Matt182

Hi Phil, As yes, that semi circular join is also a little sloppy. I am intending to add some thin plastic card to this piece to pack it out a little, making it a tighter fit before I glue it. The barrel I am using was a limited run item produced a few years ago which has long since sold out. Schumo is pretty much the only option now. I think the Schumo barrel connects straight to the gun assembly, doing away with the adapter piece. I personally think the 3 hatches are not enough to get a good view of the turret interior. If you fill the ammo racks you will see almost nothing through the rear hatch. Once you have all the parts fitted and the turret is in place on the hull it gets very dark in there. Maybe consider having a removable turret roof like this: http://www.network54.com/Forum/637977/thread/1264841942 You would need to cut the roof off along the welds which meet the turret side walls. The roof would then sit on a 'ledge' created by the inner armor. I was originally going to do this on mine but I wanted the interior to be on display without the need for removable parts. It's an option worth considering and you have the Porsche turret to practice on, assuming you have the 2 in 1 kit.

Hi Phil, Good call with the super king book. David Parker's build of this kit was phenomenal and was the source of my inspiration to go the extra mile with my build. I just wish he had released the book 2 years ago when I was first starting out! That connecting piece between the barrel and the main gun assembly is a little problematic. Have you glued that part to the main assembly and left the barrel dry fit? If so, you will have problems with the sloppy fit of the barrel. Here is my fully assembled barrel. Note that I have attached the connecting piece to the barrel so it can be slid into the gun assembly. Doing it this way allows you to deal with any play in the join and the barrel can still be be removed from the rest of the gun. Any aftermarket barrel will require modification to the connecting piece. There are no barrels on the market designed as a direct replacement for the trumpeter barrel. If you haven't already glued that part in place, I would recommend doing it this way round instead.

Off to a great start Phil, good to see your progress so far. Top job with the atak zimmerit too, looking really good

Hi guys, Thanks very much for your kind comments A small update for you. I've managed to get the first batch of mg ammo bags painted and fitted to the rail on the bulkhead. Next I decided to get a job done that I had been putting off for a long time, cleaning up all the ammo. This is easily the most frustrating job I have had to do on this kit. Trumpeter clearly had a problem with the molds as all the rounds are slightly distorted. The result was quite a few evenings cleaning up the ammunition. Here they are with the PE bases supplied with the kit. Unfortunately, excessive clean up is only the beginning of the issues with the ammunition. The real tank carried 70 rounds for the main gun, 22 in the turret and 48 in the hull. Typically the ammo would be split 50/50 between AP and HE with maybe a few specialty rounds. Trumpeter gives you 48 AP, 16 HE and 8 HC, making it impossible to display a typical load out. I have only bothered to clean up 60 rounds as I only need 42 for the hull and have decided to have a few rounds missing from the turret. There are also issues with the shell bases. Trumpeter only provide 66 so there is not enough for all the shells. Another problem is that you only get 22 bases that are correctly stamped for AP rounds, just slightly short of the 48 needed! Thankfully, only 19 of the shell bases will be seen on my build so I can get around the problem but this could be an issue for others. Cheers Matt

Hi guys, Just a small update. I haven't managed to get as far as I had hoped but it's some progress at least. First, I painted up and fitted the transmission oil cooler which sits behind the gearbox. Next I added the the demolition charge (AFV modeller) to the main hull brace and the MG 34 parts box (also AFV modeller) behind the RO's seat. The tie down was scratch built from aluminium foil and solder wire. I then added the MG ammo cases and first aid box to the fighting compartment floor in front of the firewall. The first aid box had to be built from scratch as it is not included with the other AFV modeller parts. Sourcing the MG ammo cases was a little bit of a mission but I eventually found some white metal items on German ebay. They aren't perfect but they are good enough. I'm now working on the numerous MG ammo bags found around the hull. Again, these are AFV modeller parts but they are quite old castings now with more clean up required than expected. Also, the PE parts for the driver's & RO's headphones have finally arrived and will be built next. Finally, here is an overview of how the finished lower hull will look. Once the above mentioned parts are finished it will just be the ammo left to finish.

