Neil's early Tiger 1 (2023)

[neil graham]

Lifting the skirt a little:

Me working on doing the 900 cosmetic bolts on the 48 wheels (maybe a 'late' tiger next time!!) while watching BBC doco's on the story of electricity.... with Beaker supervising

[John Clarke]

I do like Beaker, he's cool, collected, a vast vocabulary and perfect in the supervisory role.

[John Fitzsimons]

At least you have that new detail. Are the cosmetic bolts just on the inner row wheels facing out?

[neil graham]

The cosmetic bolts are on all 48 wheels, so will be on all the visible surfaces

EDIT: this is so wrong, and stupid! The bolts are on the inside of the wheels, so barely visible

[Armortek]

With every release we try, within economical reason, to add more details to our kits and make change to aid assembly or accuracy.

The bolts are one of the many changes that this release of the early Tigers has seen - I will write up a post about all the changes as it is not always obvious.

The bolts feature on both sides of the wheels - of course many are hidden when the tanks is running, so it is up to the builder to decide what they want to include and how far to go ... but at least we provide that option.

Kian

[neil graham]

I have now finished the 48 wheels cosmetic bolts....I was determined to do every one even though I knew some would likely never be seen again. It was kind of like deburring....strangely satisfying!

Side project of shed: new racking is up, tubs of lego (a previous vice of mine) consolidated and now everything is off the floor, except some empty tubs.
I have left a large tank sized hole in it, behind the garage door so I am hoping to able to drive the tank off in either direction (after rotation of course) using my new ramps.

Carpet still a tiny bit wet, will rip that up over the weekend and give the concrete floor a good clean....and despite what I said, I may even look at trying to stop water coming in after extreme rain, though I think its a lost cause...and only happens about once a year.

[Tim Carr]

Lego -- I think I have about 10 to 15 structures and several large boxes of parts, so, I understand that vice. Grandson is getting some for Christmas, again.
Dry up that work area and you will be a lot happier in the long run.

I'm starting to re-build my 2015 Tiger 1 #131, which is also an Early Tiger. So will be watching your build a lot. Remember to enjoy the build as you go.

Enjoy the updates and upgrades.

Later Tim

[neil graham]

Bit more progress today, but not without a few 'oh crap' moments. I put these up simply as this is a diary for myself, and perhaps even pointing out a few gotcha moments for other newbies like myself....this is not a criticism in any way

I know this is all The Adventures of Captain Obvious sailing the seas of First World Problems, but its keeping a lightweight like me on my toes

First one was that I couldn't find CE4158, the Rear Plate. My packing guide told me it was in box 1....and I completely emptied the box looking for it. I probably should have done a full inventory, but after opening the boxes I decided the best way for me to not lose anything was to keep it all in the original boxes. However, it was at this point I had minor panic about it, have I somehow managed to lose it getting the base out?.....but it turned up in Box 2.....so crisis averted.

Next confused moment came when I noticed that the instructions called for me to use two M4x12 CAP to bolt the CE1129 'Visor Armor D', my as yet unopened bag stated it contained only one, eeek! Turns out it has six! At this point I am concluding there is at least one spare of every bolt...

Phew...lots more than advertised

Final moment for the day was similar to the above, but the other way around. Instructions indicate we need five M4x8 CSK to bolt the Rear Plate & Front Lower Hull to the base...and the bag says there should be five, but there were only three. Bag also contained two more M4x10 CSK than it should have though, so the solution seemed obvious, and indeed the Rear Plate took M4x10 CSK bolts happily. Hopefully I don't need those extra two bolts later for something else.

Oh no's....not enough M4x8 CSK's

Lift table & motor cycle jack going 'nom, nom, nom',hungry and expectant... still waiting on the MDF though :(

[Tim Carr]

I remember those days of "Where is that part". LOL

Got out a few "Lego or ??" Tanks the other night. Not quite the same as a 1/6 scale Armortek Tiger Tank.

Something I'm not seeing in a several of this groups Tiger Tank builds is "sealing the tank". As I recall back some (ok, a lot) folks were showing how they sealed the bottom of the tanks to keep water out. Think, small stream crossing. I'm going to be reviewing and I might do some lower hull sealing. Ok, I know keep the Tiger out of water, but?

Enjoy the build.

Later Tim

[Dave Goodwin]

I was surprised to find that ArmorTek had done away with the o-ring seals on the torsion bar arms somewhere along the line of revisions. Perhaps they were not effective. Seemed like a good idea to me when I saw it in some of the build videos though.

[neil graham]

I am not going to paint each part individually, but I couldn't help think that at least a coat of etch primer on all of the lower parts while they are separated might be a good idea. So I broke the lower hull back mostly down to its individual components. I can see one or two bolts I clearly over-tightened pinched a little....note to self, be more careful!

I made a little paint station out of box 1 and I was fairly pleased with the result. It certainly isn't there for posterity but it got me over the line for now.

I created some little plugs for all of the brass bearings using dowel and masking tape, they appear to have worked pretty well. Took about 8 loops around so that they are all snug.

There are 16 of these

Re-enactment :-)

Used a rattle can and of course oversprayed the base like a noob. Oh well, I will invest in a airbrush before I get to any serious painting

[Tim Carr]

Like your plug making idea. I think I'll use it. Good share. Thanks.

Enjoy the build!

Later Tim

[Tim Carr]

An interesting link

viewtopic.php?f=6&p=49933#p49933

Later Tim

[neil graham]

That does look very cool, but a bit beyond me abilities (and workshop) at the moment, but that's the joy of these builds I guess, always challenging us to go further.

It amazes me the skills that a lot of other builders have to customise their machines!

[Donald Suttie]

I wish i had thought about the dowel idea,i ended up pluging the holes with kitchen roll,which did let some paint through,i ended up cleaning the paint off with cellulose thinners on a cotton tip,which was painfully slow but got any excess paint off the brass

Donald