hdbeast

Great to see you back Master Stern, looking forward to the finished work of art. My wife said to say hello and then under her breath said oh no when Gary sees this it's going to cost me more money.

Gary

Stern

Thanks Gary!

Please tell your wife: "With admiration my dear madam! To see the built of the King Tiger of your man makes me sure, that you are a great spouse,who assists him where it is good for him! I feel confident that the King Tiger will also be for you a wellspring of happiness!"

hdbeast

Thank You Master Stern for those great words of wisdom. Now if your words of wisdom work on her, I will see her open her pocket book and give me all the money I want to complete my King Tiger.

Gary

Stern

Here are some pics of the finished King Tiger.
It is a Tiger of the Schwere SS Panzerabteilung 503. They fought from January 1945 in Ostpreußen (Königsberg, Danzig ...) at the east front till the end in Berlin. The Tiger of this Abteilung were brought from the company Henschel in Kassel via train to the east front.













More history and pictures will follow ...

YHR

An obvious work of art. How have those gear boxes been? IT seems as though this thing should run as good as it looks.

Stern

Thanks a lot YHR! Yes, the gear boxes are really fantastic - I will post a little movie where you can see them work ... have to wait for a bit of more time for tanking []

So far - heres another pic:

karel47

a very well detailed KT stern, hell of a camo very neat foto etch parts well done

torpedochief

Ahhh....Ahhhhhh! I thought that thing was the real deal! Fine fine craftsmanship!

How about a movie or so?


Don

rivetcounter

Outstanding, this is a word I rarely use to describe a model I'm very picky and not easily pleased but this Tank is truly worthy of praise

Eggman1965

My Feedback: (3)

If the photos were a little grainier they could be in an "Illustrated History of WWII Armor" book and no one would know the difference. Very impressive build.

khatean

One of the reasons I joined this forum was this thread. Excellent work. Can't wait to see video.

vano12

Btw there is a King Tiger on the Heng Long site but no info about a release date or anything else. I wonder if they will offer it for the same low price as the rest of the line-up.

Stern

Thanks a lot ! Makes me happy to hear that other people like the King Tiger as much as I do! Thanks!

Here are some pics of the so far not documented build of the aerial and the chains (docu about the camo will follow):

1.
The antenna is a ABER Product that I ordered from Axels Modellbaushop. The fantastic point at this part is that is has the original butterfly nut:

All parts:



Bending and fixing:







Done:






2.
The chains ... this is the only part where the work seems not to ben finished, because I found no producer of a King Tiger chain who is able to put the litte numbers from the original in it:

Original:



So I have bought the Kenny Kong King Tiger chain, because it is the only one with original closed chain links - maybe later I will do it with numbers on my own and cast one ...



The first step was to bring a little - and really just a very little flash rust on it. The original chain was also a metall chain and so it got a bit of flash rust - but only there where it had not much contact with hard material ...
For that I used the airbrush with Tamiya XF-9 Hull Red and a lot (!) of thinner for only a breeze of flash rust:



In the next step I took Faber-Castell Permanent Oil Pastels - crushed it and mixed it with thinner - I took black and green and a littlebit of red to make a dark coulor that seems to be similar to the heavy farmland ground in Ostpreußen at the east front:
After that I put a lot of Tamiya TS-80 Flat Clear on it:

pcomm1

Stern, For me, this is the finest Tamiya RC King Tiger ever. John

Eggman1965

My Feedback: (3)

Incredible detail and skill for sure. You might want to go into battle along side this KT: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_70...tm.htm#7003543 both these models are meticulously crafted. Thank you so much for the great build pics!

Stern

Thanks a lot !

Yes, I know Garys King Tiger - a very good piece of fine work and a lot of great pictures!

pcomm1

Yes, another great King Tiger.Thanks forrefreshing andbringing that build thread forward.

And here is a past TamiyaCon winning 1/16 King Tiger (static build) that got me interested in this large scale and renewed my interest in WWII armor & armor history in the first place:

http://www.naritafamily.com/Scalemodel/AFVs/photo_frame.htm

Stern

Shure that is a fine work - but it is always a question of taste ... I do not like to much weathering, because the King Tiger was working over a short period ... but everyone should do as he likes his model!


