Vince's Tiger 1 late variant 2017

[Vince Cutajar]

Decided to do two empty shell casings. At first I was going to make them with a resin 3D printer from a commercial printer, but then decided to do them myself in brass. The bottom rim should be 18.5mm for 1:6 scale so ideally I should use a 20mm brass round bar which I did not have. I have 22mm but considered it to be too wasteful. So instead used an 18mm round bar and reduced the other shell diameters by 0.5mm to keep the same aspect ratio.

Half way through the first one had a problem with the lathe motor which eventually I managed to fix also. Enjoyed doing them as it's been a long time since I did some machining.

At the moment they look too polished but the look should improve after the brass gets naturally tarnished.

Vince

[Kevin Hunter]

They look good Vince, and half a millimeter?..........if you had said nothing who would have been able to tell?
More nice details.
Kevin

[Vince Cutajar]

Thanks Kevin

Vince

[Christoffer Ahlfors]

Absolutely beautiful!

Tarnished? There would not have been time for them to tarnish naturally from manufacture to their use at the front. But perhaps the temperature when firing tarnished them instantly? Perhaps any real tankie here can advise?

[Vince Cutajar]

Thanks Christoffer.

Vince

[Phil Woollard]

They look beautiful Vince, as far as I am aware the tiger shell cases were in fact electro plated steel. Electro plated with a brass alloy.

[Robert E Morey]

Looks really good Vince. Nice work!
B

[mark lawson]

very nice work you have done with the casings they look very good.

A bit of background on 88mm casings; pre-war these casings were indeed made from brass at the beginning of the war this quickly moved onto brass electroplated steel casings by mid war the casings were being released as parkerized steel and also lacquered plain steel. Throughout the war casings were recovered and returned to the factories to be re-charged and re-issued this means that a mixture of casings would have been issued and by 1944 brass casings would have been quite rare the majority would have been the parkerized and lacquered plain steel types.

[Vince Cutajar]

Thanks Phil, Bob and Mark for the nice comments and also for that info about the shell casings.

I knew about the brass and also about the steel casings but did not know about the plated steel variant. Learnt something new.

Vince

p.s. Been looking at the King Tiger casings and they are bigger than the Tiger 1 casings.

[Marco Peter]

Yup
https://blog.tiger-tank.com/headline-ne ... ent-round/

[Roy Beukeveld]

...

Well, this week was passed mostly painting (spraying) the hull exterior. First a coat of etch primer:

Tiger 130.JPG

Then a coat of red primer:

Tiger 131.JPG

And finally a basecoat in the required areas:

Tiger 132.JPG

......

Vince

Hi Vince,

First of all compliments for your fantastic Tiger!

A few questions from a newbie if you don't mind...

In the post I quoted above you show three pictures of the three layers you painted there.
How did you prepare the bare aluminium for the first layer of paint? Only cleaning and degreasing or sanding too? Sandpaper, scotch brite?
And the next layers, paint on paint? Any preparing there or is the spray painted primer surface smooth enough to continue with the topcoat as it is?

Thanks a lot

[Vince Cutajar]

Hi Roy

First of all, thanks for the complement and now to answer your question.

Etch Primer Coat
This was sprayed on a previously prepared surface. All the edges of the part are first deburred. Then the surface is lightly keyed using sandpaper (I used 220 grit) and then the part is cleaned / degreased. I used acetone. Do not overspray as you might get an "orange peel" surface finish. If this happens, let it dry, lightly sand the affected area and respray.

Red Primer Coat
I wait 24 hours for the etch primer to cure and then just spray on the red oxide coat. Where there were large flat areas involved I lightly keyed the etch primer coat using the same 220 grit sandpaper.

Base Coat
I waited 24 hours for the red oxide to cure properly. Areas which were going to be covered in zimmerrit I left them in red oxide. The rest was just sprayed with the base coat. I did not bother to key the red oxide layer.

That's how I did it. Most of the surface prepping was done before the etch primer. Hope this was useful to you.

Vince

[Roy Beukeveld]

Hi Vince,

Thanks a lot for your reply, it sure was helpful

When you lightly key a painted surface, how do you clean afterwards? Just wiping of the dust will do?

[Vince Cutajar]

Yes Roy. I just wipe the dust off with a dry cloth.

Vince

[Robert Tanzer]

Hello Vincent
Where did you get your loaders hatch?
I have one from Armorpax, but it dont fit. It's to big.

Robert