chilipiper

In no particular order...
(1)... WSN T-34 (SWMBO's)
(1)... M1A1 Abrams (Hobby Engine / AFV-Model)
(1)... Heng Long Pzkw III
(1)... Tamiya Panther
(1)... Tamiya King Tiger (Porsche turret)
(1)... Tamiya Sherman

That should keep me off the streets for a while.... these things are pretty addictive

TigerI

Yeah they are addictive. I barely started my Tiger and am already looking to get a Panther. Can't believe I got hooked so easily! And the kicker is I just can't leave well enough alone and build it straight out of the box. I gotta make it run better with gearboxes and metal tracks, new motors, and tons of detailing parts. Addictive? I'll say!! Mr Tamiya I could kill you!!

chilipiper

Isn't that what hobbies are for?

To suck up all available time and money and make them disappear!

njmlondon

Hi Chilli
can you give us some details on how you are going to add a charging jack and isolation switch? I am curious about both the actual wiring configuration and also how you are planning on installing them.

Great work by the way!

Keep it up!

chilipiper

Hi Njmlondon,
Thanks.. You can see in the attached sketch how I will be wiring the Tiger. This is a slight modification to how I wired my King Tiger, since the DMD and MF have separate connectors. I plan to use only 1 battery, mostly due to concerns about space with the reduction gears in place, but also to keep the wiring simple. The jack is a 5.5 mm one I got at Radio Shack (same as my King Tiger, for commonality). I also got the DPDT switch there as well. The Y- connector is available from Tower Hobbies; a search on their web site should turn it up (I don't have the part number, as I threw the bag away. I'm planning to use 14 gauge stranded wire to connect up everything.

As far as mounting the switch and the charging jack, my plan is pretty simple; I am planning to build a couple of small boxes out of sheet styrene, mount the switch in one and the jack in the other and glue them into the hull in the sponsons, next to each hatch.

At least that's the plan...

njmlondon

Thanks for the diagram! I dont know why but I have a real mental block over electrics and nothing explains like a good drawing. One more really dumb question.... is an isolator switch basically an on/off switch???

chilipiper

No such thing as a dumb question! The way I have it drawn, it acts as an on/off switch, providing isolation for the electronics during battery charging. If I wired it a bit differently, I could have it power two different circuits, the active one depending on the position of the switch. I've seen a number of diagrams similar to mine on the forum that do pretty much the same thing, so there's a number of ways this can be made to work.

Electrical stuff is not my strength either. One tip I can pass on is to mock up your proposed circuit (I think it's called breadboarding) using some cheap light bulbs (I used some old Christmas lights) to make sure the circuit is wired properly and functions the way you want it to. DMD's and MF's are too expensive to risk burning out - light bulbs are cheap!

njmlondon

I like the sound of breadboarding! A great way to experiment! Thanks

chilipiper

Today’s update: construction of the deck.
There’s a lot of stuff happening in this update. I began this phase of the construction by adding weld beads to the side and front edges of the deck. This was done with the deck in place on the hull, using the saran wrap trick to make sure I could get it apart afterward. I found the deck was slightly warped; this was corrected using the magnet trick I used on the turret roof.

The next step was to add the engine hatch to the deck. This was built per the kit instructions with a couple of exceptions; I added a couple of metal handles to the hatch (from the Schumo detail set) and added some CA weld bead to the air intake ( I’ve seen a number of photos that show this piece was a welded assembly – a thin bead of CA along the appropriate edges simulates this well).

Next I added Schumo Bosch headlights to each side of the deck. I decided to use both, even though most pictures of Tiger 332 show them missing. Since the real headlights were designed to be easily removed and replaced, I figured that they were just stowed away when the photos were taken. Besides, I needed some way to show me that I left the power on… For the lights, instead of LED’s I’m trying grain of rice bulbs, as they seem to give a more natural light color than the LED’s. These will be wired to the receiver, powering on when the receiver is getting power. A couple of pieces of aluminum tubing were bent to simulate the wiring conduit for the headlights and glued in place. A few other detail pieces, such as the tiedowns for the conduit, were added from the Aber set.

