Vince's Tiger 1 late variant 2017

[mark lawson]

Simon is correct the Mantle on 131 was designed to fit one of the Porsche Tiger I's Latter Early model Tigers didn't have this cutout on the mantle, have you looked at the location of the driver/radio operators hatches these may be a little to far back from the front.

[Phil Woollard]

Thats where our block is positioned, I wonder if the kit mantlet is just to chunky rather like the early to mid examples.

[Vince Cutajar]

Thanks guys for the useful comments. Much appreciated. I am really not too bothered about the driver's hatch not opening with the turret in the forward position. That is why I repositioned the remote switch to the back. The radio operator's hatch opens OK with the turret in the same position. I am only worried a little about the jack block. To clear the jack block, the barrel has to be at an elevation of 3 degrees.

Simon you could be correct about the jack block. In fact there was a discussion about it six years ago.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4390&p=37851&hilit= ... ock#p37851

Ivano, thank you for the diagram. Mine seems to located at the same place. I haven't measured the jack block because it's too late to do anything about it.

Thanks Mark for the suggestion. It could be a possibility that the hatches are too far back but if it is, repositioning them is, as far as I am concerned, is not going to happen. Too much work for little gain.

Phil, at the moment I am searching for dimensions of the mantlet for a late Tiger. I have a good idea where I could find the information. As you said it could be the cause.

What I might do is remove about 2mm from the bottom of the mantlet and give the rounded edges a more pronounced curve. That's at least what's on the drawing board at the moment.

Vince

p.s. Thanks also Adrian for those photos.

[Vince Cutajar]

Finally finished the turret roof. Another item off the list. The list is getting smaller.

Added a "pull" cable to the Armorpax hatch.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

Well, my search for the dimensions of the mantlet proved to be unsuccessful. Does anyone have these dimensions? I am only interested in the overall width and height of the mantlet.

Thanks

Vince

[Simon Peck]

Apologies if you've seen before:

http://tiger1.info/EN/Turret-dimensions.html

Vince, did you look at trimming the height of the jack block?

[Vince Cutajar]

Thanks Simon. How did I manage to miss that page??

Vince, did you look at trimming the height of the jack block?

Only for a short time. My after-market jack block is so nice that it would have been a pity to ruin it.

Vince

[Vince Cutajar]

After sleeping on it, I decided that I did not want to risk the mantlet crashing in the jack block and damaging something. Machined some areas of the mantlet and now with the barrel fully depressed the mantlet does not hit the corner of the jack block and the hinge. With the barrel partially depressed (more critical) the mantlet just misses the corner of the jack block and misses the hinge.

Barrel partially depressed

Barrel partially depressed

A couple of photos of the machined mantlet:

I am quite happy with the result and it does not show that I removed some material from the bottom of the mantlet. At least now my mind is at rest that no damage will be done. I did not take it into account that there will be a layer of zimmerit. If anything the zimmerit will get chipped.

So what did I do?
1) Removed 2mm of material from the bottom of the mantlet.
2) The curved edges were remachined with a radius of 5mm
3) The four corners of the mantlet were machined with a radius of 5mm

Vince

[David Brady]

Nice job on the entire build....I need to upskill!

Cheers

[Ivano Costantini]

who could be interested, some measures

[Vince Cutajar]

Nice job on the entire build....I need to upskill!

Thanks David. Glad you are still following my rambling.

who could be interested, some measures

Grazie mille Ivano per quella fotografia. (Many thanks Ivano for that photo)

Vince

[Christoffer Ahlfors]

Ivano,
that is likely a very important piece in solving the riddle!
Let's see if I understand correctly: Are the measurements made from the edge of the lift hook at 225 deg? Any idea of why? What is the source of the measurements - actual vehicle, factory drawings, other?

[Vince Cutajar]

Added a stainless plate to the rear of the recoil bracket so that later on I will bolt a lump of metal below it to act as a counterweight to the barrel.

I guess now is a good time to start painting the turret and mantlet. I am going to leave the barrel components till last. I am thinking of adding a rifled barrel insert to the muzzle brake and asked FOI for the outside diameter of their insert but seems they are not interested as they have not reponded.

Does anybody else do these rifled barrel inserts?

Vince

[Ivano Costantini]

Hi Vince,
the source of the photo is still David Byrden. I interpret that the measurement is detected from the center of the lifting hook, in fact in my tank, after lowering the mantle, it corresponds.

[Adrian Harris]

> they are not interested as they have not reponded.

FOA have been having a lot of problems with their internet presence recently, including the whole domain being "parked" for a while as it hadn't been renewed. Loic has posted on Facebook that their email stopped working in July and they are still having problems. If you're on FB, it might be worth sending him a PM via their page.

Adrian.