Tiger 131 In South Wales

[Vince Cutajar]

I like it. What is it that you are not happy with? The colour or the pattern? Give it a couple of days to get accustomed to it.

Vince

[Phil Woollard]

David David David, it's subtle no doubt about that but just like 131. I would be well chuffed with that ! As you said some weathering to include some washes and she's done.

[davidwilkins]

Vince, The photos make it look better than it really is, I am a bit disappointed with the dark colour RAL7008 as it has not gone very unevenly and the over spray to light colour RAL8000 is to wide. When tried to give a sharper line between the two colours it made the uneven finish of the dark colour even worse. This is a very frustrating learning curve.

Phil, Thanks for your thoughts as you say by the time the weathering and washes are done hopefully it will look a bit better.

Cheers

David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

I painted some markings on the side of the tank and tried to weather the towing cables on the hull roof also doing the same to the cables on the side of the tank. After looking at photos of the towing cables I decided to cut off about 15mm cable crimp by the cable eye as the crimp looked far to long I know this weaken them a bit but hopefully they will be ok.

Cheers

David

[Vince Cutajar]

David, how did you weather the tow cables and track rope?

My latest crazy idea is to give them a dark grey wash.

Vince

[mark j. radick]

Looking great ! camo pattern looks awesome !

[davidwilkins]

Vince, I used a dark earth wash from AK interactive. I applied a heavy coat waited a bit and then wiped the excess off then left it for 24 hours then sealed it with Matt varnish. It looks like you are thinking the same if you like what you see give it a go.

Mark, Thanks for your comments much appreciated. If I can get it to look half as good as what you have achieved on your tiger I will be very happy.

Cheers

David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

I have to be honest I have stolen a few ideas from other people's builds as I could not think of any other ways to do these jobs, l hope you don't mind.

I could not get a tidy finish to handles on tools that are clipped onto the deck of the tiger so I made some new wooden ones like I have seen on other builds, these I think are much better.

I have finally finished the front hatches they were missing the black rubber seal. I have been looking for something to do this job for over a year now but have been unable to find anything so I made two rings out of plastic and painted them black, not perfect but they look ok to me.

Finally for today's update I have done some more shrapnel damage this time to the exhaust shields, I have tried to copy the pattern of damage and size of the holes as did have some measurements of the damage.

Cheers

David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

I have taken some inspiration from Mark J. Radick tiger build (hope you don't mind) with regards to the spare track links on the front plate of tiger131, I have cut out some holes in the track horns. I found doing the top row quite easy to do but the lower row were quite difficult to cut out due the length needed for the milling bit.

One thing that I was surprised at was how much cleaning the track links needed, in total I cleaned the track links 3 times and even then I still had blackened fingers buy the time I had one complete set of tracks. I ended up with 94 links per side to give the right look and the tension idler is on minimum so by the time the turret, motors and batteries are put in it might be a case of removing one more link depending on how much the tension idler will take out.

I have to say when the tracks go on it totally changes the appearance of tiger tank and makes it look far more aggressive.

Regards

David

[mark j. radick]

Awesome detailed build ! this is tiger 131 down to the smallest of details ! great work !

[Robert E Morey]

I'll second Marks compliment. Looking really good for an early tiger. I like the subtle camo pattern as well. Battle damage on exhaust covers look realistic.
Great work!
B

[simon_manning]

Lovely! Regards simon.

[davidwilkins]

Mark, Robert and Simon,

Many thanks for your kind words much appreciated. I have been struggling to get myself back into this tank building hobby but when those tracks went on it gave me a big lift in confidence, there is still some work to do on the hull but I can now start tinkering with the turret.

Cheers

David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

I have decided to make a start on the turret so the first thing I have done is to mark out the areas where I am going cut out some groves for the weld simulations, also to remove some material to try and improve the shape of the parts. It's nice to be back in my comfort zone again.

Regards

David

[Vince Cutajar]

As always great stuff David. I find it very informative seeing how people go about doing things.

I believe 131 had a notch (cut-out) in the lower right-hand side (looking from the front) of the mantlet.

Vince