Matt182

Nice work so far, particularly on the front fenders and side skirts. Was there a problem with the fit of the plate for the driver / RO's hatches? Interesting that they took the same route as Trumpeter did with the wheels. I can see the why Trumpy did it in 1/16th scale but it seems a little overkill in 1/35! Must say, good call using an AM barrel. The kit one looks pretty chunky and possibly too short. I believe this kit comes with transport tracks? If so, can you tell me if the drive sprocket has 18 or 9 teeth please. I'm tempted to get this kit, looks pretty good. Cheers Matt

These links may be of some help. It's based on the radio sets for tigers/panthers but they also used the FuG5 radio sets. Some nice photos of a restored and wired up radio set in the second link. http://www.network54.com/Forum/637977/thread/1285312898/radio+antenna+arrangment http://www.network54.com/Forum/637977/thread/1259781912/Germany+calling+-+radio+work+in+progress Cheers Matt

Hi all, Just a little update, I've now finish the running gear. Each road wheel is made up of 5 parts, 5 parts for each idler and 2 parts for each sprocket. So that was 104 parts to sand down and clean up, great fun! The sprockets, idlers and the hub covers for the inner road wheels also had some texture added with mister surfacer. Some poly caps are provided for the road wheels and sprockets but I didn't use them . I'm not really sure why trumpeter provided poly caps as it makes no difference to the build and I doubt anyone will be pushing their tiger around on the carpet Next up is cleaning up the ammunition for the 88. Another fun task... Cheers Matt

Excellent work, very impressive scratch building. Cheers Matt

Looks excellent, Nice work Brian.

Looks excellent, Nice work Brian.

How did I miss this earlier? This is bloody fantastic, great work!

Hi guys, thanks very much for your kind comments I was hoping to have another update by now but I haven't found much time lately. The Boss has also ordered that I clear most of the kit away for the Christmas period. Plies of scratch building materials, tools and the mess that goes with it are now strictly off limits until the new year. If I'm honest it's probably a good thing as I almost suffered burnout last week after losing my rag with some of the scratch building. I am making some progress though. I've decided now would be a good time to tackle some of the simpler, yet boring tasks which would be nice to get out of the way. These tasks are mainly the road wheels / sprockets / idlers, main gun ammunition and the tracks. I have all the wheels and idlers finished and am just working on the sprockets now. Next will be cleaning up all the main gun rounds and then filling all the pin marks in the tracks. I'll post up some photos once these chores tasks are done. Cheers Matt

Fantastic work, the weathering on the tracks looks brilliant.

Thanks for your comments Jack. I must be quite a tiger fan to go this nuts on a kit! I do wonder if i'm a little mad I think whats driving me through this build is the challenge of building one of my favourite subjects to the best of my abilities. I'm also learning a lot about how these tanks were built and how they worked. I find it all adds to the experience. Well, as promised I have another update Firstly I finished off the gearbox cover by adding all the rivets, retaining strap, oil level gauge, additional levers and minor details Gearbox and transmission all together although still not quite finished Next, as mentioned in my previous post, I moved onto the engine bay. Trumpeter, in their strange wisdom, decided to base the engine bay on a Panther. At first glance they are quite similar but there are quite a few differences. First job was to correct the fuel tanks which are provided as to seperate tanks linked together. In the King Tiger these fuel tanks were actually one large one. I added plastic card inbetween the two tanks to turn them into one tank Next I moved onto the those fire walls I was rambling on about earlier. The large raised section in the photo below is supposed to be the connection from the engine bay to the fan boxes. This is again based on a Panther and is the wrong shape and profile. I also added some weld detail and some plastic card to the sponson floors. So, I had to cut this section out and reshape the opening into a rectangle. This wasn't a fun job seeing as I had already glued the fire walls in place Then I added the mounting plate to each cut out to finish them off Next I got started on the radiators and fan boxes. Here is a mock up of what the kit provides The radiators go together easily enough but the fit of the parts for the cooling fan is pretty terrible. Nothing lines up! This isn't too much of an issue as they need to be modified anyway. I made the following modifications 1. Drilled out the lumps around the fan housing to represent lifting hooks 2. Replace the fan blades with 8 larger blades. The fan in the kit is again from a Panther 3. Boxed in the sides on the fan housing. Left as they are, the kit parts are completely open and would be useless on the real vehicle 4. Added an exstension to the inner side to meet up with the fire wall cut out Finally, a test fit of the left side fan box and fuel tank Next up is building the right side fan box and adding the fuel lines to the tanks. After that, onto the Maybach engine Cheers Matt

So typical. I splash out on the Otto Carius mid tiger and then they release pretty much the same kit in the standard line I can vouch that it is a very nice kit, the zimmerit is very well done. Hopefully dragon will release the late tiger with this new tool zim

Great work! Very nice variation in the tone of the base color. It looks just right. Keep up the good work Cheers Matt

Hi all, many thanks for your comments, glad you are enjoying the build. I should have another update ready soon. Iv'e now pretty much finished the transmission and gearbox and I have moved onto the engine bay for a change of scenery. I have however made a bit of a gaff with the engine bay fire walls. Back in June when I glued in the fire walls I completely forgot that the connection points for the radiator boxes are the wrong size and shape. The kit parts depict those found in a panther. Now that I am correcting the radiator boxes (kit parts also copied from a panther) they no longer fit well to the fire walls. So, I have to try and cut out and rebuild the connections with the fire walls in situ. Needless to say I'm a little worried about doing this but I've left myself with no choice. If i'm not making much sense now i'm sure the pictures in the next update will explain what i'm rambling on about. Fingers crossed I get this right!

