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Showing results for tags 'Airfix Tiger I'.
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This wasn't originally a project I intended to post on Britmodeller because I didn't think it would amount to much (and it still might not!). If anyone looking in is a tank purist it may be worth looking away now as I'm still a novice at this and kind of making it up as I go along. It'll end up an artistic version rather than an accurate one. The project began as an idea to fill some time when I'm not at home. I thought I'd buy something really cheap, that I wasn't bothered about if it didn't turn out well - primarily because I wouldn't have access to my usual kit building stuff. Next I had to decide what to get - I'd enjoyed making the Panther and Tiger for the D-Day Group build so much that I thought I'd like to make another tank. I figured a tank would be small and compact and wouldn't have so many parts that might be easily broken. Then, while in a local toy shop, I saw this: and figured it would be okay to just glue together and paint - a bit like kit building when I was a kid. However, when I actually looked in the box I realised it was obviously quite an old kit in a nice new box. When I got chance I decided to do some checking online and discovered, from looking at photos of completed, OOB versions of the kit, that it was quite a bit different from the nice artwork on the box and most photos of the original Tiger tanks that I found. To be fair I wasn't too bothered at this stage as it was going to be a project just to fill some spare time. I put together some paints, glue, a needle file and a bit of fine emery paper in a plastic, lunch tub type box and, at the first opportunity I got, started work. Now, as it wasn't going to be a project to post on BM I didn't bother taking any photos at the start so there's none from these early stages. It was only when I got it looking like it does in the first photo below that I figured someone might be interested. The first job I did was to remove any flash and seam lines - there was a fair amount. Then I started painting the wheels. The detail on them isn't great but I figured with some weathering they'd be okay. I then started looking at the rest of the kit and my head wouldn't let me ignore some of the missing or incomplete details. Looking at things like the missing mudguards I figured I could fabricate them out of scrap plastic. When I was checking my scrap box at home later I realised I might have some bits and pieces left over from my D-Day builds and sure enough I had. In this first set of photos anything in light grey is left over parts from the Dragon Tiger kit. Brown plastic parts are from the spare sprue Sgt.Squarehead kindly sent me to use for the individual track links for the side of the Dragon Tiger's turret ( - if the Sarge drops by he can probably confirm which kit the sprue was originally from) - there were a lot of extra bits on the sprue that I've used, including the front mudguards, light and machine gun. Anything in white is either filler, micro-strip plastic or Evergreen plastic sheet. The exhaust shields were made by cutting up a Red Bull can with scissors and rolling the pieces around a drill bit. There are now a lot of photos so I'll load them in three separate posts. A bit of drilling done: Stowage box from Evergreen sheet and micro-strip: That's it for the first set. Next set of photos below. Kind regards, Stix