Revell 1:72 Tiger II Ausf. B (03129)

[alloydog]

This isn't a review of the kit or anything, just me recording the build.  It's my first proper model build for way too long, so I'll be taking it carfeully and following the instructions, mostly.  I'm not aiming for show-quality - I just don't have the skill (or patience), but I do want a neat and tidy model for wargaming.

 

First up, I gave all the parts, except the tracks, a basecoat of red oxide - genuine red oxide undercoat: If it's good enough for a car, it's good enough for my Tiger.  I sprayed the tracks silver.  I'll be doing them darker before and after installation.

 

I have only painted the outside wheels - I'm not sure how acurate that is, but I've seen so many videos and articles where they tell about how the German industry was trying to save materials, including paint, during the last couple of years of the war.

 

 

Next stage - wheels.

[Courageous]

49 minutes ago, alloydog said:

I do want a neat and tidy model

It's how it all starts, slowly but surely they'll get better and want better.

 

Stuart

[echen]

Hi

I've got this kit on the workbench at present, among several others, so I'll watch this with interest.

Have you seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyx1oNBsHCU ? I found it quite an inspiration; hope I can finish up with something like it................

atb echen

 

 

[alloydog]

On 28/08/2020 at 19:16, echen said:

Hi

I've got this kit on the workbench at present, among several others, so I'll watch this with interest.

Have you seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyx1oNBsHCU ? I found it quite an inspiration; hope I can finish up with something like it................

atb echen

 

 

That was a work of art he made!  I doubt mine will be anywhere as close to that.  But, it was good I saw about the tracks.  I now know I need to do some extra work on them, at least, to make them sit right. Thanks for the link! 👍

 

I'm doing the wheels at the moment.  One point to note - The drive wheels/sprockets, are attached to the sprue at the teeth.  I had the sprocket face-down on the cutting mat, but them noticed the position of extra plastic from the sprue before trimming it off.  Turing it over, I saw that most of it was the tooth.  I could have cut the tooth off!

Edited August 29, 2020 by alloydog

[alloydog]

I've assembled the wheels' sections.  They have been given a rough coat of paint, so when I paint them properly, if there is anywhere the brush misses or is too hard to get to, there is either sand or red primer visible.:

 

One thing I noticed, several of the larger flat surfaces, aren't flat.  This is most noticeable on the hull sides:

 

Even the pieces with the wheels on are curved.  But they should flatten out when I glue them the main hull:

[echen]

The track fitting in the video was a bit encouraging. Never done link and length before. Not looking forward to it. Plus I need to repaint the wheel rims/track base colour as I painted them rust..................................

[alloydog]

1 hour ago, echen said:

The track fitting in the video was a bit encouraging. Never done link and length before. Not looking forward to it. Plus I need to repaint the wheel rims/track base colour as I painted them rust..................................

The paint guide says to use a mix of silver and black (OK, not those exact colours, but near as dammit). I think the rims should be a dark iron colour, where as the tracks would be a lighrer steel.

[echen]

Watch the destructions for the tracks. My copy specifies the wrong link to start after the lengths.

[alloydog]

On 31/08/2020 at 11:54, echen said:

Watch the destructions for the tracks. My copy specifies the wrong link to start after the lengths.

I'll keep an eye out for that.  Thanks for the tip.

 

A bit of progress this week:

 

A was toying whether to Zimmermitt it or not.  Doing a web search along the lines of "Tiger II Normandy 1944", at first it seemed 50/50 whether it was used or not.  But closer looks seemed to reveal that it was more common, but at distance, it is hard to tell if the Zimmermitt is used.  When looking at completed models, where people has added the effect, while it does look bl**dy good, I would say it is often rather exaggerated.

 

The upper and lower hull parts didn't fit too well.  The back end bowed outwards and the front joint missed by about 1 millimetre.  Holding the parts tightly while the glue dried helped fix it.

 

I decided to go for it, but instead of cutting into the plastic, I added it on top.  I used Revell "Dark Sand" No16, straight out of the tin and daubed a thick coat on with an old brush that had seen better days.  When the paint was nearly dry, I stippled on another coat.  While it was drying, I kept dabbing the end of the brush over it, to keep it rough.

 

 

I will probably score some lines on it once it has dried properly.

Edited September 6, 2020 by alloydog

[alloydog]

Assembled and sprayed the main hull and turret.  I had a go at emphasising the Zimmermit scoring, but it would have looked horrible.  The "rough surface" effect of the pot paint still doesn't look right to my eye, but as a first go and it going to be a wargame model, I won't lose sleep over it and next time, I'll take more time with it.  I'll save that effect for when I've had a bit more practice again - haven't done it for about 35 years and my fingers aren't as delicate and dainty as they used to be 😅

 

 

One reason I'm not spending too much time trying to get it perfect, is that if I take too long, it will get shelved and join the pile of shame.  When I get this finished, I'll have "lessons learned" and hopefully the next model will be a little bit better and so on...

 

⚠️ WARNING  - The following image may be distressing or possibly offensive for perfectionists, purists and modellers who have even an ounce of decency...