Lovely work OZ The fading and chipping look excellent, just right in my opinion. Which tracks are you going to use? Fruil?

Lovely work so far. Please keep the updates coming Tempting me to pick up one of these kits

Mike, Mick, thanks for your comments, I've made some more progress, starting with the padding for the drivers seat (still a work in progress) Next I moved onto the transmission, adding some missing detail. The most complex piece was the secondary throttle pedal which is completely missing from the kit. It took a good few hours to build it. I also built the drivers floor plate and started work on the gearbox cover Finally a couple of pics with all the parts fitted. The oil tank behind the gearbox was built from the kit parts. Cheers Matt

Hi Mike, Marytn, thanks very much for your comments Mike, I don't think there is any good time to start this kit, you just have to take the plunge When you start your's, will you be blogging your progress? Sometimes I look back at when I started this kit and can't beleive it's taken over 5 months to get this far! However I'm starting to feel like I will be reaching a big milestone when the fighting compartment is complete. I think this part of the kit requires the most dedication due to the amount of missing or incorrect detail. I will most likely take a break once I finish construction of this area do a nice easy build to avoid burnout. In saying that, I have edged a little bit closer. I have completed the throttle linkage which is all scratch built. Even the throttle pedal had to be built from scratch as the kit item is far too small and poorly detailed Next I moved onto the the drivers chair. The kit item is rather awful and lacking detail so I built a new one. I'm still working on the padding for the seat and there is still a couple of extra details to add. This is how it looks in position Cheers Matt

Hi all, Time for another update First off I added a few more fittings in the lower hull. I've added the main power conduit which supplies power to all the forward electric equipment. Also added were some mounting points for the fuel tanks and two brackets on the hull floor. I also got started on the throttle linkage. Next up I built the turret power take off and the batteries. The power take off still needs some extra detailing. Starting to look rather full in there! Next up I performed some surgery on the hull roof. From the beginning I wanted to have interior viewable without having to touch the model. Obviously the only way to do this is to have cut outs to view what is inside. So... I cut the roof and some of the side armor off Cutting the roof off solved the viewing problem but introduced a new problem. For some reason Trumpeter went to the effort of replicating the armor thickness for all of the plates except the side armor. To fix this an extra 3mm needed to be added to the thickness of the side armor. Sorting this out was a major headache and was far from fun. I've still got plenty of clean up to do Finally, this is how it looks now. Cheers Matt

Thanks guys, glad you enjoying the build Well I moved on to the fighting compartment floor, which had to be completely rebuilt. First I added the supporting brackets for the floor onto the fuel tanks and side walls. Here is what the kit provides you for the floor (slightly mutilated as I used them as templates!): There are a few mistakes here: - Trumpeter provides 3 panels when the real floor had 8 - The forward center panel is not in the kit - All the lifting holes are missing - All the tread pattern faces the same way which was not the case on the real panels So, I made all the panels from scratch Dry fit: It all looks a little wonky at the moment because the fuel tanks are still loose and it still needs a little more work. Cheers Matt

Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated So I carried on where I left off, building the torsion bars. Again a fair amount of clean up was required but I got there in the end. There is an issue with the 8 swing arms for the inner road wheels. Left how they are, the inner wheels will not fit correctly. This is how the wheels fit if they are not corrected. Notice that the swing arm dosen't fit flush with the wheels. To correct this, I had to cut down the length of the axel. And now the wheels fit flush. I then moved onto the firewall. Due to the way I will be displaying the model I decided not to do any extra details and just use the kit parts. Before: After: Finally, I built the fighting compartment fuel tanks. These still need some extra work and the fit of the parts was pretty awful, lots of filling and sanding to do Test fit. Next I will continue working on the fuel tanks and start on the fighting compartment floor. Cheers Matt

Nice clean build there, great work on those fuel lines. Painting it in an Iraqi scheme should give you some nice weathing options. Oh yeah, great photography by the way.

Nice start Peter, I have the bronco early version, it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

Hi all, It's been a while since the last update. I haven't really done any modelling for the last couple of months but i'm now starting to get back into it. I thought I would get back into this build by doing some simple assembly but as with most things in this kit, it wasn't that straight forward! I started of with the torsion bars and swing arms (54 parts in total). Work on these parts quickly slowed down due to the amount of clean up required. There is a slight mis-mould on the torsion bars which leaves 2 large mould seams. The swing arms have also have some large mould seams and there is some flash in places. The torsion bars ended up taking quite a few hours to sort out and I haven't yet got around to working on the swing arms yet. I've also done some work on the gearbox cover but there is still plenty more to do. Here is how it looks now, with the torsion bars dry fitted. Thats all for now but I hope to have more regular updates going forward. Cheers Matt

Nice work Paul, came out very well indeed. Cheers Matt

Count me in! Cheers Matt