Shark27

Let me start by saying that this post may get a little wordy, but I tried to describe what I did and why. This is my first post of this kind so hopefully I'll get better as time goes on. If it is too much reading just enjoy the pictures there are fifty in total at this point.
This is actually my second build, but the first I actually documented, I wasn't sure how well I would do on my first build (Panther), after all it had been 25 years since my last build (1/35th scale) I was a little rusty to say the least.
First the obligatory NIB photos, you have to admire Tamya's packaging it really is pretty impressive.
Steve

Shark27

Next all the upgrades I was planning on using at the beginning, some I used, some I changed, more on that later on. Most parts were purchased from Bob at ETO Armor thanks Bob & Joe for all your help and shipping stuff so quick.
Here is the list of upgrades:

Aber engine and radiator screens
Schumo late model air intake
Schumo tow cable set
Graupner speed 400s
Impact late tracks
Impact gearboxes with drop down gears, #2 Hop-Up gears and 12 tooth pinions
Daryl's Steel Idler Arms
Daryl's IR LED tube
Daryl's Breech attachment
Schumo Metal Commander's Hatch parts
Schumo Driver and Radio Operator's Metal Hatch Hinges
Schumo Metal Headlight Set
Schumo Aluminum Gun Barrel
Daryl's Idler upgrade
Hull and Turret Machine Guns both with LEDs
Schumo POM Idler Bushing
Schumo Hex Screw Set
Schumo Metal Tow Shackle Set
Schumo Turret Mounted Spare Track Holders
Turnigy Inertia Control Chip
Upgraded torsion bars
Metal late sprocket guides

All the parts weighed about 10 pounds so this one will be as heavy as my Panther (13.5 pounds), maybe more, you'll see why.

Shark27

My first step was to reinforce to floor pan of the Tiger against flexing the same way I had done with my Panther, with the gear reduction I thought it better to be safe than sorry. Luckily I have access to some 3mm thick aluminum plate. I cut it down to basically fit the bottom of the hull including covering the plastic part of the hull. I could have opted to just mounting a smaller plate below the gear boxes but I like the weight it gives to the tank (keeps it from bouncing aroundunrealistically) and it would not be completely flat on the bottom with just a partial plate. Of course 3mm is a little thick, so my plan was to countersink the screw heads.
Originally I had intended to use the hex head screws I got from ETO but in order to countersink hex head screws the area around them has to be much larger to fit a socket on them. This fact wasgoing to cause problems where some of the holes in the hull were close together.
I marked my aluminum plate to match the holes in the bottom of the hull by making a paper template of the hole pattern, then I transferred it to the aluminum and drilled the holes with a 3mm drill bit. Afterwards I checked it against the hull bottom to verify the pattern, I had a couple of holes that were a little off, less than half a millimeter so I marked them where they were out of alignment and filed them to correct their locations.
I had purchased a counter bore bit, (creates a flat bottomed recess), sized to work with the Tamiya supplied Phillips head screws and set my drill press to drill 2.25 mm deep into the aluminum this would allow the screw head to be completely below the surface of the aluminum plate.
Steve

Shark27

The second thing I did was to paint most of the metal parts with Red Oxide primer. I liked the look after seeing Craig's (Streetsquid) Panther and Bob's (Sevoblast) Jagd Tiger and since that is what the real tanks were primed in why not. A side benefit for me, all thumbs with an airbrush, was if you miss getting an even coat with your base color you'll see a littleprimer showing through, I figure it probably happened on the real tanks as well.
Steve

Shark27

My next step was to make accommodations for Daryl's Idler adjuster since one method of installing it, (the one I had chosen), requires that holes be drilled into the aluminum hull I did that step before mating the aluminum hull with theplastic outer shell, since I didn't want to drill through the plastic hull later. I hadn't decide to use his system at thispoint but I wanted to have the bolts for the springs in place if I changed my mind later.

Next I installed aluminum hull into the plastic hull and attached the aluminum plate I had counter bored to the bottom of thehull and mounted the torsion bar rails, which were modified for the upgraded torsion bars I had purchased. If you are notfamiliar with these, they are totally adjustable and are somewhat softer than the Tamiya stock torsion bars. More on these later.
Steve

Shark27

I then attached the metal sprocket guides to the hull front these are cutout above the tow shackles like those used on the later model Tigers.

I mounted the Graupner motors to the Impact gearboxes, I have a set of these currently in my Panther and while they are abit noisy they seem to work OK but I will eventually upgrade to some gear boxes I got from Bob at ETO.
Steve

torpedochief

You Go! Watching this one . . . Oh yeah!!

Tiger in the house!!


Don

yellowshaker

My Feedback: (1)

This is looking like a top notch build Steve! great work and keep those pics coming brother!!!

Shark27

Several steps were done next I installed the metal suspension arms, originally I replaced all the Tamiya torsion bars with the upgraded spring loaded type, however after testing out the tank later with all the weight on them I found them somewhatsoft so I put the Tamiya bars back into the first four front and the two rearward most locations, as these are the ones thatneed to be stiffer. From my reading the Germans actually used beefier torsion bars at the front of the real Tiger tank too.Then I installed the POM bushings for the idler arms and then Daryl's Steel Idler arms along with the stock Tamiya idleradjusters. Then the gearboxes were installed and lastly the metal towing shackles on the front.

