks real good.

  Richard

[Rivetcounter]

Firstly you are correct in that the Germans used the stowage bin for spare track links and pins but also would have stowed just about anything else they had like zeltbahns spare uniforms etc important things like mess tins and water bottles where stowed inside the tank.

the washers you are talking about where a locking washer as you can see from the diagram the straight part was bent over the side of the fender but what you cant see is that part of the radius was bent over or up against one side of the bolt

[grim_marmazet]

Thanks for the advice guys. Mine is a hybrid, so I haven't decided if i'll have them yet. I'm starting to think they look nice without them.

the washers you are talking about where a locking washer as you can see from the diagram the straight part was bent over the side of the fender but what you cant see is that part of the radius was bent over or up against one side of the bolt

Rivet do you mean the bottom edge of the washer would be bent up against the bolt? If I use them, I would like it to be as accurate as possible.

Cheers,
Rik

[Rivetcounter]

Rik,
That's right but you may struggle to do this owing to the size of the washers and bolts

[grim_marmazet]

It may be a bit fiddly, but hopefully the etchmate 3c i've got should help with it.
Cheers,
Rik

[grim_marmazet]

A couple more photo's of work in progress. Bear in mind, these parts aren't finished and there's much more to do. I'm also waiting on several parts to be delivered.

The first pictures show the uprated speaker, Tamiya's default one is 4 ohm, i've bumped it up to an 8 ohm one. It gives a nice deeper rumble. The next picture shows the cut down speaker box. I still need to box in the open sides with styrene. Then it'll be attached in. This leaves me with a nice amount of room for some future mods.




Next is the headlights. They are the schumo ones, which the detail is amazing on. For bulbs i've used 3mm grain of rices bulbs. The light from them in a bit more realistic than the bright white light of LED's. They're not wired in at the moment, but will be connected to an RC switch so they can be controlled by the transmitter (I knew there was a reason I bought a 6 channel setup  ).



Up next is the Co-axial MG. I've used another Tamiya MG from my KT which ive mounted in the mantlet. I know it sticks out a little bit far, but i needed the back end to clear the recoil motor, which it does just, lol. 




I unfortunately broke the LED in the MG base, so i've had to order replacement ones. I've decided to go with yellow, as the orange colour of the Tamiya ones just never looked right to me. I have a plan to allow me to change between the hull and co-axial using the transmitter. Its crude, but should be effective. Pictures of that to come soon.

There's still a lot more to go, but im hoping to have the internal components finished soon, then its pure detailing again.

Tell me what you think guys,
Rik

[Tailend charlie]

Looks real good. I thought of putting the MG in the mantlet, but not active. Good thought. I instead put my battle emitter there. The lights, are you using 12v? That should give it a dimmer more scale like glow.  I would like to know how the sound is in a smaller box. This is going to be a great not only looking Tiger, but one with tricks too! Keep up the innovations.