The dark side cometh. Many of you know I am strictly an ALLIED tank commander but I have been persuaded to dabble in AXIS armor with the purchase of a second hand Tiger from a club member who had already painted it in Bovingtons's captured 131 scheme. If I were to do a Tiger this is the one, so off we go. I ran it at the SCAT battleday to see how the original build up handled. Nice. Using DX-6 with BR6000 (came with tank)

Six month ago I bought two of the "K" sprue from the static kit for the appropriate parts. Feifel air cleaners, hatch hardware, early mantlet, and Afrika Corps Commander plus butterfly washers, extra exhaust shields and a few other nick nacs completed the package. I ordered a metal barrel from Stella and began the tear down by removing the tools, hatches, and cables.

Mantlet was modified and I plan to put the TBU LED down the barrel.

"K" sprue huh? That would have saved me hours modifying my HL mantlet and feifels! Thanks for posting, next time I'm getting a K sprue! Where can I get them? I didn't see it at TamiyaUSA or maybe I wasn't looking in right place? Is there a part number besides "K"?

Nice tank, still going to be the 131?

The "K" Sprue also has the front hatch hinge(s) and interior detail - latch and periscope.

Are you going to replace the missing fender sections, remove the headlights and give it the actual khaki over desert yellow that the real 131 has?

Hi Swathdriver

The K sprue is available from Axels Modelbau - link below to the item

[link]http://www.axels-modellbau-shop.de/katalog/en/116-Military/Tiger-I-Tamiya-Heng-Long/K-Parts-sprue-for-the-Tamiya-Tiger-I-Display-Model::2011.html[/link]


Good service from these guys and the site is also in English so easy to use.

Cheers
Gorehound

Forgot to mention, you get a pretty decent tank commander on the K sprue as well.

Thanks for the link.

Yeah, are you going to repaint it RAL 8000/7008 or 8020/7027?

The great paint debate..... Most likely it will be Tamiya Desert yellow with patchwork and dents and dings. My main interest is representing the damage as seen on the Bovington Tiger. The first order of business is the shot up stowage bin. I used the kit part and a Chipoltle restaurant aluminum lid. Basically I, cut out a frame work and re-skinned the bin with the aluminum. I am stressing the skin to look like the photos I have seen. I used parts from the old air cleaners to screw the bin back on rather than glue it.

Next came an oddity about the museum Tiger. The bow gunners hatch is a duplicate of the drivers hatch. I modified the parts to look like the backwards hatch, most likely a replacement on the real thing.

The skirts were detached, separated and reattached with 90 guage Hex head bolts. It is a must on my tanks to actually bolt something on.

Great idea on the stowage bin, how easy is the aluminum pie plate to manipulate. I use regular 5 mil aluminum sheet when I do my metal fenders and exhaust shrouds, and that stuff is really maliable.

With all that detail why not go with an accurate color for the theater? Dunkelgelb wasn't introduced until after the 504th landed in Tunisia.

Correct, oh mighty swathdiver. To go to all the trouble then repaint it incorrectly...

The tank is currently DARK YELLOW and will at least be painted DESERT YELLOW. I will check out some other combinations of Testors MM enamels as they do AFRIKA MUSTARD.

More Steps include disassembly of Tow cables and addition of damage to road wheels as per my Tiger references.

For what its worth, here's some pix of my attempt at modelling Bovington Tiger 131. I used the 'K' sprue from Axel as well.

You can see a video of it here:-

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4npFCq_E19s

Chris

The Afrika Mustard is very close if not spot on to RAL 8000. RAL 8000 is available in Enamel by Model Master.

Grompix, nice Tiger! Is that painted in 8020 and 7027?

I took a lot of photographs of the Bovington Tiger and tried to match the colours the Tank Museum used in its restoration. I found Vallejo 70977 (Desert Yellow) and 70921 (English Uniform) was a good match. I don't know what the RAL numbers woulb be. The photographs of Tiger 131 taken just after its capture show the vehicle to be covered with liberal amounts of dust and what looks like quite heavy weathering in places; So I 'dusted' mine down somewhat but not to the same extent. I was aiming for a look not unlike the photograph of Tiger 131 being driven its original crew.

Sunlight has a tendancy to do funny things to paint. I think we need to be cautious when commenting on shades of the same color. Fresh from the factory and a year under the hot African sun would create a variety of shades. I haven't come across enough color photos of the prototype to actually tell. As long as it is not pink, I'll give them the benefit of doubt.

I did some shopping and found a brand of paint called Lifecolor that includes an Afrika SandGelb. I am leaning toward a overall sand scheme.

Latest madness includes aluminum skinning on the exhaust shrouds. I am trying to replicate the damage and even if I have overdone it I still have the spares from my K sprue to try again.

I replaced all the side skirt fasteners with 00-90 hex head bolts and washers. My skirts are firmly in place and the reference photos show only slightly damaged.

Next step is the barrel cleaning rods and tow cables. I used lengths of the 00-90 brass screws and some styrene tube stock to make threaded rods. You can actually screw them together! I have the assemblies taped in place for now.

Coming along nicely, like your detail work. can you tell me where you found your hex head bolts?

Thanks Gary

They are called HOB-BITS and are available at most good hobby stores. They have 2-56, 00-72, 00-80, and 00-90 hex head, fillester head, and flat head screws in various length. All my tanks have several varieties. Usual cost is about $2 for 5 of each flavor, nut bolt, and screw. I cleaned out my stores collection of hex and recessed bolts over time.

Yes I did steal your idea for the cleaning rods.

grompix that is a good looking Tiger I. Both tanks are very interesting. I wonder if there is room for a third 131, I may need to consider rebuilding my old Kursk Tiger.

Interesting build. If I cannot get the K sprue here in the states I guess I'll just mod my mantlet too, since I'm only interested in a very early version.

I bet your eyes are going nuts seeing a different color than OD.

Someone has to stop the Axis...but damnit their tanks look soooo good

Thanks for the hex head info, the cleaning rod was from the instructions that I downloaded for my PE parts, 37 pages and many of these mods can be be done from scratch, what is nice about the instructions is that it comes with the measurements to locate almost everything mounted to the hull. If you would like it PM me, I think there is one for the Tiger I.
Gary

I really like the fender bolts. I'll have to find some of those somewhere

Got 131 in to the paint shop. Primed the new parts with Testor's dark tan and base coated with Tamiya desert yellow. I had selected Lifecolor's Sandgelb but when mixed with my alcohol thinner it turned into rubbery mush. I also got the heat shield the way I liked but had to forgo the aluminum skin trick for now. Used a motor tool to grind the kit part down down.