Tiger 131 In South Wales

[Phil Woollard]

Nice work nicely presented,I like those sprocket caps! Is that a can of spray putty I can see there, I used to bang on about how good that was as a filler/undercoat ready for the expensive top coat, I use maybe six cans per build, then theres the etch and grey primer and red oxide all under the putty, when you rub through with a thinner (carefully mind you, on a cloth , not to wet) or some wet and dry you get the lovely weathering effect regards Phil.

[davidwilkins]

Hi Phil,

No that is a can of purity seal ready for sealing the base coat on the outer wheels and the drive sprockets.

David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

Still tinkering with the wheels just trying to weather them a bit. In between this job I started work on the hull roof and the front mudguards this proved to be a problem because when I fitted the turret ring the hull roof did not fit properly. My first thought was that I had made a mistake when making my new thicker roof plate but this proved not to be the case as I had the same problem when I fitted the original roof with the turret ring attached.

The cause of the problem was that I had tightened everything up on the hull when turret ring was not fitted to roof plate, with this ring attached it needed another 1.25mm of room to fit in which meant that the rear bulkhead and the panel of the tank really needed to be moved back a bit. Rather than do this I decided to mill 1.25mm off the front of the roof plate and hope this does not cause any further problems further down the line.

So the lesson that I have learnt from all this is to fit the turret ring to hull roof before doing the hull tightening.

I am not sure how much detail I going to try and do in the rear of the tiger so I decided to paint the inside rear section with a red oxide colour for now. After looking at photos of the front mudguards I decided to try and make my own and change the male and female positions of the hinges whilst making the mudguards.

Thanks for taking the time to follow my updates I know the tiger 1 is well documented with some stunning build threads.

Regards

David

[Stephen White]

David it's always a pleasure to see another build log, particularly one with considerable added value. The Tiger is well documented but there were so many minor variations despite only a thousand plus being built that it needs a fine eye for detail to get it right. That and the prevalence of very knowledgeable people on some forums who will argue the last rivet head. I'm still researching one of the hybrid Tigers for my build and I've been amazed at how much help is out there. Shout if I can help with sources but I'm sure you've already found them. Best regards. Stephen

[Mike Kasputis]

Looks like your build is coming along nicely. Its good to see someone else making the correct hinges for the front mudguards. What material are you using to make them?

[davidwilkins]

Stephen,

Thanks for your thoughts and comments your hybrid tiger project sounds very intriguing looking forward to the build.

Mike,

Again thanks for your comments as regards the material for the mudguards I have used 6mm aluminium plate and will now purchase some brass angle plate for the under frame.

Regards

David

[Christoffer Ahlfors]

Judging from the surface patterns, you milled away most of that to leave the hinges?

Cheers,
/Chris

[Paul Wills]

Hi David,

It is coming along in leaps and bounds. I reworked the early tiger mudguards front and back.

I know you will already know this, but watch the positioning of gun cleaner/tow rope holder, it actually comes nearly right to the edge. I missed it and had to preposition it later on.

Paul.

[davidwilkins]

Christoffer,

Yes it was a lot of milling but once I had machined the hinges out it only took just over 1 hour to cut the rest of the plate down the hard part was making sure the plate stayed flat.

Paul,

Thanks for pointing that out I have added that to the list of jobs to do.

Regards

David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

Just about finished the front mudguards and they have turned out ok, I think it was a modifications worth doing.

I have now fitted the turret ring and started to fit the hull roof details, however I have made a mistake in some of the fittings that I have made so I will have remove and see if I can modify them or remake them. These parts are the I bolts for the wing nuts I thought that they were just fixed threaded stud sticking up from the mounting blocks but I have now seen photos showing that they are pivoting I bolts.

Now back to the tank building factory.

Regards

David

[Paul Wills]

Hi David,

Its coming along nicely, and those mudguards really do look the business, well worth the effort. Unless you are wanting to make the fittings yourself, Steve Winston makes them with the wing nuts.

Paul.

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

Progress has been a bit slow due to other things getting in the way of tank building but at least I am going forward. When I made my new larger hull roof I used the original armortek roof as a template for drilling out all of the holes for holding all of the tools on, however I wish I hadn't as I have ended up capping most of these off because I have either repositioned them or made new brackets for the tools.

Regards

David

[Phil Woollard]

Nice pleasing to the eye work there David.

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

After looking at the way the cables were fitted to the left hand side of the hull I decided to try and make new brackets to hold the cable on. Unfortunately I did not have any confirmed measurements so this has just been guess work from photos.

I am reasonable pleased with the brackets but I do not think it looks quite right at the rear of the hull, it all looks a bit to big compared to photos of tiger 131. I think maybe the eyelets of the cable are to big and making everything else look out of size it's just my view, I might be wrong I will have to wait until I can get down to the tank museum to check this out.

Regards

David

[simon_manning]

this is a great build, detail to appreciate, nice to see the model unfold, regards simon manning.