Opinions please, paint or not?

[MrChef]

Sooooo, I really do like how the camo scheme came out.

Do I paint the spare tracks on the turret black,etc?

Or

Do I leave the cool camo and chip and weather the tracks?

Conundrum...





Opinions please, and Much appreciated!

[HERMAN BIX]

Leave them & chip as you mentioned.
Seldom seen on models but certainly a common thing in real life.
Time and effort is against a crew to get their Tiger painted and removing tools & spare track would be a waste of both.
I like it, chip them and see

[MrChef]

Leave them & chip as you mentioned.

I like it, chip them and see

OMG, so true! If I don't like it I can just paint over

Thanks for smacking me in the nose with the obvious bat... Sometimes ya just need a little common sense encouragement

[Martin2556]

As Herman said, leave them as they are, in the field everything on the tank was painted due to lack of time.
Looking good

[Jofaur86]

Mr. Chef, personally, if I achieved this result, I would already be happy and satisfied? So I wouldn't change it. As the saying goes, "the best is the enemy of the good." Congratulations again for this superb work.

[Rob59]

Leave them as they are!
Looks damn good!
Rob.

[Dogberry]

From my point of view as somebody who hates painting my tanks, I think people stress too much about the colors and the quality of the paint job.
From what I can gather the Germans did not supply paint to the crew but supplied cans of pigments in the form of a tar like substance. This had to dissolved in any solvent to make a usable paint. The final shade and finish depended on the solvent, some sources claim water was used. The paint appears to have been applied with a “spray gun”. Think the sort of thing for spraying insecticide on fruit trees. So whilst they tried I hardly think the end result was showroom grade. There is photographic evidence that tools etc were left in place. Also during the later period of the war the red oxide undercoat was left exposed to provide another camouflage color.
The gun barrel is an interesting exception, due to heat of firing in battle the gun barrel was factory lacquered not painted because the heat would burn off any paint. This also meant that any paint applied to the main gun barrel would not last, so all those fancy kill rings were painted for the camera and would quickly discolour or peel off and any camo paint would darken to almost black. I believe there is one account of Tigers in combat where the Tigers were referred to as having black gun barrels.

[RobW]

Slightly OT, how often would those spare links be used? Most models have some many spare links on racks, but would these be used & replaced (at the end of an action) in the field or would the REME equivalents fetch out links to fix at the time?

[Herr Dr. Professor]

"[T]he Germans...supplied cans of pigments [a] tar like substance [that] had to be dissolved in any solvent." Yep, I read somewhere that even gasoline was used as a solvent. Wanna try it, MrChef? Think of the level of authenticity you could achieve. YeeHaa!

[Dogberry]

If you want authentic, why not extend it to the Zimmerit. Apply it, then get it to set with a blow lamp. Tiger "Fambe" anybody.....