Cheers guys I've been having a little break over the last few weeks but I'm back at it now. I'm planning to have another update in the next week or so but work is slow at the moment. There are a few smaller parts that need fine tuning / scratch building which is eating up a lot of time. Then there is all that ammunition that needs to be cleaned up and prep'd for paint. Hopefully by the next update, you will be seeing the lower hull pretty much complete Cheers Matt

Great work Mike, looking very smart so far. The tracks certainly came out well

Cheers guys Must say I'm glad this part is over. Getting all the cables lined up and fitted was a very tedious task. Can't imagine how some people do this in 1/35 or smaller! Forgot to mention that all the wiring and connectors are scratch built. Trumpeter do not provide any of the parts to wire the radio, not even the plugs or connections

Hi guys, Just a small update. I finished off wiring the radio and got it fitted in place, very frustrating work The grey connectors on each radio are the power sockets. The cables run off into the box behind the loaders seat which would house the power transformers in the real tank. The small cables connected to the left of each radio transfer the radio signals to the smaller box which in turn sends the the signals through the conduit on the left. This eventually runs off to the pto where the signals are transferred to the turret. all that is missing now are the headphones which will be built later. The silver cable connected to the dashboard runs off to the power conduit that runs along the hull floor to the batteries. The two black cables that run under the dashboard are connected to the gearbox and final drive and are for the speedo and rev counter. Not much left to go in the lower hull now, mostly small bits of equipment and the oil cooler. Painting up all that ammo will be the next big job. Cheers Matt

Hi guys, Basic painting of the radio rack is now complete. Certainly not an easy job but I'm quite happy with the results. The dials on the dashboard are from Archer, they should be all black to be truly accurate but I quite like the contrasting colours. I did make a couple of small gaffs with the alignment of the dials but it's pretty much invisible to the naked eye, the camera can be cruel sometimes! I'm rather pleased how it breaks up the sea of red oxide and gives the forward compartment a lift. Next it's onto wiring the radios, this should be interesting.... Cheers Matt

Cheers Phil, Good to hear you will be posting your progress soon, looking forward to it. IICR, you were going to be concentrating on the exterior right? How far along are you? I've always thought it would be great to be paid to do a hobby. I guess there is a point though where the it ceases to be a hobby and it becomes more like work. Wise choice I think. Cheers Matt

There is a few photos of a built example over on Armorama. I can't comment on accuracy but this phot really caught my eye Moulded on tools on the fender and solid lumps of plastic for grab handles. All the detail looks kind of soft too. Seems like Dragon are taking a step backwards with every new release, except with the price!

Complete with a flawed interior that takes years to build and makes you question your sanity. Sounds perfect! Honestly though, a new family of 1/35 Crusaders would be great. I was hoping Bronco may have taken it on after they released the A13s

Cheers for the insight guys. £24.99 does seem very steep for a 70s re-pop. A new tool Crusader III is right at the top of my wish list, maybe one day...

I'm going to guess this is re-pop of the old 70s kit. Anyone built one before?

I've continued building the radio racks which is quite slow work. The rack itself is nearly finished, just a couple of small details left to add. I think I will get all the radios painted and secured in place before attempting to make all the wiring. In the real Tiger II, the radios are hung from the hull roof but seeing as I have no roof left I will have to rest it on the gearbox cover. This means that the bottom of my radio rack isn't quite accurate but its a compromise I can live with in order to secure the rack in place. Here is how it will look in once in place. Hopefully in the next update the radio rack will be painted and ready to be wired up. Cheers Matt

Cheers guys, Steve, originally I was going to glue the turret in place so it would have looked something like the below photo. However, I've had a rethink on this idea and decided against it. It would be a bit of a waste to hide some of the extra detailing I have done, especially under the turret basket which is completely hidden when the turret is in place. This photo shows a rough idea of how it looks with the turret off. The interior is much more visible this way Martin, I decided to purchase 1 or 2 AFV parts each month. That way it didn't feel like I was hammering my wallet quite so much! Cheers Matt

