About that time I discovered this site, and after seeing some of the fabulous Tiger transformations created by you guys I realised that the poor old HL might need a bit of work to make it a little more realistic. From scanning through hundreds of Tiger images on the web and seeing the great builds by Jimster, Rob59 et al, I decided to build an 'initial' version of the trusty T1. I love the stripped back minimalism of those early Russian front tanks, showing off the massive lower hull and squared-off design, as purposeful and no frills as the bulldozers and ancient tractors I grew up with back home in 1970s Cornwall. The first job was to cut off the side fenders and mudguards. I'm more accustomed to working on 1:1 wheeled stuff, so had to invest in a few essential tools to start off, especially a razor saw as a plain ol' hacksaw or 6" grinder seemed a heavy handed approach to a 1/16 ABS model!
Checking out videos on Youtube soon prompted me to open up the tank, with a view to strengthening the lower hull, and obviously discover what version electronics hid inside. It's here that I found out that my Tiger was of a certain vintage, running the older board with crystals ... yeah, the aeriel on the rear of the tank should have been a giveaway, but hey, I was a complete newcomer to the hobby and all things RC. Some lengths of 20mm alloy angle section plus a thicker angled cross brace made the hull less flexy, and I opted to bin the smoker as I have a loathing for smokey engines
So, I had a fenderless Tiger 1 with an out of date MFU and plastic gears that let it run way too fast. Clearly there was a whole lot of extra work (and expenditure!) to get it looking and running more like one of the 502's finest ...
Craig