HL 210 MAYBACH ENGINE, FOR TIGER 1 (EARLY)

[Badder]

 

MAYBACH HL210 P45 ENGINE

FOR TAMIYA 1/35th TIGER I EARLY (Frühe)

MM Series Kit no. 216

 

SCRATCH BUILD

HAND TOOLS ONLY

 

Sorry, but I just can't resist the temptation!

Besides, this may fail disastrously and it's better to fail HERE and now than during the Pz VI (Tiger) STGB itself.

 

 

So, I bought this Tiger a while back now, specifically for the forthcoming Pz VI Tiger STGB, which just won't come quickly enough! It's a very old, but good kit, and in my opinion it depicts the best looking Tiger I of all. The S-mine dischargers, high commander's cupola, the bulky air filtration system at the rear and the absence of Zimmerit are all 'added extras' that later Tigers lacked (making the later Tigers less appealing, to my eye anyway)

 

And, having recently completed a whitewashed Nashorn,and previous to that a whitewashed Sherman, I thought I'd continue with that theme for this Tiger I.

 (BTW, IF you haven't been down there, get yourselves to the Group Builds section and vote for your THREE favourites in the Pz IV STGB!) 

 

    But, having settled on that, I realised this wasn't going to be much of a challenge - and famous last words here - because I THINK I've sussed out my whitewashing technique, and a 'Snow Tiger' would be a relatively quick and easy build, and only a slightly harder 'paint'. So, I thought about depicting the Tiger abandoned and looking rather worse for wear. And then I thought 'why not fire a round or two into it and blow some covers open?'

 

Yes! That's the answer! Blow some grills/covers off the rear and expose the interior.

 

I just happened to have a rather bad, but completed, Tiger I mid. It was my first 'entry' when joining BM and it sat in a street diorama called 'Somewhere near Villers Bocage' or maybe just 'Villers Bocage'. Well, that dio doesn't exist any more and the tank itself has been sitting on a shelf for a few years, gradually 'falling' to pieces. For 'falling to pieces' read 'having bits and pieces broken off, either deliberately, or accidentally.'

To see if my idea was feasible, I set about removing the cover over the cooling fans RHS, and one of the front fenders LHS. Yep, it was do-able, although the grills over the fans have a different er.... grill pattern.... than the early type.

Having removed them successfully, and having limited damage to the remaining structure to a bare minimum, I set about removing the fan cover from the 'new' Tiger.

I now have a Tiger's upper hull with an 'amputated'  fan cover RHS, and a hole where I've not fixed the engine cover, and  a lower hull with nothing in it. So I can dry-fit the two parts together and stare down into a big cavernous hole.

 

What it needs then, are smashed-up cooling fans (there are two per side) and a dirty great big Maybach engine and its accessories.

But I'm not forking out money on them straight off. I will attempt to build it all in plastic and wire and spare PE, using hand tools alone.

 

IF I succeed, it will be popped into my Tiger I when the STGB commences and the construction reaches that stage. Otherwise, I will give up on the scratch-build idea and explore the dearer options.

BTW, there is a '25' percent rule which states that a model may enter the STGB  so long as it has not been constructed past the 25 percent stage. An engine and some additional pieces shouldn't break this rule.

Wish me luck!

 

Badder

 

 

ps, IF THIS IS THE 'WRONG' THING TO DO WITH REGARDS TO AN STGB, PLEASE INFORM ME AND I WILL CEASE THIS THREAD AND HANG FIRE.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Badder

[BlackMax12]

You don't set your sights too high do you?  Sounds like an interesting

project making a Maybach from bits and bobs. 

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Take care,

 

Lloyd 

[Badder]

44 minutes ago, BlackMax12 said:

You don't set your sights too high do you?  Sounds like an interesting

project making a Maybach from bits and bobs. 

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Take care,

 

Lloyd 

Hi LLLLLLoyddddd,

I'm not going to be millimetre perfect here, let alone micrometre perfect,  but I hope to get all of the components represented in some form, or another.

I WILL keep you posted!

 

Rearguards,

BADDER

 

[BlackMax12]

Badder

 

Haven't heard much from you for a while.

 

You know the Trumpeter 1/16 Maybach engines for the King Tigers, Jagdtiger and now the Panther G all have about 140

pieces in them. Unfortunately when you put all of that in place and stick the huge air cleaner on top you can't see

bugger-all. Soooo you should be able to get bye with just a representation of the valve covers, the air cleaner and

the big hoses on each side, most will be hidden anyways.

 

Good luck.

