Tiger 1 2021 no. 13

[Vince Cutajar]

Very very nice Gary.

Vince

[Donald Suttie]

Hi Garry
I am glad you went for the Iwata Eclipse,its a great airbrush,i only recently got the better air compressor myself and cannot fault it
i have had my CS for around 10 years and sprayed acrylics/enamels/and solvent paints with no issues
i picked up a ultrasonic cleaner at the last IMPS show and that takes a lot of the hard work out of cleaning any airbrush

your tank is looking great

Donald

[AlastairCooke]

Hi Gary,
Build looking very smart. Just wanted to point out that when delivered the bolt protector plates were not welded in place, just the final drive armour.

Alastair

[Mike Kasputis]

Looking good, a lot of nice upgrades.
There is one area that needs modifying. I marked it in yellow in the picture. About half of it needs to be removed.



Here is mine



And the real thing

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Gary,
Build looking very smart. Just wanted to point out that when delivered the bolt protector plates were not welded in place, just the final drive armour.

Alastair

Good morning Alistair,
Thanks for the heads up, I will try and carefully remove the welds from the fillet.

Looking good, a lot of nice upgrades.
There is one area that needs modifying. I marked it in yellow in the picture. About half of it needs to be removed.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for highlighting the area near the front mudguards, I will look into it and see what I can do but suspect this is a mod that is best done before the plate is installed.

Regards to you both

Gary

[Gary Richardson]

Good evening all

Today was a turret day, so I primed the turret inside and out ready for painting with cremeweiss and adding the Zimmerit. The weld details have been added but will be mostly hidden by the Zimmerit. I also intend to make the lower track hanger brackets out of 1/8" thick L shaped brass with a brass rod silver soldered in place to hold the track link and using 3mm threaded rod to go through the turret. I will make the rod holding the links longer than normal to ensure the links stay in place which will allow me to use Dave's fittings at the top.
I had a go at mounting the armoured barrel (thanks Dave) on the MG34 which was a simple mod and still allows me to remove the barrel as per the Dragon part.
I have been having second thoughts about the top coat of paint ( Dunkelgelb variant) I have been using as it has a greyish appearance which is odd as the versions of dunkelgelb the manufacturer makes either side of it are definitely dark yellow hues. So I mixed up some Tamiya paint using 4parts XF60 Dark Yellow to 1 part XF59 Desert Yellow with an equal amount of thinners. I didn't like the underside of the tank after I had dirtied it up and so I removed the washes /mud effects using thinners, then lightly dusted it with primer and some TS3 and this will be the test area to see If I like the new mix of paint.
I would like to age the wood of barrel cleaning rods that come with the kit, does anybody have a tried and tested method of doing this ?

Regards
Gary

Primed ready for cremeweiss and Zimmerit

Token welds pre Zimmerit

Armoured barrel on MG34

[Donald Suttie]

Gary,I dipped my Barrel rods in dark wood stain as per Vince's? Idea and it looks quite good as the rods would be well used on a late tiger

Donald

[Gary Richardson]

Hi all on this lovely summers evening.

Today I received the brass equal angle and rods I needed to make the bottom track hanger brackets.
The brass section was 1/8" x 3/4 x 3/4 as I was unable to get a metric equivalent and although it requires a lot of filing I wanted the thickness on the part that rests against the turret so I could tap a 3mm hole to take a threaded rod ( cut down screw ). The section with the brass rod inserted was filed down to 2mm and a 3mm rod was inserted into a drilled hole so that it was an interference fit. This made it easier to silver solder the thread and rod at the same time.
The first bracket was trial and error as I didn't get the brass hot enough for the silver solder to flow correctly, it's easy to melt brass with a MAP torch as I found out to my cost doing my 1/4 scale Tigermoth u/c. The second was spot on with just a touch of silver solder and hardly any cleaning required.
Two down, five to go plus the bracket for the Funklenk ariel.

Regards
Gary

Track hanger bottom bracket

2 down 5 to go.

[Gary Richardson]

Hi All

Just a quick update, all 7 track hanger brackets have been completed and I also made a bracket for the funklenk ariel to go on the right side of the turret.
Although it has taken me two days to complete the brackets, mainly due to the amount of filing required, I am happy with the results and they have all been etch primed ready to go on the turret and have the welds added. It has been hot working in the garage especially doing the silver soldering so it must be beer o'clock

Regards
Gary

7 track brackets and a funklenk ariel bracket

[David Battson]

Hi Gary,
Track holders and aerial base all looking very neat. What are your plans for the top retainers ? , I used Dave Dibbs nicely detailed white metal alternative. Whatever you use, I recommend that you drill and tap the spare track link spuds, so that they can be screwed to the turret from the inside. That way you will always have peace of mind that they will still be there at the end of the day and not fall prey to uneven terrain or sticky fingers should you run it around at a show.
David