To the camo: The King Tiger I built is one of the Schwere SS Panzerabteilung 503. Unfortunatly there are not much pictures and documents about this Abteilung.
The sSSPzAbt. 503 got their King Tiger from the Henschelwerk in Kassel in the middle of Germany. With the train the Tiger were brought to the east front.
The situation was extreme uncomfortable and so they never fought in a closed formation of the Abteilung - the Tiger and their man got down from the train
during the transport where it was necessary. They fought in Küstrin, Arnswalde (near Danzig), Stettin and Berlin.
Here a card where you can see the situation in march 1945:



One of the man of the sSS503 was Karl Brommann:





In the addition to the Wehrmachts-report from the 10. April 1945 is written:" In the combat area of Gotenhafen SS-Untersturmführer Karl Brommann,
company commander in the schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 503, has proved hisself outstandingly. With the men of his Tank he has, although his 3 time injury,
destroyed 66 tanks and 44 anti tank guns (Pak) and 15 trucks in the time from 2.2.1945 till the 18.3.1945.





"One day a Tiger Royal tank got within 150 yards of my tank and knocked me out. Five of our tanks opened up on him from ranges of 200 to 600 yards and got
five or six hits on the front of the Tiger. They all just glanced off and the Tiger backed off and got away. If we had a tank like Tiger, we would all be
home today." - Report by tank commander Sergeant Clyde D. Brunson from 2nd Armored Division, 1945

In Pommern (east front Ostpreußen)



In Berlin:



The King Tiger of the sSS503 got their camo in the Henschelwerk in Kassel. It was the Hinterhalt camo sheme (ambush camo) without turret numbers. These sheme was brushed on the dark yellow base
of the tanks with a molding tool. But they all differ a littlebit. As for there so less pictures of the sSS503 - I took different pictures of King Tigers which were produced in the same manner as the
tanks of the sSS503 to do a "Hinterhalttarnung" (ambush camo) that is as much original as possible.





















It was really a hype to brush this camo - I used Tamiya coulors (xf- 60; xf-58; xf-64), Revell top-coat finish "Color Stop" and the Tamiya weathering master set C.

hdbeast

Hello Stern

Your King Tiger sure turned out great, the very best, paint work is outstanding also. I enjoyed watching you build it and learning from you, I had to try my hand at working with the PE extras for the first time and build my own detailed KT close to yours but not exactly the same. It was a lot of work but very much fun to do, thank you for you kind comments on my KT and thank you for your help.

Gary

Stern

Thanks Gary! I think also that this is it what its all about - share ideas and learn from each other to have more and more fun with this hobby! Always happy to find threads where each single step is explanied - its cool to see the finished work - but to see someone walking the way to this goal gives me often more useful help.


Little movie-preview where you can see the "smoke engine" work at the start of the Maybach:

1sgt

Stern,
Wow that little teaser of the engine smoke is awesome. I hope you have a full video planned. Also, what step did you do the smoker. I must have missed it.

Thanks again for sharing.

Jim

Stern

Thanks Jim!
The smoke engine is discribed at page 7 ff. of this thread - [link=http://www.tanksandtrolls.co.uk/smokinkings.htm]Mainly built with this report (Thanks !) - used a Graupner smoker with 6 V[/link] - I also added 3 V extra power to the to the engine conected fan in row.
Yes, a movie is in work ...

Stern

Here some pictures where you can compare the surface structure to the original:

danlrc

Stern,
Great thread about an amazing build - what craftsmanship and knowledge! Thank you! Love your writing style and reference pics.
Just ordered a Tamiya KT. New to R/C tanks, so using your info and Gary's thread as references. Hope you two don't mind my humble attempts to follow your work.
Starting a KT build thread from a beginners point-of-view...wish me luck.
Thanks,
DanL

Stern

Hallo DanL,

thanks a lot! I am happy to hear that you will also build a King Tiger - looking forward to your work! I never built a ship but I hope that there will be a lot of input for us from another area of modelling. Especially I am very interested in a solution of the fire smoke - the original recoil is with the wecohe parts not a problem (page 12 of this thread) - but the pressure of the fire smoke is really difficult to make like the original ....

Speed comparision:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXlIMxC3j2U[/youtube]

Best wishes to your build!