Hi Herbert! Can you know the future of my projects? I have been mulling this one over for a while, it appears to be a field application of zimmerit? I can imagine the chagrin on the crews faces when this arrived back from the maintainance echeleon eh? I can only think that this must have been around August/September '43' when the early-mids started production proper, and delivery of zimmerited vehicles arrived on the Ostfront. The 9./s.SS.Pz.-Kmp SSTK got their Vertical turret zimmerit mid-Tiger 1 around that time.

Here is another early-mid of that period destined for the front! Maybe even headed for the same unit, this appears to have a broad heavier zimmerit pattern on the hull and turret.

These two images show very fine applications of paste, the bottom image in a vertical fashion, at first I believed it to be surface damage to the photograph, but when blown up on a interactive whiteboard, you can see it better.


And finaly this pattern! Sported by the crew of Tiger 218 of the s.Pz.-Abt.502, this appears to have been applied with a 'negative' waffle tool or 'combed' horizontaly and verticaly!

There is also a KT(p) with a broad pattern on the turret, that has caught my attention! But I will have to save that for anotherday.
Thanks for adding this to the 'mix' Herbert, your comments and thoughts are much appreciated, as are anyother images you have relating to this zimmerit mularkey!
Right quick nap and on with the Glacis plates!

Cheers Phil.

Morning All! Right glacis plates... These blighters and the fit onto the hull with the DML Tiger1's has caused some headaches for a while with modellers. A lot of people use a 'sprue spreader' to push the hull apart in order to take the glacis part. When dry fitting the glacis and the bow-glacis-apron you can have a situation a bit like a frontal strike at point-blank from a IS2, as the glacis and apron 'eject' from the 'sprung' hull skywards! I have a different slant on this issue (I thought you might... I hear you say! ) but more on that after this...
The glacis on #6383 has as we all know optional plug parts that sit in tooled recesses moulded into the rear of the part. These are removed at the lowest point in order to represent a bare armour patch on the face, when the plug is inserted. Then you can represent a late Tiger 1 from the HQ/1st Platoon/2ndPlatoon of the 1st Kompanie of the s.SS.Pz.-Abt.101 in Normandy '44'. The third platton had mids! Though when the 1st Kompanie transfered to the KT later in the campaign some of their late Tiger 1's were distributed to the equally decimated 3rd Kompanie. There is also a theory that a 2nd Kompanie Tiger had at least a 1st Kompanie hull... but thats another story and issue altogether! I told you these LAH Tigers were a tricky bunch
The sections to be removed are drilled from the rear with a micro drill to aid the 'cutting' of the part.



After the aperture has been opened up and you have trimmed the edges to a fairly smooth straight degree it's time to fill that opening. Now we can insert the plug and fill any gaps with Mr Surfacer whilst also bringing up the depth to a shallower level in stages, you could use some thinnish stock styrene sheet to speed this process up if you so desire.


And with that done we skip past a whole heap of the 'instructions procedural stages' and glue the glacis onto the hull!
Dragon themselves upon their website FAQ highlight the 'intentional warp' built into the hull of their Tiger 1's, and explain away the whys and wherefores, with this in mind and not having anymore than one pair of hands, I use the glacis itself as the spreader. This part is intended for the job, and when fitted and dry, all the corresponding parts, hull roof and bow-glacis-apron fit like a dream. Though on the zimmerit parts of #6383 the lower edge of the moulded zimmerit pattern slightly fouls the moulded zimmerit pattern of the BG apron part and you will get a much better fit by carefully removing some of the moulded surface texture before fitting. I have also softened the texture with wet and dry sand paper initially, upon the near horizontal apron part, as upon images of this area it is very hard to see the zimmerit (if applied) as being the main mounting point for the crew (hob nail boots and a ceramic ridged surface!!!), and a natural trap for detrius and mud etc always looks less textured. So with the glacis in place, the warp of the hull gone we can now safely dry fit the bow-glacis-apron and the hull roof if you are scepticle! (trust me I'm as paranoid as anybody, the fit of DML's parts are excellent with very rarely any filling needed, the one thing you notice doing mutiple Tigers is that the hulls all have a slight variation of 'warp',)


There we go 'spreaderless'! That should help if you are doing an interior!!! Back to #6383 then. You can now fit with ease the bow-glacis-apron of your choice. You will notice that I am only using one of the zimmerit parts for the apron, I am going to paste the mugard-less one as I am not too keen on the PE solution for the join to the bow plate.



And here are the other hulls wating for their 'paste job'!