 

I used this to spray the overall dark sand colour:

 

I was quite surprised about how much of a very close match it is to the Revell Dark Sand. So much so, that areas that were missed in the spraying can be touched up by brush with the pot paint.

Edited September 6, 2020 by alloydog

[echen]

Another thing I noticed with my Tiger 2 is that there's a hole in the back of the final drive housing behind the drive sprockets that shows both ends of the lower front armour. This is not a feature of the actual vehicle. You might have seen it and filled it already so apologies if you have - just thought I'd mention it.

[alloydog]

On 07/09/2020 at 11:19, echen said:

Another thing I noticed with my Tiger 2 is that there's a hole in the back of the final drive housing behind the drive sprockets that shows both ends of the lower front armour. This is not a feature of the actual vehicle. You might have seen it and filled it already so apologies if you have - just thought I'd mention it.

Thanks for pointing that out, but do you have a picture?  I can't say that I have noticed anything that doesn't look right to me.

[alloydog]

Time to paint...

The "target" period is post-D-Day, 1944, France. I did some web searches for typical paint schemes. Ignored "prototype" turret versions. Narrowed it down to two regiments: 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion and 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion. Reading from Wikipedia, it seems that the 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion was effectively knocked out by allied aircraft, where-as the 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion was badly mauled by British and Canadian armoured units. I'll paint the Tiger up as that unit.

I found some images for that battalion and time period:

Top two images are from Star Decals, while the lowest one is from a Polish book about the Tiger II - I'm trying to find the book again, to reference it properly.  The pages were stamped WARBOOK.RU.  It seems that most folk go for the "ambush" scheme, but I'm also tempted the lowest scheme.

So, advice from the forum: top middle or bottom?

[Vaastav]

Top one please. 

Great work and building.. 

[echen]

22 hours ago, alloydog said:

Thanks for pointing that out, but do you have a picture?  I can't say that I have noticed anything that doesn't look right to me.

I'd like to say this is a picture of my build to illustrate the final drive back plate.

But that would be a porky. It's a pic of the Bovington Tiger II to illustrate the back of the final drive. Note a marked absence of anything even resembling a hole.

This is the filled hole on my moulding of the vehicle and below the running gear panel in place with what would have been a hole in the back-plate

[alloydog]

1 hour ago, echen said:

I'd like to say this is a picture of my build to illustrate the final drive back plate.

Damn, man, that's some awesome brush work!

Actually, it was quite fortuitous that you posted this photo.  I had just started painting the tracks.  I used the Revell recommended mix of 70% Matt Rust (83) and Metallic Steel (91), but it looked a bit too pinkish to me:

OK, they look more pale in the photo, but the colour isn't that far from the one in the photo you posted.  Once some mud and crap has been added and some matt varnish, they should look OK. I hope.

 

1 hour ago, echen said:

This is the filled hole on my moulding of the vehicle and below the running gear panel in place with what would have been a hole in the back-plate

Big thanks for the picture.  I now see what you mean:

That will be definitely be filled before assembly! 👍

[echen]

A health warning on the track colour. These tracks have sat in a museum for years. The original owners would have been running them on metalled roads wherever they could. For some reason they objected to having them sink up to their turrets in soft ground as it took three Famos to recover them.......................

[alloydog]

Well, the weekend started out positive, but ended in doom 'n' gloom...

I filled the holes on the reverse side of the hull parts:

 

Then I got really daring and had a go at drilling out the end of the barrel.  At first it was off-centre and I was too scared to try and correct it, should I end up breaking it.  I gently scraped away at the side of the hole until it looked better.  I then painted deep inside black and metallic steel near the opening:

That's the first time I have actually drilled out the barrel.  Many moons ago, as a kid, I would use the point of a carpet knife to make an indent, which would be then painted black.  Needless to say, I was pretty chuffed with the result.

That was the end of the good times.

One of our beloved moggies knocked the model box off of the table, resulting in one of lifting-eyes from the rear of the hull and the machine gun (or is that Mac Hine gun?) being broken.  I only notice the hull piece when it fell off during painting.

 

 

The painting.  Yes.  My boss' favourite saying, when things become a total cluster f🤬☠️k is "Learning by doing".  I have never sprayed anything of detail on a model before.  I have sprayed undercoats and simple large areas, yes, but things like camouflage schemes? Nope.  I admit that this was destined to fail, since I was too clever in thinking I could do it with a can of paint, as I don't have an airbrush any more (gave it away when too many years ago).  Anyway, I masked up the hull and sprayed...

It's horrible!  Removing the masking even pulled the rear mud-flaps off!

After sitting in the lotus position, surrounded with chakra stones arranged for divine serenity**, I calmly placed everything back in the box for next weekend. 

 

**I have exactly no idea what that is all about but it sounded cool in a mumbo-jumbo sort of way.

[echen]

Gun muzzle drilling always scares me. Even with a little twist drill and fine drill bits its' tricky to centre it, even after punching a start point because the tools like skating across the surface. Yours looks good. I should imagine there are few things scarier than looking down the wrong end of an 88mm L71 from a sherman periscope!