Hi guys, I have another small update. I built up the stowage box that sits under the turret basket (missing from the kit). Then I painted the fighting compartment floor, stowage box and added some more wiring. These wires took ages to get right, quite frustrating work if I'm honest. Just glad they are out of the way! So, that's most of the parts fitted to the lower hull. I'm going back to the radio rack next as it needs to be fitted before most of the remaining parts go in. Cheers Matt

Cheers Martin. I think a light dusting will sort it out. I can highly recommend the afv modeller parts. Most of them are really high quality but some of the older casting do need a little more clean up than usual. Some of them you could scratch yourself but they certainly save a lot of time. They are well worth the investment but as I'm sure you have seen, they aren't exactly cheap!

Cheers guys Another small update for you. Wiring for the pto fitted Gyrocompass transformer (afv modeller resin part) fitted and wired up Gyrocompass (afv modeller resin part) fitted and wired up. Drivers seat also finished and fitted You can see in some areas where the dust has managed to get in but it's not too bad. The camera really seems to exaggerate it, far less visible to the eye. Also, just for fun, I fitted the wheels, turret and main gun. Gives a good idea of overall size and roughly how it will be displayed once finished Hopefully the work around the home will be finished in the next week or so, then I can really get going again at last! Cheers Matt

Hi guys, While the house is still far too dusty to continue painting, there is nothing stopping me from building some of the remaining parts. I decided to tackle the most demanding part left of the build, the radio racks. Trumpeter decided to provide just 4 parts to cover the entire radio system and instrument panel which unsurprising, lack a lot of detail and some parts are just plain wrong. These are the trumpeter parts built up. The top radio is moulded upside down and the crew compartment ventilator is attached to the transformer, when it should be attached to the hull roof. Overall it is a really lazy error from Trumpeter, especially in this scale. Fortunately, AFV Modeller has released a replacement set with resin radios and and a photo etch frame. Unfortunately for me, my soldering skills are rubbish and there is no way the assembly will hold together with just superglue. So I decided to use the PE parts as a guide and build the rack from plastic card. It's taken a fair amount of time to build but it was reasonably straight forward. There is still a lot more to do but that's the basic rack done. I'm dreading building all the wiring though! Cheers Matt

Hi guys, thanks very much for your very kind comments Unfortunately, this project is on hold yet again. Our home renovations have gone far more in-depth than originally planned and the amount of dust around the house has put any further painting on hold. Hopefully we will be finished in a few weeks but until then, the Tiger will have to remain sealed up and packed away I did however pick up a 1/72 panzer III so I will at least have something to build in the meantime which won't get too dusty before it's finished! Cheers Matt

Thanks Edelweiss. Good luck with the Hachette Tiger, your going to have a real challenge on your hands there! Just a small update for you guys. I managed to get the gearbox, drive shafts and a couple of other parts finished and fitted. There's not really much to say here, it was all pretty straight forward using the same painting and weathering techniques as on the other parts. The radio operators seat was scratch built using magic sculpt as the kit item is just a basic lump of plastic. I am rather happy with how the driver's position has turned out so far I'm currently working on the driver's seat and some other small items which will be fitted soon, along with some additional wiring and the fighting compartment floor. Cheers Matt

For the engine dusting I used a mixture of Vallejo yellow ochre and natural umber pigments, mixed heavily with water to create a pigment wash. I then applied the wash to all the recesses where dust would accumulate and left it to dry. Once it was dry I used cotton buds and a stiff brush to tidy things up and remove excess pigment. Finally I dusted over the whole thing with dry pigment to blend it all in. Its quite an easy process but it's best to practice it on something first. It's quite easy to flood an area with far too much pigment!

Cheers guys There will be a few oil and fuel stains, as well as some grease and grime around lubricated parts. These will be quite restrained though as the tank I'm modelling had a rather short service life. I'm going more for a dirty look than anything else, in keeping with operations during the battle of the bulge and the weather in the Ardennes at that time. I'm trying to be very careful not to overdo it!