Here I have tried to capture the subtle texture of the near horizontal surface appearance of the bow-glacis-apron from a near 1/1 viewing angle, you can see that it does look less heavily textured from this angle, than the rest of the zimmerit pattern.



There you go then we are nearly at the point where the hull are 'shunted' for finishing at a later date! Only joking, I have been told to complete thes kitties and that I will. Back later, thanks again for looking in and all the comments and support! You can post on the thread if you wish, I don't bite! Honest.

Cheers Phil...

Sorry Phil have'nt been around, but not forgotten. I think you are doing a better job Ziming the Horizontal hull fronts. I think your fine pattern looks alot better than Dragons deep look. Combing(sorry coming along great) Throught it try and test the English police! Anyway Been great to catch up and seeing Herberts Waffelled Tiger, well that looks like another thread in the making. Just shows how many differant patterns the Geramans plasterd they're cats in. Loving this thread more and more, cheers LOL GERAINT

Just now found this build log, and all I can say is........MAGNIFICENT! One of the best narratives I've seen to go hand in hand with a superb job of applying zimmerit. Thank you for sharing your methods, tools, skill and knowledge. I'm finally ready to take the zimm plunge

Dennis

Hello All! Hi there Geraint! And welcome aboard this thread Dennis! Right lets get back to where we left off, glacis plates... Now we move onto #6406 and #6416 and the application of the pattern with epoxy putty and applicator roller tools. Again pea sized lumps of putty are placed onto the parts and spread to an optimum depth of between 0.2-0.3mm, as this minimises the build-up I call 'roller-splurge' between the rows.


With this done you can start to apply the zimmerit pattern around the two major obstacles on the glacis plate. Radial around the bow mg (kugelblende) aperture and vertical rows either side and above the drivers armoured vision block, the rows between the two columns above the vision block often vary in width on the real things as seen in period images.

Now the pattern can be applied across the glacis plate part, from the centre outwards or from one side to the other! Or the individual sections between the obstacles.


With a little practice you can actually start to give a fair representation of an individual vehicle(providing you have enough reference material ) Zimmerit can almost serve as a 'fingerprint' for Tiger 1's and other AFV's with it applied.
Next up is the optional part included that I have decided to use on the #6383 (modded) rather than the moulded zimmerit kit part supplied.on here it is best to spread the putty as thinly as possible 0.2mm max, as this area when seen upon the actual vehicle appears 'flatter' and less textured in relation to the vertcal planes on the tank.


For this pattern depiction I will use a sharpened flat headed 4mm screwdriver head, much in the same fashion as we used for the 'ommited' zimmerit from the angled small plate on the lower rear hull of #6383. In order to copy the pattern used on the moulded pattern on the hull of #6383 start at the top of the area, indent the tool into the putty and move down at a flattish pitch towards the 'bottom' in roughly even rows.


Her are a few shots of at a lower angle, just to show the softer appearance of this ''camera shy' area of the Tiger 1.


So thats that, as far as pasting for #6383 is concerned, next up is the BG pasting for #6406 and #6416, along with some attention to zimmerit joins on the four corners of the hull and replacement of small areas on the turret. Here are the turrets and hulls 'mated' just for some sheer Tiger image oppurtunity.


See I told you we would be getting some fully built Tigers at the end of this
! Just 64 torsion bars 128 roadwheels and other running gear and these kitties should be 'sitting pretty'!

Cheers for dropping in ... Phil

Wotcha! Pasting the bow-glacis-apron of #6406 and #6416, is the task for today. Once again... possibly the last time on this build-log? Place a small quantity of Tamiya epoxy putty onto the part to be pasted, and spread to a depth of around 0,2mm with an artists pallette knife.


Now you can get to 'rolling'! Using the Lion Roar tool you can use the corresponding 'doe foot' part in order to reach the areas towards the rear of the BG-apron where the roller cannot get to, and with the AFV club applicator tool, you can use the 'stamping' ends of the tool itself to imprint the pattern upon the areas where the roller doe head cannot get to.

With these tricky little areas sorted, it is just a matter of 'rolling' the pattern in roughly even rows across the BG-apron from front to rear.

And as usual for comparison, we include one of the #6383 hulls with it's older siblings!

If you want to leave this area free of zimmerit, that is fine as long as you don't see it on your reference images, as the OKW order was for zimmerit to be applied to 'all vertical armour plate' on all armoured vehicles above a specified fighting weight able to support the extra weight, with the intention of not applying it to horizontal surfaces (tell that to the 'workers' who applied it to Stugs,PZIV's wherever they could!) also with this armoured part of a 'lowly' 62mm sat over the transmission and final drives, you really wouldn't want a MAT-mine being slapped on their if you were the driver or the radio/bow mg operator! Mind you with this area being near horizontal a well placed mine would have a chance of not sliding off either!
Right torsion bars etc to be dealt with and onto the fun bits! Though I was thinking about those turret vision slits on the 'modded' #6383 now we have another one we can leave alone. ;
Cheers for lokking, Phil.