In the absence of a moggie my mortal enemy is the carpet monster.........................

Bearing in mind the original owner/operators methods of adding camouflage the balance of your colour scheme could be added by hairy stick as rags, brooms, brushes and sprays were all used to blend the vehicles into their surroundings.

And there were often bits missing from operational AFVs.

Atb echen

[alloydog]

2 hours ago, echen said:

Bearing in mind the original owner/operators methods of adding camouflage the balance of your colour scheme could be added by hairy stick as rags, brooms, brushes and sprays were all used to blend the vehicles into their surroundings.

Yes, I had that in mind.  I have read in several places, about how the vehicles were delivered in base dark yellow, maybe with the red-oxide patches applied by the factory, but in most cases, the camo colours were supplied in tins and mixed with and applied with whatever was handy, so I guess close up, the results must have looked pretty horrible!  But, I also had in mind the amount of drop-dead gorgeous tanks models I've seen where the paint has been sprayed on.  I knew I was overstepping my skill level, but hey, you've got to try.

I have also been haunted by an article from Military Modelling magazine, way, way back in the 80s.  I had just bought the Matchbox Hanomag.  At the same time, in the magazine, there was piece covering some guy's build of the same model.  Not only was it a work of art, but the bit that stuck with me ever since (like over 35-years!) is the part where describes planning to paint the camouflage scheme, he wrote something along the lines of "I tried to think how I would reproduce four inch strokes made with a 1-inch wide brush".

So, after that, I tried to treat the models like real vehicles.  Flash forward 35+ years later and that is why I painted the whole red-oxide primer first, then gave the basecoat of dark yellow.  I've just bought a tin each of Reddish Brown and Sea Green and will be slapping it on with a 1/72nd scale mop and bucket...

2 hours ago, echen said:

And there were often bits missing from operational AFVs.

I've told myself the missing lifting eye is battle damage.

2 hours ago, echen said:

Gun muzzle drilling always scares me. Even with a little twist drill and fine drill bits its' tricky to centre it, even after punching a start point because the tools like skating across the surface. Yours looks good

Thanks!

Edited September 14, 2020 by alloydog

[alloydog]

Well, it was one step forwards, two steps back, this week.

I painted the main parts, by brush:

 

But, I was really not happy with it.  Not just actual brush work, but it looks too bright, too toy-like.  The many models I've seen online, even before things like weathering have been applied, the colours seem a bit more subdued, the edges between them not so sharp.  Even the the actual camouflage scheme seemed wrong.  The blocks of colour look too big.  Most of the examples I have seem use smaller area of colour.  Also, the strips of colour seem to go across the whole tank, like tiger stripes, mine was in blotches, more like DPM.

 

So, I decided to re-base-coat it and work on the running gear for now:

 

While digging around for clear examples to work from, especially the Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung 101, I found this thread:

I thought, "Great, the real-life paint job is just as crap as mine!" 😛

Anyway, next job is the tracks.  I've been dreading them, since there are so many small fiddly pieces.

Wish me luck and if you don't hear from me in a week, send in the dogs...

[echen]

It's annoying when work goes pair-shaped. Spent ages this week settling a decal over the detail on an M5 halftrack engine cover. It settled down perfectly. Then I noticed it was offset and had to scrape it off and repaint................................

Hope the tracks work out OK on the Tiger. I'll watch that with interest ready for when I fit mine.

[alloydog]

Putting the painting aside, I decided to start on the tracks.

You start with the "short" long piece, No.12 on the bottom of the wheels.  It seemed natural to line up the ends of piece so they were at the centre of end wheels.

 

Part 14 is maybe too long to sit nicely on the drive sprocket, so I bent it at one "link"  Obviously, it would look even better if I curved to the whole piece to add a bit of sag, but at this stage of my "getting back into modelling", I'm trying to keep the modding to a minimum.
 

Part 15 didn't sit right either and promptly "fell down" into the gap between parts 12 and 14. 😕

After fixing part 14 into place, according to the instructions, the next part is a part 16:

 

However, both parts 14 and 16 end with a ridge:

(No, I haven't glued the part 16 in place yet)
It looks like there should be a part 15 between them.

 

Looking at the instructions, you can see the drawn version of part 14 is different from the actual plastic part

 

At this point, I decided it was getting too late in the evening for this kind of sh!thassle, so I put everything back in the box.
Oh how I miss those awful rubber Airfix tracks...

 

I think when I restart this later in the week (the freewheel in my bike's back wheel broke today, so that is the priority job now), I might put a part 15 there and just have that piece missing from the top of the drive sprocket, as it will be hidden by the skirts.

[echen]

Perhaps I'll try my Panzer IIIs link and length tracks before I try my Tiger II - or even my Tiger I, at least the track links are all the same..................

I was looking for an emogi that says "Arrrrrgh!!!" that is a terrified scream!

[alloydog]

1 hour ago, echen said:

I was looking for an emogi that says "Arrrrrgh!!!" that is a terrified scream!

😫😫😫😫

How's that! 😃