¹⁄35

Recycling Your Old Kits

OK, baby is on it’s Schachtellradlaufwerk now, no more obstacles to expect for completion one might think. but.. here comes the turret...

I glued together the front armor with the turret, but there were some misfits especially in the lower area. I filled that with Squadron White Putty, thinned with Italeri’s liquid glue and simulated the zimmerit by pressing the wet putty with a toothpick. I superglued a resin chunk into the turret to serve as support for the gun. I did not waste a thought on installing a mechanism for moving the gun up an down.

As no part for the underside/overhang of the turret had been supplied I had to recreate them with plasticcard. I faced some big obstacles to recreate the lower rear area of the turret where it is transiting to the overhang. If you do not get this right, the whole area gets out of shape and the turret will not fit or rotate (on contrary, I almost was... believe me) properly.

There is one shortcoming on the turret. Approximately in the middle of each side there is something like a vertical line interrupting the smooth appearance of the Zimmerit. I am not sure if it had been caused by molding or if they used Zimmerit plates which were joined in this area. As this Kingtiger should represent a vehicle from s. PzAbtlg 505 ( the one with the riding knight ) I did not care too much about this mishap as I had get rid of most of the zimmerit in this area anyway to resemble a smooth place a for the unit sign.

I used a 12V drill, attached to a trafo from a toytrain (very professional, I know!!) and a dental burr for this action.