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Hey fellow Tiger Junkies, I just got the new Andy’s Hobby Headquarters 1/16 Tiger 1. It’s a massive kit of course and planning to do it right OTB. I must admit, I’m a Tiger junkie. I’ve build at least 25 various versions of the tank or more over the past many years. I couldn’t help but snatch this one up as soon as Andy released it. Having watched Andy for maybe 5-6 years on YouTube, I have always respected his progression as a business owner. He’s not a breakthrough modeler, BUT he’s great to watch, he does good reviews and he bloody loves modeling. Anyway, it’s really a Takom product that he helped in development and marketing using his channel. Nice plastic. Little flash. Crisp lines. Having built several takom kits over the years I knew it would be a tidy kit. Which it is. Overall well detailed and reasonably good directions. This is not my first go round with 1/16 scale or with a large tiger. If you’ve never built 1:16 you don’t know what you’re missing. Here’s a quick comparison of size. In 2 days and about 12 hrs of work I finished the lower hull, road wheels and tracks. Yah, like all tigers it was a bitch to get just this section done. It’s like being on a manufacturing line at Ford. But now that this repetitive work is done, the fun can begin. Overall the build so far had been relatively easy. The wheels are not glued in place so painting should be easier. But I will not go full crazy detail with every wheel. Life is too short. I’ll black coat most and then color with my chosen base. I have not chosen which version I want to build yet, but leaning towards.....yah, I’ll let you know. Short update. Sorry for the lack of good photos. Had to make dinner. I’ll have more soon.

Hi all, I'm only subjecting you to this because it's my first ever attempt at something which keeps its wheels on the ground, and a bit of an experiment in the kind of weathering you folk are so good at. It's the Tamiya kit, gifted to me years ago by an extremely talented modeller who thought I should have a crack at armour. Covid-19 was what got the motivation up enough! After Halfords primer, it's almost all Humbrol enamels through a cheap art-shop airbrush or my Hansa 381 for the camo pattern. Pinwashed with oil; tried a dot-wash with mixed results; more success with sponge-applied rust and paint wear using a red shade and a dark purple-grey, and enamel rust-stains. I tried not to go overboard as I had a feeling most Tigers didn't last long in the field before breaking down, getting stuck or getting blown up... Mud was artists' gel mixed with pigments and actual mud, and liberal amounts of pigments to 'dust' the lower parts of the hull. Decals were a b@*#%*d and a coat of Humbrol Clear reacted with water or the Solvaset to make white stains everywhere, which I have now incorporated as pants weathering effects Luckily the large numbers were the least affected but still haven't come out perfect even after 6-7 applications of Solvaset. My top moment was sweating over how the hell to paint the centres of so many wheels accurately, as they would look terrible with even the slightest smudge over the rubber tyres. In the end, attaching them to a cordless drill via a sanded pointy bit of sprue and holding a brush up to the spinning wheel produced perfect circles every time with no masking! Win! How do others achieve this? Hope the whole lot is acceptable anyway, it's been 6 years away from modelling, but it's just like riding a bike, no? Chris (Sorry for all the white-balance issues, I found it really hard to get the dunkelgelb a consistent shade through all the pictures so to get as close as possible I had to adjust it afterwards which made the background go crazy colours)!

I'm in a bit of a rush to finish building and painting my Tiger for the Tiger GB, and I'm about to construct the smoke grenade launchers that fit on the turret. In all the period photos I've seen, the launcher 'pots' are empty. But I did find one photo, here on BM, of a model Tiger where the pots are loaded with grenades. The builder had turned the grenade launcher 'pots' around so that the bottoms of the pots faced outwards, and these were painted red to look like grenades in-situ. Now, I doubt the 'heads' of grenades would have been painted red, but I did like the look of the pots being loaded up rather than empty. So, my question is, does anyone have any photos of ACTUAL Tigers with the grenade launchers loaded up, or know what colour the grenades were? Hoping for some quick responses so I can crack on! Badder

TIGER I (Early) TAMIYA 1/35th Eduard PE grill set. Friul Tracks. SCRATCH-BUILT MAYBACH HL210 ENGINE. HALFORD'S RATTLE CAN GREY PLASTIC PRIMER. MIG 'LATE GERMAN CAMOUFLAGE SET' LIGHT DUNKELGELB. ASSORTED DALER ROWNEY ACRYLIC INKS. HUMBROL DARK EARTH WEATHERING POWDER. WATER AND STIFF BRUSHES (FOR RUBBING BACK) SIGMA MICRON ARCHIVAL ACRYLIC INK PENS (SEPIA COLOURED, FOR CHIPPING) WINSOR AND NEWTON GLOSS AND MATT ACRYLIC VARNISHES. So here, at last, is my finished Tiger I (Fruhe) with the scratch-built engine that took so long to make that I had to abandon scratch-building the cooling fans. And even then I ended up running out of time in the TIGER GB. Nevertheless, I did enter this into the TIGER GB Gallery in a 'looks finished' state, 6 mins before the deadline. It was soundly, and deservedly beaten in the poll! I subsequently spent the next month and a half getting it into the state that I had actually envisaged at the outset, although I had to give up on opening up the cooling fan bay for technical reasons. (Either Tamiya's fault, or the Tiger's designers,but you can't open the fan bay cover without removing the air hoses, and their connectors, from the filter units.) Anyway, here's a load of photos. I'll be happy to answer any questions and I welcome any criticisms! BTW, THE PHOTOS WERE TAKEN UNDER ARTIFICIAL LIGHT AND THEREFORE THE WHITENESS HAS BEEN LOST. I WILL TAKE SOME PHOTOS IN NATURAL LIGHT TOMORROW AND POST THEM HERE ABOUTS. I won't be adding mud to the tracks until the Tiger's dio is ready. I 'moved' the tow cable because I originally intended to open up the cooling fan cover underneath. Now, it's simply moved aside so that the no one trips over it while working on and around the engine. When I decided to show the Tiger's engine, it required that I open up the engine cover, obviously. I quickly discovered that this was not possible as the escape hatch hinge and the rearmost of the spare track links fouled the engine cover. Hmmmm. But then a period photo provided by @Robert Stuart showed that this was the case in real life. The turret HAD to be turned to THIS angle and the rearmost spare track-link had to be removed in order that the engine cover could be opened. What clever design by the 'perfectionist' Germans! I am calling this finished, but it will get mud/debris on the tracks when the dio is ready. It's for this reason that I'm not too worried about any colour discrepencies between the various patches of mud on the Tiger. The mud of the dio will dictate the colour of the mud on the Tiger. On the whole, I'm fairly happy with the Tiger. There are things I could have done better. Feel free to criticise! TFL Badder