Tyat is a whole lot of tigers!

Nice work on the zimmerit.

Martyn

phil you're crazy man! but in a good way lol

Hi Martyn, hello Ant, plenty of room on the engine decks of 'Kampfgruppe Appfelmetre' Sanity is 'overated' eh? Thanks for the words of encouragement. Not much to report in at the moment, bogged down with a few life and work things along with schools closed for the six or so inches of 'the white apocaylpse'. Mainly I have been stripping sprues of the relevant parts for the suspension torsion bars, and running gear. Along with removing the armoured turret protection ring, on the hull roof of the finer zimmerit pattern turreted Tiger.

One hull done three to go!
See the hull roof fits nice and snug even following the rebelious construction path, just remember to glue the hull sides to the glacis when you do finaly fit the hull roof.

The removal of the moulded turret protection ring is quite tricky, as I am really trying not to mark or remove any of the hull roof itself.

A light sanding and a covering of Mr Surfacer 1200, and some roof stowage re-arranging and we should be nearer to David's template for this production variant of the late Tiger 1. Please feel free to make corrections if I veer of course on this David... Please. Okay back to the mountain of torsion bars...

Thanks for looking in. Phil.

Here is what else I do in my 'spare time' .

Good Morning All! Sorry for the delay in posting any updates in the last few days! But overdue baby madness has decended onto the household, chaos truly rules it all! Along with cleaning up roadwheels,torsion bars,idlers and drive sprockets, not much true movement forward. I has also been informed that the PE is on the way (Aber, Lion Roar and Voyager, can't wait to start on these!) for the OOB #6383 we will of course be using the kit supplied PE fret.
Right back to the hull roof and the removal of the armoured turret protection ring. The majority of the raised moulded detail was removed 'carefuly' with an Exacto micro chisel, and the residue with a fine grade dental burr in the 'Dremel, followed by a light sand with 600's wet and dry automotive finishing abrasive sheet. Mr surfacer 1200 was then thinly brushed onto the surface of the hull roof, with low points filled with small 'blobs' of Mr Surfacer to help fill the occasional small gouge (whoops! ) When dry this can then be sanded once more, and re-done in the same stages till a satisfactory even surface is achieved.
References used for this are of course, David Byrden's http://tiger1.info/ amazing source of all thing Tiger 1! Also utillised was 'Patrick Stansells' "The Modellers Guide To The Tiger Tank" published by 'Ampersand'. A realy useful quick stop for build issues on production variants of the Tiger 1 and II.

Before

In Progress

And Removed!

With the Mr Surfacer applied, awaiting further fine surface finishing and tool stowage re-deployment!
And back to the suspension and running gear...

As you can see in the bottom of the hull tubs, I have also started playing around with producing manufacturing variations of the armoured exhaust covers, a little more on this later.

Cheers for persevering! Back later Phil...

Ha ha Phil I knew I would catch up with you sooner or later.Never seen one of your blogs before and you sure know your Tigers buddy.Impressive stuff buddy!

BTW I know where to come knocking when I start mine

Cheers
Deano

Hello and welcome Deano! Good to see you up and running so quickly, great blog on the ZKT, I will watch and learn from you as always on that one! I will be MIA for a few days whilst the last of the Appleyard-Keeling clan is birthed on Friday the 13th, if it's a girl, Wednesday would be a good name. . I will be building in the down time now the compressor is back online, and the airbrush needle replaced, I can mess about with the hull interiors. All the torsion bars are in and the idlers and sprockets are ready to go... The roadwheels, I am really glad that these are not an early or mid pride (does anybody know the real collective grouping name for tigers? ) of Tigers! As I would have an extra 64 roadwheels to clean up as well as painting all those continental's. Van made a good point about the hulls recognition becoming confusing and suggested that they be numbered in a similar fashion as the turrets at the start of this blog. I will spend some of my free thinking time to see what other little tweaks we can pick up from past and present masters of the Tiger, and stick a few on these babies. Here are the turret numbers as it stands at this moment, I will definately stick with '213' (unless anybody has any further info on this Tiger) as this is the only 'late' I can find for the s.SS.Pz.-Abt.101 in Normandy with the finer turret pattern of zimmerit.

So here they are tagged.