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Gary,
Track holders and aerial base all looking very neat. What are your plans for the top retainers ? , I used Dave Dibbs nicely detailed white metal alternative. Whatever you use, I recommend that you drill and tap the spare track link spuds, so that they can be screwed to the turret from the inside. That way you will always have peace of mind that they will still be there at the end of the day and not fall prey to uneven terrain or sticky fingers should you run it around at a show.
David

Hi David
Good to hear from you. I have the Dave Dibbs track hanger set and intend to use the top set. I remembered you saying a while back to secure the track links to the turret and was looking at how to do it this afternoon. I was trying to find a way that didn't involve drilling into the track links and could still be hidden. I have tried sleeving the bracket pin so it is a tight fit into the track link hole but there is still too much movement at the retainers.
I will post photos once I have sorted it out.
Did you Zimmerit behind the track links ?

Regards
Gary

Now for the retainers.

[Vince Cutajar]

I was trying to find a way that didn't involve drilling into the track links

I also thought it was a shame drilling into perfectly serviceable spare track links so did this:

viewtopic.php?p=68198#p68198

As it is you were not going to use the original Armortek parts so no harm with experimenting although my solution would not be ideal for white metal parts. Food for thought.

Vince

[David Battson]

Hi Gary,
Good luck with your method of fixing the spare links. Another reason for my approach was to keep the links rigidly in place so that they offered some protection to the white metal fixings. I had visions of a branch or similar brushing against the turret side and wiping all my carefully crafted details clean off. As it is, the width of the spud is 7mm, so a shallow m2.5 hole shouldn't have much of an affect on the strength of the link if you ever had to re use one.

After some research, I applied zimmerit behind everything (including turret bin) except the exhaust shrouds and front light bracket. I've seen pictures where the spare track links have worn vertical marks into the zimmerite, which is quite a nice touch to recreate and have on show if you leave a couple of holders empty.
David

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Gary,
Good luck with your method of fixing the spare links. Another reason for my approach was to keep the links rigidly in place so that they offered some protection to the white metal fixings. I had visions of a branch or similar brushing against the turret side and wiping all my carefully crafted details clean off. As it is, the width of the spud is 7mm, so a shallow m2.5 hole shouldn't have much of an affect on the strength of the link if you ever had to re use one.

After some research, I applied zimmerit behind everything (including turret bin) except the exhaust shrouds and front light bracket. I've seen pictures where the spare track links have worn vertical marks into the zimmerite, which is quite a nice touch to recreate and have on show if you leave a couple of holders empty.
David

Hi David
That makes perfect sense as the white metal is quite fragile. I have inserted 1.2mm brass pins in my retainers and used a pinpoint soldering iron to make the flattened pin heads and tack them in place. I have a couple of track links that the holes are out of line so they will be ideal to try out tapping into the spuds.
Just respraying the hull with the new colour mix, I finally decided on a Tamiya XF60 /XF59 4-1 top colour , I have finally realised that with paint schemes the answer is to keep it simple, add a coat of Citadel matt varnish then play with the effects afterwards. The turret and mantle are ready for the zimmerit so fingers crossed.

Regards
Gary

[Gary Richardson]

Good evening all

I spent a bit of time thinking about how to ensure the track links on the turret were secure whilst still being able to use Dave Dibbs top retainers. Putting a screw through the turret into the track spud made the most sense and would be invisible from the outside, thanks for the advice David.
I ordered a 2.5mm tap set with 2.05mm drill and made the holes 5mm deep in the track spud. 3mm holes were drilled through the turret to allow a bit of wriggle room, to align the link hole and turret hole I put a 6mm button head screw in the threaded hole in the track link, dabbed a bit of white paint on it and used a set square to ensure the link was vertically aligned before pushing it against the turret. A quick tap with a centre punch onto the paint mark and drill through from the outside.
The five links on left of the turret lined up perfectly allowing the top retainers to use the existing holes once I had enlarged them to 3.5mm. The two on the right would not line up although the links were correctly aligned vertically leaving the retainers 4mm off centre. I had to drill new holes adjacent to the existing holes which will be covered up by the retainer once fitted.
Overall I am pleased with the result and there is enough thread going into the spud using 16mm cap head screws even allowing for the zimmerit.
I also started spraying the cremeweiss on the interior turret parts, a note of caution do not try thinning MIG Ammo paints with Tamiya thinners, they are not compatible . Luckily I noticed the paint separating after the first pass with the airbrush, MIG thinners should arrive tomorrow

Regards
Gary

2.5mm tap into the spud

Two down five to go

And time for a beer.