 

Lloyd

[Badder]

Hi LLoyd,

This will be my main reference material:

 

 

In the first instance, this video proved most informative as it confirmed that Initial/Early Tigers were fitted with the engine with THREE air filters on the top - and not the engines with TWO air filters which I've seen in some model EARLY Tigers. The engine with two air filters was fitted in Mid-Late Tigers and Panthers etc.

 

I'll also be referring to diagrams and 1/35th model engines for dimensional information.

 

 

And of course, I'll not be worrying about things that will be impossible to see, and only worrying a bit about things that are JUST possible to see.

 

 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BlackMax12]

So the 3 dinky air filters don't hide as much as the big boy filter on the HL230. Too bad, that means

more Badder magic to show the whole top of the engine.  Geez, that's a project, see you next year.

 

Lloyd

[Badder]

3 minutes ago, BlackMax12 said:

So the 3 dinky air filters don't hide as much as the big boy filter on the HL230. Too bad, that means

more Badder magic to show the whole top of the engine.  Geez, that's a project, see you next year.

 

Lloyd

At this scale, I'm happy to equal the AM engine kits and add a few wires here and there. Anything more than that and I'd have to turn myself in to the place with the nice quilted walls.

 

Badder

[BlackMax12]

And the jackets with the wrap-around arms.

 

Lloyd

[Badder]

I'll be working on the 3D printing principle... building a 'block' from the ground up, sheet of plastic by sheet of plastic, and carving/sanding these to the basic form, and adding components to the sides/top as I go. My immediate thought is that wheels from old tanks can be the 'seeds' from which the air filters will grow.

 

Most difficult will be the cooling fans, I think, but a good old AP round should make a complete mess of them and save me from having to model the blades!

 

I'm a bit drunk, so I will have to go now, but work will commence tomorrow.

 

Reargaurds

Badder

 

 

[Hewy]

  sobered up yet? 😁

[Badder]

Yeah, thanks Glynn,

A big dose of insulin does wonders for hangovers!

 

I've just found another good source of info for this attempt at scratching.... should anyone else want photos AND engineering drawings of the HL210

http://alanhamby.com/maybach.shtml

 

The overhead photo of the engine in-situ shows how little of the engine I need to model accurately - or most accurately anyway. With the engine cover raised and the engine sitting between the firewalls, I can use this particular photo as a guide to the dimensions of the engine.

 

 

 

Now, where's my dividers......

 

Although this photo was taken slightly 'off the perpendicular' it does JUST capture the full extent of the opened engine hatch (marked in red)  Obviously, the bay itself is larger than the aperture, extending underneath the panel topmost of the photo (rear of the vehicle) and underneath the panel bottom-most of the photo.

But,  I can shrink this photo down to fit the actual opening in the kit's rear deck and  - making allowances for the slight foreshortening - use this as the 'blueprint' for the plan view of the engine.

 

 

Using the custom zoom function on my lappy, I shrank this photo down to 29 percent, and laid my Tiger's upper hull over the photo.

 

This seems just about right for size. I can now use the 29% photo as the 1:1 blueprint for the upper areas of the engine, taking measurements directly from the screen with a pair of dividers.

 

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2019 by Badder

[Badder]

BTW, IF you use a pair of dividers to take measurements directly from YOUR lappy screen DO NOT PRESS TOO HARD!

Anyone got a cloth cos this stuff is gooey!

Edited March 30, 2019 by Badder

[Badder]

Life got in the way today, but I did rough out the panels which surround the engine bay. Judging where the transverse firewall goes was the hardest part. There are markings on the sponsons within the tub, (presumably for the intended motorized version of the kit) and I did wonder if any of them corresponded to the firewall location, but it seems not. Whilst testing different locations for the firewall I had to 'nibble' the bottom edge to accommodate some of the internal structures on the hull interior.

In the end I found the right location ... well, close enough.

Here it is dry-fitted. The upper hull and lower hull aren't fixed together either (obviously) The firewall will be removed and the roughed-out  side panels will be fixed to it. I can then go ahead and start on the engine itself, knowing that it just has to fit within this '3-sided box'.

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

[Badder]

I  tacked the transverse firewall in place with a couple of blobs of CA and then filed/sanded the side walls to fit. Here they are dry-fitted:

 

The 'nibbles' taken out along the bottom of the firewall won't be visible, however, I intend to line the bay with paper and add details such as wiring/junction boxes etc

 

Extreme right in the photo above, is a fixed panel. This was removed when an engine was installed, uninstalled. When all was in place and closed up, the large circular cap gave access to the snorkel tube. The '+' screw beside it gave access to a different air intake. Later, the snorkel function was abandoned, and access to the other air intake was deemed unnecessary, so the screw was welded shut (as with the Bovington Tiger) and subsequently removed altogether. 