Next it was time to tackle the wheel bearing installation. It was necessary to modify all the locations where the factorybushings are normally installed by enlarging the openings to 7mm I decided to do this by hand rather than use my drill pressas I wanted to have more control over the process. I cut a piece of brass tubing to close to the length I wanted, and slid itover the drill bit to keep the bit from going any deeper than necessary. This was an important step as the drill bit wantsto keep going deeper, because it gets a very good bite into the soft plastic. After all the drilling was done I installed allthe wheel bearings.
Steve

Shark27

I then painted the wheels and the lower hull and suspension arms. After the paint was thoroughly dry I installed the wheelswith the rubber tires and then the tracks.

As I did with my Panther, to keep the gearbox grease from slinging about, I made a motor/gearbox cover out of two pieces ofsheet plastic taped together, cut out holes for the wiring. I left the upper sides open to allow the heat from the motors toescape and keep the motors cooler.

Steve

Shark27

I decided I wanted to try to install a smoke generator in the tank and make it operate in prototypical fashion rather thancut additional holes in the back plate of the hull higher up as others had done and the way HL does it on their Tiger 1. Iwas using a smoke generator from RC Command, I had tested some of the Heng Long units and was unimpressed by the pump actionof the two I tested, neither pump would start reliably by itself every time. RC Command's smoke generator uses a largerdiameter pipe than the HL generator so I tried reducing the pipe down to a soda straw diameter which would easily fit throughthe actual exhaust connections that Tamiya provides.

I wanted to mount the generator as close to the rear of the tank as I could, I knew would get better results if I hadless restriction for the longest part of the run of pipe. Following the lead of some others on the forum, I modified theTamiya speaker box and routed some pipes through it.
I was able to make it work but I ran into several problems. The first was the Tamiya speaker box was configured so thatthe speaker mount was in the way of where I needed to route my plumbing, so I remedied that by going through at an angle.

The next problem to surface was the close proximity of the speaker box to the rear of the hull so the pipe size reductionand ease of removal were factors. The next problem which broke the camel's back so to speak was that being the smokegenerated was fan driven vaporized water and glycerine and the long plumbing run, the vapor was condensing inside thereduction pipe (flex soda straw) and after a short while the liquid would block the flow and stop the vapor from beingexpelled.

Steve

Buckeye36

My Feedback: (3)

looking good Steve!

Shark27

At this point I was ready to give up on the whole idea, but not to be bested by mere machinery, I thought of a solutionto my problem, I would bring the smoke generator closer to the rear of the tank with less chance for condensation to occur.My dilemma was the speaker. where or how to mount it and get it out of the way. In my previous life I was in the car audiobusiness doing engineering and supervising installations and training. After examining Tamiya's speaker enclosure and speakerI found they were nothing special, the speaker has a paper suspension edge and the enclosure itself for it's size is nothingmore than an open box. For most applications the best configuration for speaker enclosures are sealed or ported, the Tiger 1's enclosure is neither. The speaker sounds almost exactly the same if you mount it to a baffle plate and set it inside the tank with no enclosure. Not wanting to use the existing speaker due to it's size, I set about designing a new speaker enclosure for some Dellminiature speakers I already had in my possession.
Steve

Shark27

The first thing was strip the Dell speakers out of their original housing, which was ported by the way. I made note as to the length and diameter of the port. The speakers are about 1 1/4" diameter with a soft rolled edge. The next step was to obtain some model grade plywood to use as my speaker baffle and cut the openings for the speakers in it.The speaker location was important as I wanted the speakers only over the panniers on each side. Also I wanted the speakersunder the openings in the hull top.

I mounted the speakers to the baffle and built the boxes for the speakers to fit the panniers height was another restrictionas the panniers are deeper in the rear than in the front and it all needed to be low enough to still allow the upper hullplate to mount. I added some sound deadening material inside the speaker boxes to reduce the high frequencies bouncing aroundinside. I attached the boxes to the baffle plate with hot melt glue to seal them up and to allow disassembly later on ifnecessary.
I modified my original setup by enlarging the holes into the exhausts and used brass tubing, I also modified the outlet onthe smoker so that both outlets pointed generally in the same direction.

Steve

Shark27

Thanks guys,

Regarding the speakers, the bottom line is that the speakers sound great and they give me enough room in the hull for the smoke generator and then some. The generator works really well almost too well it smokes like it has blown head gaskets, so I may install a couple of diodes to reduce the voltage to the generator and consequently the level of smoke output. One more thing about the exhaust system I had to drill a small hole in the bottom of the plastic cylinder that the brass tubes lead into to prevent water build up in the bottom of it, so it drips a little water when the smoker has been run.
Here is the link to it running at Danville last April with the smoker operational. http://youtu.be/IHuvtLBw-ko
Next I painted the upper hull sides Glacis and rear plate I waited to do this as I didn't want the water/glycerine mix to spoil the finish while I was testing the smoker.
I had previously added the secondary starter crank hole for the engine upgrade the Germans made during the war.

