APPROACHING JOURNEYS END.......
Well as the above title suggests, We are finaly getting to the end of the road for Tiger Ebbey .....................and probably about bloody time as well I hear you call !!
So lets have a another update to the saga.....
First off I completly replaced my broken loaders hatch as I knackered the hinge on one side ....
Next issue to address was the problem I had with my old controller - I could not fire the guns - slight disadvantage for a tank I thought to myself.
So a change to a planet system solved that problem and created another .......first shot and this happened ..
Ohh dear I thought, Well more like @"***$ and *&@####~ks ! I have not had a good run as far as the recoil system goes - so let me share it with you - I will feel much better for it ...
First off was the orgianal offering from Mr Tamiya ....
As you can see its suffered a serious mis-moulding at the factory ....
Quality control my Ar**!!!
So onto ETO armour then for an after market part to solve that problem - or so I thought ....
Here we are earlier on in the build..

However....it snapped ...
Further problems revealed themselves as well - for a start I wanted a qucker recoil for the main gun - I know -just battlefield vanity !
When I removed the required number of teeth from the recoil gear wheel - took just too many off - insert your favoured swear word here -
Then to add to Ebbeys woes it appeared that the Eto part was not passing into the barrel inner barrel sleve properly ....
B***'%r !!
So back to basics and fitted the standard Tamiya barrel retainer, a new recoil master cog thingy - bought from e-bay for a steal as it had no motors with it, and .....
Hey Presto Working recoil !! At LOOONNNNGGG last !! - I will get over this at some point - promise !!
At the Mvt show Paul Septon Kindly reconfigured Ebbeys wiring - apparantly not as the instructions said they were ...
Sadly at the MVT show I lost my turret MG somwhere in the back room area ....might well be still there under a sod prehaps ...
No time to ponder so out with a spare I had earmarked for another build ...
There now - who could tell ??
I also reworked the jack block as well - and stuck it in place ..
Next up was turning my attention to the front hatches - always looked rather bare to me when open....
As luck would have it, Custom Commander was selling off some Tiger 1 deserters sprues from the static model - hatch details but no tank commander !!
So ....
Much better - a luxery I know for a battler - but they do finnish off the model as a whole ...
Next stop - wheels !!
Going from this - the rough estate look with missing hubcaps....... ....
To this ......

These inner and outer caps were kindly cast for me by Blimp - and a superb job he made of them as well !!
Add a bit of mud ....
And a nod to the usual leaky hub syndrome that all Tiger 1's appear to have had with the later steel wheels ....
More to follow .....
Andy