Cheap Tiger 1. Not so Cheap

[Meter rat]

Free long weekend. The wife is away, on a girls holiday to somewhere or other. Went with the option of changing over the rear decks. Picked up a pad saw and a couple of blades.

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Rear deck marked up.

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No going back now.

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A looks good and fits. Waiting on the glue to dry overnight then some filler.

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Would any know if the Tamiya recoil will work with a Heng Long system?
I’m now waiting for parts, and accessories from different companies.

Regards Ian

[Jimster]

Thought I would throw this pic on here just for fun.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PainlessWolf]

Good Afternoon!
Lets keep him Company!
regards,
Painless

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[Jimster]

Ha ha! Yup, he needs to get into the spirit of things!

[Meter rat]

Managed to get some more work done on this today.
Grafted the front mudguards on, and removed the driver’s vision port.I am waiting on this, along with other parts, to come from Dave at Forgebear.

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Hobby Boss track links fit with Tamiya tracks. This is to replace the broken one that came with the model. The tank came withe plastic tracks and I thought about using the the ones I had made for the static model. As there were a few spare HB links, why not try?

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The repair parts for the rear idler are with Royal Mail. By next week I may have a working chassis.

Gun barrel has been made to fit.

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This looks better, although I had to repair it, as the end had been broken off at some point and been repaired with some tube externally. It now has some aluminium tube inside. It need some filler and cleaning up.

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I think this Tiger is going to be either 331, or 332 of 7PzDiv, 3 Company, Heavy Pz Abt 503, commanded by Richard Freiherr Von Rosen. Photos in his book Panzer Ace show that this is close to what mine looks like.

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Then I got distracted. It’s hard to concentrate when this passes the bottom of the garden.

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Regards Ian

[Panzermechaniker]

What was the issue with the original top hull piece that made you use the Hobby Boss to replace it? I agree it's a weak part of the Tamiya kit and gets worse and worse fitting as you beat the hell out of it over the years plus always removing to charge the battery packs but I would have thought you could have got it to sit properly again with some magnets and a little bit of reinforcement. Mine has been run very hard at the field and is at that point where I am going that route to keep it in place. It's a very robust kit otherwise

[Meter rat]

What was the issue with the original top hull piece that made you use the Hobby Boss to replace it? I agree it's a weak part of the Tamiya kit and gets worse and worse fitting as you beat the hell out of it over the years plus always removing to charge the battery packs but I would have thought you could have got it to sit properly again with some magnets and a little bit of reinforcement. Mine has been run very hard at the field and is at that point where I am going that route to keep it in place. It's a very robust kit otherwise

The rationale for this was to give a a budget friendly WW2 tank. The HB model was bought by my wife as a Christmas present about 4 or 5 years ago. As I am not really into WW2 models it was put away. Not wanting to tell the wife I was not really interested. She is small and very scary. I had thought about motorising it, using Heng Long parts, so had built the chassis and got no further. She then came home from a car boot sale with the Tamiya, because it is a tank and, “I like them”. This too was put into the loft. Life got in the way while we built a 1:1 house. The Tamiya really is in poor condition, with missing, damaged, and poor repairs. The photographs make it look far better than it is. To repair it was cost prohibitive to buy the sprues. But it gave good chassis, without have to mix and match parts into the HB chassis, with no guarantee of success, and at, again expense. Combining the two may give me a chance to get a working model, develop new skills, and have fun. I already have a Heng Long TX and receiver, smoker, and speaker. I will never battle any of my models. And is a cheaper way than buying a Heng Long Tiger and detailing it. Sorry for the long winded reply. I could have just said “Because I can”

[Panzermechaniker]

Ich verstehe jetzt Going to be reinforcing my Tamiya hull so was just wondering if you had seen something bad I was missing on the donor tank

[Meter rat]

Icy bin froh, dass meine erklarung sinn ergibt.

[Meter rat]

Being doing a little bit more on the Tiger.
Still not sure if the coupler is in the right position. Definitely was not in the correct place to start with. My bad. But you guys could have told me. .

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Also shown is a small amount of scratch building under the cover, for the turret vent.

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The escape hatch was also moved over. This will be where the on/off switch will be located. Maybe.

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I decided that the Tamiya gun barrel was too badly damaged and replaced it with the HB barrel, and connected it to the Tamiya recoil unit. Much thanks to John1979 and Jofaur86, for getting this working. Just need to work out how to get the elevation to work.

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And finally, the lower hull and wheels are in etch primer.

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Also rebuilt was the idler adjustment system, with new parts. This required a bit of fettling to fit. I may have a running chassis by the end of Sunday. Also I think the circuit for the gun elevation has failed. Oh well, I will rob the MFU from my T72 as this is going to be upgraded.