Steve

Shark27

I re-installed the Tamiya electronics into the hull I had actually done this earlier for testing purposes. Back to adding the upgrades, I added the Driver and Radio Operators metal hatch hinges as well as the metal headlightupgrade, I'll eventually add the simulated wiring conduit at some point. I wired the headlights with LEDs, they are prettybright compared to 1940s era headlights but my 1:1 eyeballs still can't use them to drive it at night, my back story is theGermans upgraded to halogen lights (another of Hitler's secret weapons). :-)

The armored air intake came next, pretty straight forward I used mesh underneath to keep out debris and the occasional handgrenade, Filled the Feifel hose bracket holes with bolts. Also added metal handles on the engine hatch.
I added the mesh over the radiator air intakes and outlets. The switch inside the engine hatch is for the smoke generator.

Steve

Shark27

The turret was my next step there were several changes to be made.
First I modified the gun mantle by enlarging the machine gun hole slightly, enough to get the barrel of the LED equippedmachine gun through it and enlarged it from the rear enough to mount Daryl's IR emitter tube to be mounted. I may regretmounting my emitter behind a smaller hole but we'll see it seems to work OK going by my limited testing. Because of theemitter tube I had to put a sleeve around the LED machine gun so it would be a friction fit. So now I can easily switchbetween the two.

Next I added the metal handles to the loaders and Commanders hatch as well as the metal spring counter balance slidebracket which I may regret as it seems the commanders hatch needs to be opened more fully so it doesn't block the apple'ssensors when it is installed. I have since made the commander's hatch removable so I no longer have the issue with the hatch. I also added the spare track holder brackets, I found the included template puts the lower brackets too high up theturret side so I had to fill the original holes I drilled and drill new holes lower down I should have just eyeballed it.

Steve

Shark27

I replaced the plastic smoke candle brackets with brass ones I bent out of brass stock, I have seen some video of thebrackets left on real Tigers, they probably hung stuff on them, I may hang my bucket on one of them, although the noise ofit banging around might drive the tank crew crazy.
I installed three magnets to hold down the turret roof I may do the same for the stowage bin on the back, I figure I canthrow the parts that fall off during battles in there. ;-)

I didn't like the idea of mounting the power switch up in the turret so I made a bracket and mounted it to the pannier underthe radio operator's hatch, I hope he doesn't mind.

Steve

Shark27

Made the antenna out of a guitar "D" string, stiff but flexible enough to bend easily when the gun barrel hits it.
I then painted the turret except the bottom and also painted the hull top masking off the ball bearings the turret rides on.
I purchased some early style tracks on evilbay and mounted them instead of the Impact late model tracks that I had purchased previously, I painted the tracks to reduce the pins working out but some of the pins still seemed to loosen so I glued themwith CA and that seemed to solve the problem.

I tackled the track guards next by cutting the bolt heads off and drilling out the holes in the guards and also the bracketsin the hull, I used 090 size hex head bolts to mount the track guards to the hull I just tapped the plastic in the hull. Theyare strong enough to hold but if they get hit they will pull out without any other damage. I have the ABER photo etch guardsjust haven't spent the time to bend and mount them yet.

Steve

Shark27

My most recent work has been on the tow cables and the bracketry involved with holding them in place I decided to try to makethe hold downs myself rather than buying them. The bolts I used were a little larger than scale but my fat fingers hadtrouble with the really small bolts that I probably should have used, once painted they will be less noticeable, also I optedfor nuts instead of wing nuts so I could remove them later if necessary, I guess I could add the "wings" to the nuts I usedbut they would be a bit larger than they should be.

That is my progress so far I still have to modify the tools I am going to try my hand at the wooden handles modification Ihave seen other people do. I already did the jack block out of wood as I did on my panther, nothing looks more like wood thanreal wood. The only other component left to do which I may leave off is the rear fenders I had the plastic Tamiya oneinstalled but snapped one off during handling the tank, the plastic hinge is very weak so I may upgrade to PE units or makemy own out of brass.
Also left to do is finish the base coat and add the second color for my camouflage.

That's it so far, still a work in progress.

Steve

Airbrushler

beautiful job done on this tank
i like it a lot

YHR

Really nice Steve. Well presented

Thanks

Dan

Shark27

Thanks everyone,
It took a long time to get it done especially with all the pictures but it turned out OK I like it. Still a few more things to finish like the tools and the paint but it is getting there.
BBCKT (Jimmy) wanted to see how I did my smoke generator after he saw the video I posted on You Tube with it running in Danville.
Enjoy the pics!
Steve

Shark27

I'm glad you guys enjoyed the post, for an added bonus I know how you guys like video so here is some I shot as I was testing out the suspension and tracks. I hadn't put the track guards on the sides at this point so it wasn't quite finished.
It was almost unstoppable as I came out of the mud at the end. It took me a while to get the dried mud off the hull where it stuck like cement.
Check out the videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDPhKaqHhak

Steve

tomhugill

What are the gearboxes from ETO , you got a link? Also mainly awesome build , very solid looking!