 

TFL

Badder

[Badder]

Having measured the width of the engine bay aperture on the rear deck, I thin CA'd the transverse firewall square across a piece of graph paper and then positioned the two side walls to butt against it with a gap of 29mm between each. Thin CA was again used to fix the side walls to the paper, and to the firewall. Capillary action draws the thin CA into the paper and turns it into a fairly rigid plastic-like material, helping to hold the side walls square and true. The excess graph paper was then trimmed off. A square of graph paper was then added to the vertical firewall, simply as a visual aid for centralizing components.

 

Here is the assembly test-fitted:

 

 

 

The assembly has now been removed and work can continue 'off the model'.

 

With regards to the engine itself, I'll be making the crank case from the outer case of a felt tipped pen.....

 

TFL

Badder

Edited March 31, 2019 by Badder

[Badder]

Originally, I had intended to make the air filters from spare wheels/return rollers, or steal them from old models. I found some spare return rollers from an old Dragon Imperial Series StuG III which I built a few years ago now (and no longer exists)

Unfortunately, they were a bit on the small side.

 

 

However, I realised they might serve as the ends of the crank case. And then, whilst searching for a felt tipped pen to use as the crank case, I found an old guard for a craft knife.... the type of lid/guard that has the split down the side. And wouldn't you know it, the return rollers fitted inside perfectly.

 

So I chopped a bit off the end of the guard, removed one side of the guard, dropped the return rollers inside and re-fixed the side to make this:

 

 

This will form the crank case then, and oriented with the flanges on the vertical axis, the bottom flange will serve as the mount for the engine and the top as the base for the cylinder block.

 

I'm going to trim the far end of the lid off and extend the cylinder with a screw cap from a hypodermic needle. The needle itself will be retained as a reamer for my airbrush. (There are very few benefits of being type 1 diabetic, but there's two examples for you) 

 

 

TFL

Badder

[FrancisGL]

A very interesting and ingenious scratch, as always, I will love to see the result ...

 

Cheers Badder 👍

[Badder]

13 hours ago, FrancisGL said:

A very interesting and ingenious scratch, as always, I will love to see the result ...

 

Cheers Badder 👍

Hi mate,

With 6 weeks to go until the Tiger STGB, this mini-project is going to be a slow burner, but I am constantly on the look out for suitable 'spares' that might serves as engine parts, What I've made so far is just a 'seed' from which the engine will grow. I will be having a look at the next stage over the next few days, building the lower half of the engine. I suspect that'll involve plasticard and possibly 'foam board'.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Robert Stuart]

Alright

I've just spotted this.

Working on it away from the Tiger STGB makes sense.

Working on it at all?  Hmmmm 🤔

 

Good luck with this project, I'll be happy to watch ...

[Badder]

8 hours ago, Robert Stuart said:

Alright

I've just spotted this.

Working on it away from the Tiger STGB makes sense.

Working on it at all?  Hmmmm 🤔

 

Good luck with this project, I'll be happy to watch ...

Hi Robert,

You probably know this, but for those who don't, there's a 25% rule which says a model is eligible to enter the GB so long as it's not been 'built' past 25%. I think such things as making the link-and-length tracks, Friuls, etc before the GB starts is counted as that 25%. I'm not 'up' on what the limits are on making the wheels, but for Tigers, which have a lot, I suspect that may also count as the limit.

An engine though is well below the limit, So far I've used just 4 parts and 1 of those has turned out to be completely unnecessary. I shouldn't think there'll be much more than 25 parts all together. And as I said, I may not get that far before the GB starts. I was just itching to try scratch-building an engine, but if anyone thinks it's being a 'bad sport' or whatever, I'll stop the build.

TBH though, I'm more deeply involved with making bushes and plants for my Ever Evolving Dio.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Badder]

Members will know that I abandoned this WIP on moral grounds - deciding that making this engine BEFORE the Tiger GB started, was wrong.

 

For those who are interested, the Tiger GB is now entering its second month and I am about to re-start the scratch-building of this HL210 engine.

I say 're-start', but it's actually a 'starting anew'.

So, to see my attempt/possible capitulation, get yourselves down to the darkest depths of the forums, find the Tiger GB and have a look at my 'Hidden Tiger, crouching Tamiya' WIP.

 

Rearguards,

Badder