Next, I added the Schumo tow cable holders. The 4 front and 4 middle cable holders were located in the stock positions. The rear 4 cable holders were a little more difficult to locate, as their locations tended to vary, depending on the build date. As I didn’t have clear pictures showing their location on Tiger 332, I consulted a couple of other references for help; Germany’s Tiger Tanks DW to Tiger I and The Modeler’s Guide to The Tiger Tank gave some good info here. After I got everything epoxied in place, I added weld bead to all the cable holders and called it good…

When I was going through my spares box, I found some pieces left over from my King Tiger build; the catches for the rear-most engine grates. Looks like they just found a new home… With these in place, I added the Aber engine screens. The next aftermarket pieces I added were the Schumo s-mine launchers. These are totally absent in the stock kit, but were definitely present on Tiger 332. Once the launchers were in place I added some small pieces of wire to simulate the electrical cables.

One thing I did not add (even though I was planning to) was the Aber tool clamps. After repeated attempts to build these things, only to have them look really ugly or go pinging off behind the desk (where big furry spider lives), I had enough and just used the kit parts. [sm=drowning.gif]I also used the kit fire extinguisher, as it seemed to have some pretty decent detail (far better than the one on the King Tiger).

The final additions were the driver’s and radio operator’s hatches. The hatches were modified using the “K� sprue that I was finally able to get, courtesy of the LHS. There’s lots of nice detail on this sprue and it’s vastly easier to build than using Aber’s detail set.

The last picture shows the completed deck after a shot of Tamiya’s grey primer.

hdbeast

Looks good, I understand completely when you said you had enough with building the tool clamps, they are small, lots to assemble and still make work right, I almost gave up too.

I ended up using old music strings for the pins, there strong and stiff, made them easier to install. [sm=thumbup.gif][sm=spinnyeyes.gif]

Gary

chilipiper

Gary,
That's a great idea! I was trying to use copper wire strands that were just too flexible for the task at hand. What type of music strings did you use?

Already planning for my next build... (insert evil laugh...)

hdbeast

I started to try copper but could not find the right size and it was not stiff enough to push into the small holes, I drilled the holes out to the string size, then used a metal cutting disk for the dremel and ground one end flat, it would leave a bur around the edge like a flat head rivet, then sharpen the other end to a point to help push through the holes but leave it long enough to be able to grind it flat once through (CAREFULLY) then touch the ends with a very small amount of CA. They work well and the pins are staying in place.

These are the instruments I play, so you can see I have many strings to work with.

Gary

chilipiper

Thanks for the great tips, Gary. I'll definitely give them a try. Gonna pay a visit to the local music store this week and see what I can find. Very cool on the instruments - my instrument of choice is the bagpipes - no tank friendly parts to be had, but you should see the squirrels run!

TigerI

Whats going on Chili, haven't heard from you in a bit. Taking a break after building all those small parts?

chilipiper

Nope.. been working on it quite a bit, actually. Been starting to do some painting and that always seems to be (at least to me) very time consuming.

Not to worry, I'll be posting an update soon, just gotta take some pictures, so I'll have something to show.

TigerI

Sounds good to me Chili!

chilipiper

Today’s Update: Painting the Beast

Having completed the majority of the construction with the addition of the Aber fenders (not too tough to build, but they really need to be soldered together), the time finally has come to start laying down some paint. One of the tougher things to grapple with while doing this build was deciding on the paint scheme. My original inclination was to paint this beast in the dark panzer grey (as per Tamiya’s painting instructions). This conflicted with the knowledge that Tiger 332 was a March ’43 build, by which time the changeover to dunkelgelb would have occurred at the factory. The available photographs likewise seemed contradictory, some seemingly showing a panzer grey finish, others showing what appears to be dunkelgelb. I ran across this post on [link=http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/thread/1052855050/Continuing+Discussion+on+Tiger+332+from+sPA+503)]Missing Lynx[/link], which to me, made a very strong case for a dunkelgelb scheme, with olivgrun stripes. With this in mind, I reviewed the pictures yet again (for only the 40,000th time), and settled on a dunkelgelb/olivgrun scheme. Time to break out the airbrush!