Thanks for your support Deano, I'm still quite fresh on the Tiger 1, compared to David Byrden,Brian Balkwill and a host of the Tiger Experten Hive are amazing sources of all aspects of this lengendary beast! But anything I can help with I 'l be more than happy to assist . I will try to get a few posts in before the joyous event... Hopefully!

See you all real soon... Phil

Hello again! It seems like an age since the last update, a lot has happened inbetween as some of you may know. The baby powder dust has settled slightly and I can know see the workbench again! The down time hasn't been totaly devoid of activity though on the modelling front. A lot of parts have been removed from the sprues and cleaned up and base-coated, along with reference trawling and mithering very busy people for images info and insight!
The Hull roof/engine deck for #213 with the finer pattern and earlier mid/late (sorry Richard! ) stowage and ommisions has been totaly scoured of all attachment point and features, right down to the tarpaulin tie downs cleats for the engine decks foul weather coverage. I will start affixing the PE and styrene today, some of the stowage movements involved are really minor in 1/35 a matter of 2-3mm but some are major due to the space that existed before the fitting of the Turret protection ring in early '44'. I nearly missed the tie down retro relocation. This build of #213 is perculiar in the fact that it is from a similar period as DML#6416 'Kurzmaul' (which is the basis for the build) but as David Byrden points out it has no turret protection ring yet a 40mm roof, If I am correct upon this therefore it should have the 700mm idler along with the flat hull side front ends! This Tiger really did get last helpings on the production line on some points!

I think that as this Tiger (possible #213) was not available for the Villers-Bocage action, I will depict it as crossing a field on it's way to it's demise on the 27th June near Cheux behind a hedgerow.
I have also been painting and weathering/staining a couple of the hull interiors, now that the torsion bars have been fitted to all the hull tubs.

Why I hear some of you cry... Well as I see it if it's there and it has a chance of being glimpsed through an open hatch, then its true interior colour in shadow is better than black, especially as the guns breech assembly always fouls the line of sight into the fighting comparment, just the way I do it as I am intending to fit interiors into some of the Tigers destined for the 'N175' jigsaw Diorama.

You can see above the featureless #213 hull compared to the 'untouched' late hull roofs of the other kits.
Thanks for being patient, whislt our newest child 'Astrid' came into the world, she really is a wonderful thing and very good at sleeping (so far ) Back later cheers again... Phil

Two things about the fuel tanks:
[1] they were dull silver
[2] you can't see them when the vents are installed.

David

Outstanding blog Phil,never seen so many builds in the one go.Excellent work so far on all four

Cheers
Deano

Thanks David I'll rectify that later today when the airbrush breaks cover again. I just sort of went into a 'red oxide' frenzy. On a point of colour, were the wood fillets on the vent plates painted in primer or left natural? Also one last query, on the 'Kurzmaul' kit #6416 the base plate for the drivers side Bosch headlight is shown to be still fitted (part# MB1) would this also be the case on this hull (this is turning into another one of those anomalies! ) Thanks in advance, dull metal it is then!

Thanks again, Phil.

Hi Phil,
Good to see this one on the go again. Looking good.
Sorry, I didn't realise that you'd not decided on turret numbers yet..

Congrats again with Astrid.

At least the zim putty won't stick to your fingers with all that baby powder in the air...

base plate is an interesting feature... there is a photo of a Tiger made at almost the same time, and it has a base plate. I assume the drawings were not updated.

David

Hi Phil ...This keeps getting better and better ...I hope you turn this into an article that will be available long term ...Congrats on the new arrival...Amazing that you already have time to sit down at your desk ...
I'm wondering if you are going to try and use that PE zimmerit for the over lap on the hull front on the OOB build or are you going to cheat and make your own?? I'm just wondering how effective that PE is going to be.

So Keep it coming ..although it's getting scary to build a tiger with all the info out there ..so many things to screw up on ...

Rick

Hello Again all!

Hi Grant! Thanks again for the warm wishes, she really is a wonderful baby, I am blessed truly... With all the time I have again for modelling.

Thanks for the information on this Tiger David, extremely helpful and reasuring, just toying with the idea of putting a gun travel lock on the rear or just the mounting plates! As you can see the fuel tanks have been re-painted to a 'dull' silver/steel tone. Would the 'wood' planking on the vents have been left unpainted or primered?



The hull roof has now been cleaned ready for the PE, with all the original location points for the later stowage option of the kit filled with styrene rod and sanded flush. And as David points out, now you can't even see the fuel cells, let alone the colour!
But we still know they are there.

