"WHITE TIGER"

[billpe]

Osketten make for a nice set of rotating tooth picks.

[HERMAN BIX]

Had a very brief break in the life today after a long weekend (God Save The Queen!!)The boy got himself an injury during trials for Rep Rugby(a ruptured bursor in the shoulder) which extended things a bit as is understandable, and the mother in law(or M.I.L) was admitted to hospital(causing great angst from wife) reasons which is yet to be confirmed, but I feel was a blatant attempt to prevent father in law from attending a car show that he had worked towards for a year

Used an old car restoration process of 'high-build' to cover the last of the hull red over the add ons, and did preshading on joints etc with a thinned out matt black where appropriate. Not a lot of focus put on the pre shade black as the WW overwash will disrupt most of the under colouring.
The roadwheels again took up an awful lot of paint, to the point where I literally shot out the door & dragged off to the 'dumb-ass forgot to get more paint' shop.
Once returned, did a highlighted grey overcoat with a very small amount of light grey mixed into the XF-German grey
on the large flat areas.
Used thinned XF-63 on the more 'busy' areas.
Seemed for all the world that i'd just got myself back to the out of the box paint stage at one point, but stayed the course & covered all required..
Still much to do including the turret numbering and suchlike, but can now see the finish line pre White-Wash at least.

[ALPHA]

Looking Good Herman

Take your time... take care of the family

Happy Tanking

Cheers Sir

ALPHA

[Markocaster]

Looking real good Herman

[HERMAN BIX]

Thanks lads, the paint has taken on a definite blue hue which is surprising after the lightening of it with the light grey.
The look is pretty well as I had hoped with a combination of darker & more faded areas, the cam pattern as illustrated will ,with luck, look as right as it can, then seal before the white wash & weathering goes on.
I will fit the rubber tyres to the roadwheels then do the cam pattern, they would not have worried about paint on the tyres in '43 thats a safe bet.!!
I will need to make some sort of stencil to do the turret numbers, but again, the WW will cover these to the point of being invisible as per the subject photo.
With no visible crosses, and no turret numbers, it must have been a mission in its self to retain cohesive field activities radios or not !
Hes outside basking in the sun right now to see if a bit of U.V. raises anything Im not happy with.
Ive got the display base in mind, but its going to be a big space invader & Im not sure where to put another this size.
Anyway, thats another days problem !!!!

[PainlessWolf]

Herman,
Very, very, very good paint job! ;o) It looks quite a bit like the high end Tiger 1 that Taigen puts out and those guys are Wizs with an Air Brush. Looking forward to more.
regards,
Painless

[jarndice]

Herman, lovely build. shaun

[HERMAN BIX]

Thanks Mr Jarndice & Mr Painless, I will admit to being conservatively stoked with the grey. As you both know, the nerves on comitting the outer coat of any colour can be daunting & I was sweating like "Rolf Harris at a Wiggles concert", but some days you have to take a leap of faith & back the fact that oven cleaner can remove all trace of failure !!
Im glad I have a vertical feed airbrush, it only hold 10mls of paint, and as it emptied out, I added drops of the Tamiya XF 66 light grey to the mix- shook to mix(like the nerves wern't enough !!) and covered the required areas.
I feel that the 'on-the-fly' adding & thinning was in some way a representation of the inconsistent paint application at the time. Factory or field, these leviathans take a lot of painting and there is little likelyhood of the mix being spot on every coat...............even at the low end of production dates & numbers.
I will say though, that under the downlights inside at night as he sits, the blue-grey hue is captivating. Outside in natural light hes a pretty good dark and faded mix as I hoped.

As a sideline.............metal roadwheels.
Took all the tyres off as were supplied fitted to the wheel assemblies I bought. Watching TV, having a J.D. not really listening to wife as she commented about the day etc etc...............a long time back.
Last night I put them all back on.
wont fit.??
Seemed I had to force them on the raised centres, tried rolling them under my hand on the tiled floor to even them out.
Heres the tip.................there is a plain side AND a side with a slight raised flange face on each tyre.
The plain sides go back to back on the cojoined wheels with the raised faces to the outer.
The outer wheels respectively have the raised faces on the out side.
Seems simple- and it is, but if you are not looking for the details, there is a lot of unecessary effort put in for no result. A bit like your first date in your mates borrowed car, after a crap movie !.

[jarndice]

Herman thanks for the information on the tyres, the problem I had was removing the wheels, it was a Torro early model so I removed the grub screws then using a hex spanner turned the retaining screws expecting the wheels to come off, WRONG! The early Torro Tigers axles were force pressed into the suspension drop arm, I spent a happy afternoon sawing through the axles then drilling out the remains of the axles with the Dremel. I have often marvelled at the added effort you get with the use of the odd swear word, and I thought that building Tanks would be fun. My first adventure with a girl found me and her in a state of undress behind the stage curtain of the local village hall, when the late and truthfully great PC Phillip Cracknell shone his torch upon us declaring " I KNOW YOU " oh the shame. shaun

[HERMAN BIX]

HAAAAAAAAHAha !!!!!...........isnt it a lost charm that the local cop(PC) actually had respect and a very real connection to your parents back then !!!!

The tyres were quite a f'lick on the earlobe' mate...............why is something so simple ending up so hard & annoying ??!
I have fitted new metal suspension arms, and soon the roadwheels will be refitted. Not convinced the threads on the axle screw match the ones on the arms, but it could be that they are tapped real tight. Soon see eh.
I agree with the swearing = effort thing, you should have seen me geting the hull upper back onto the lower , screwdriver one way - hull upper the other - yellow card from the wife - snigering from the offspring.
3 drinks, 2 spare screws, plenty of self abuse ...............the sound of harps & whales when the ^%%$(*^&$$#$# thing went on..........................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!