For the base coat, I used Tamiya’s XF-60 dark yellow, thinned about 30% with Tamiya’s thinner. For the olivegrun stripes, I used Tamiya’s XF-65 field grey (it’s actually a green color that’s probably a reasonable approximation of olivgrun) thinned down by about 70-80%. The pattern I chose was mostly from the pictures in Der Panzerkampfwagen Tiger an Der Front Bildband und tiger Fibel im Bild; once I realized I was looking at a 2 tone scheme, I was able to guesstimate a pattern. The olivgrun stripes came out a bit darker than I wanted; I’ll take care of that when I do the weathering.

One word of caution in painting the deck; (unlike me) don’t forget to mask off the little bb’s that the turret rides on, otherwise you’ll likely be removing them to clean them.. And watching them fly across the room… And cussing up a storm… And breaking out the flashlights and magnets to find them.. And celebrating success with a frosty adult beverage or 2.

The mufflers were first painted with a flat dark grey enamel base; while this paint was still wet, I sprinkled some baking soda on to create some texture. The mufflers were then treated with Rustall and the tops were sooted up using Tamiya’s weathering master to give a nice rusty, sooty look to them.

Next up… weathering.

hdbeast

Looks great chilipiper

Mufflers turn out very nice, Paint looks great also. I've started to slowly get back to work on my KT, adding the welds. there is so many places to do welds, this my take months to do. I also bought a 1/35 King Tiger to build, I'm going to use this to practice my camo painting on. hoping it helps me.

Gary

chilipiper

Thanks Gary,
I did the welds as I went, partly because I didn't want to spend a week or 2 doing nothing but welds but also because as the tank came together and got heavier, it became more and more unwieldy for doing fine detail work.

For practice, I just sacrificed a piece of sheet styrene for use as a guinea pig - got 2 tries to get it right per sheet! I also got a 1/35th elefant for practice, but I haven't put that together yet. I'll use the test pieces to try out my weathering techniques before I apply them to the tank.

googlydoogly

It's awesome to finally see the great kitty painted. Looking fantastic so far. Are you gonna totally subdue the olive green stripes? And what will you do for markings? I'm also doing a S.Pz.Abt. Tiger I (Tiger 231), but having problems looking for numerals that's similar in shape and size to the markings of the 2nd kop. 503.

chilipiper

Thanks Googly,
Yeah I'm going to subdue the green stripes when I do the weathering. They came out more prominent than I wanted, even though when I did some practicing on some sheet styrene, I was able to get the effect I wanted. I guess it's a scale thing... Also, the pictures were taken with a flash, which makes the dunkelgelb wash out a bit relative to the green. But, I'll see how it turns out after the weathering is done. I'm just planning to use the kit decals for markings at this point and if I need anything different, I'll try doing it on the computer with some decal paper.

TigerI

Welcome back Chili, good to see you've made some more progress. I don't I'm going to do when you finish this tank for reading. OMG! I shudder to even think about it! On a serious note the Tiger looks GREAT! Green camo could use lightened a bit I agree. But sweet all the same. What happened to the front spare tracks, didn't notice them. You've really done a great build article and people should look at this as a tutorial on how to build their Tiger!

chilipiper

Thanks Greg,
I look at all the other great build I've seen on the forum and how useful they've been to me and think how great it is to be able to give something back. So I've tried to put as much useful info into this build as I can...

As to the spare tracks, they'll get put on shortly, probably at an intermediate step in the weathering... I'm still working out how I want to go about the final assembly / weathering steps.

TigerI

Chili, whats the tamiya part # on that K sprue

chilipiper

Greg,
Looking at the actual sprue, there are 2 numbers on the back side:
36203, which is probably the kit number
A901110, which is probably the actual part number.