And with the grille screens in place you can see less (but they are still there smug in the fact that they are painted and lurking)

I have managed to get some other detail work done on the bow and stern of '213' such as the unit emblem cut out in the zimmerit ( Tigers '205 and '204' and the first and third platoon of the the 2nd company is believed to have had the insignia applied to a bare armour cut out on the whole, with most of the 2nd platoons Tigers having it directly applied to the zimmerit) as well as a few brackets and clean up for other stowage items.


So at least this 'tricky' Tiger is getting near to the end of it's build phase, just another three to go!
Now to Richards enquiry, I will use the PE part on one of the #6383 bow/glacis aprons, one is already pasted with a represention of the kits pattern (good ol' screwdriver method) whilst on the other I have softened the pattern a tad via sanding, as it is as deep and sharp as the rest of the kits pattern, when this area is usually difficult to discern at most time as being pasted (though it was in most cases). Though I think I will attempt to blend in the two mediums with some Mr Surfacer. If everybody else would like this saving as an article, I'd be more than happy to assist! Though it probably need some serious editing and abridging. Thanks for the compliment it means a lot Richard.
Right I'm off to bed, got some work on the drawing boards to complete also, but should squeeze in some more Tiger work tomorrow!

Cheers for looking... Phil

Good Evening Everbody! I have spent the last few days away from the bench/sofa but have still been preparing parts for the Tigers. Due to HM Customs deciding 'samples' with no commercial value still need a ridiculous tariff, then 'misplacing' the PE and Tracks,(though I did receive the paint, so that should stop me from dressing as a native in a Nike tracksuit and throwing boxes of tea bags into Salford Docks) I will change tack and move onto the OOB #6383 (Warning? Do you wan't the DS tracks on for comparison or would it be okay to use the 'excess' "magic tracks" from the 16 H sprues from all of the kits... boxes? Still technicaly 'out of the box' just not the same box! ) For the tracks on the above #6416 '213' fine pattern Tiger I will use a set of 'Masterclub' resin Tracks (Thanks Grant, these really have come in handy in this parts emergency... really nice tracks, very crisp and suprisingly easy to assemble).

Here is a strange one! in both the kit instructions for both #6406 and #6383 the part for the bar, for the spare track to be hung on the bow plate is given as C15 And the part representing the spare ariel tube that is mounted on the right hand rear of the hull sides top edge is illustrated as K3 Has anybody else made note of this in previous build logs? There was another error that I came across and have forgotten during my hiatus! It's a good job I used some stock styrene rod for the bow spare track rail


So thats my moan over with!
I will now go and take some snaps, now I have regained control over the camera! This baby must be the most photographed person on the planet at the moment!

Back in a little while... Phil!

Just a quick update on the bow spare track rail. Here are both the parts C15 and K3 (fair dues, they are very similar looking!) And the 'MasterClub' (MC135005W) Pz.Kpfw. VI Tiger late resin Tracks in place, all that is needed to finish them off are some full length track pins in the drilled link holes.



Just a matter now of waiting the delivery of the PE and other track options, so some work can be done whilst waiting on '122' #6383 OOB and some more 'modding' on a few areas!
Back tomorrow... Phil.

Looks good Phil.. Nice to see one of Tigers starting to look a little complete.

A little word of warning about drilling right thru' the Masterclub links. They're a lot more brittle than drilling styrene and the drill bit can go astray very easily. I broke or drilled crooked on quite few when I first used them... So careful, slow and straight basically.
This is fresh in my mind because I've just drilled 12 Panther links for track pins today., and messed up 3 in the process But the Panther links are much more fragile than the Tiger links

I'd noticed the C15/K3 mix up too.. One for Dragon to put right on the Mid Tiger kit (in my dreams)


PS: I noticed on Bison decals site under the heading 'Next sets to be released'
35091 Tigers of sSSPzAbt 101.
..might be of interest.

Morning Grant I had completely missed this on previous builds of #6406, as I have always used stock rod for the bow spare track rail, and a brass turned ariel container in the past. But as I am trying to be methodical, I only just stumbled over it whilst preparing parts for the OOB.
The drilling of the tracks needed for full track pins is done, You must have sent me a very robust set, though the drill bit did 'flex' a little on the side behind the tread/cleat face. But coming at it from both ways, I managed to get the job done. The one thing I noticed was that despite a couple of reviews stating the amount of work needed for the 'clean up' and drilling for assembly being ardious! A little wipe with a sanding board cleared any of the mould fill flash, and with the drilling it is a breeze with the tracks detail being so crisp, the bit is guided through really easily, an excellent product!
Soooo... A Panther you say! Cats out of bag now, although smaller than expected

Thanks for the tracks again , and I will check out those decals.Phil. Back later

Unpainted... Jean-Charles Breucque has had this photo online for years now!