Hi,
My latest Tiger build ready for the paint shop. It's the Tamiya kit with a little extra work done.
I've backdated a month or so to match, hopefully, this non-behfels stab Tiger of the sPzAbt.502 : '002' :



If anyone sees anything I've missed or got wrong, please say so, because I'll probably be putting the primer on at the weekend..



















Any comments, opinions or questions are welcome.

Thanks for looking.. Grant.

lookin good to me. and for a model to look at for part/tool placement, looks perfect to me!

reb

looking good so far, Im waiting for Atak Zimm set and Voyager PE set to start mine, what barrel did you use.

I can't see a thing wrong on that model.

David

Thanks for the replies fellas. Good to know I've not overlooked anything.

Jamal; the barrel is from RB-models, the antenna also.

Great work Grant. Just my cup of tea.


Bill

Very nice work Grant ...but we all expect that from you anyway... Zimmerit looks spot on ,,Can't wait to see the final product ..

Well hello Grant!
Very nice, very nice indeedy! Good to see a VanTiger back on the boards! I'll bet you're going through a 'Mid' life crisis with all those #6660's sat about the place?
I am looking forwards to the painting, very much!

Thanks for posting, cheers... Phil.

Hi Grant. I really like the zimmerit ... is this some resin set or have you done it yourself? The different zimmerit designs on the hull and turret are nicely done. Are those AFV Club tracks? Looking forward to the paint job.

And what about the shovel on front glacis? Should it be there?

There's another photo of 002 that seems to show it.

David

Hi Bill and Richard, thanks for the interest. The primer went on last night.

Hi Phil,
My latest 6660 purchase arrived this week with the instructions, the PE fret and the decals missing??
After contacting the shop, it seems they had a full batch of kits with these pieces missing. Cyber-hobby have since realised this and sent the missing pieces to the vendors. The shop has now sent them on to me.
So, if you've got a few these kits in your stash, it might be worth checking the contents, if you have'nt already.

Hi Frank,
For the most part, the zim is done with Tamiya's epoxy putty, zimspiration á la Appleyard .
The hull and mantlet with a roller and the turret with an old ball point pen.
But the apron zim is resin, a piece from an old Cavalier set. I used this simply because it already had the flatter/smoother profile.
Here you can see the difference between the two:



..and yes, those are AFVclub tracks. I think they're excellent for the price,
though the Masterclub tracks are still my favourites.

Hi Raimondas,
As David says, there is another photo of '002', and though a little blurry, it does seem to show shovel on the glacis.
After looking at lots of sPzAbt.502 'mid' pics for this period/batch, it 'generally' seemed that the Tigers with no side hull extension cut outs had the shovel fitted.
I say 'generally' because, as usual with Tigers, feature changes seem to overlap each other and there are always exceptions:

Cut outs with shovel brackets:


No cut outs and no shovel:


Thanks again all, and I'll update with the painting progress once I've blow dust off the airbrush..

Grant.

Evening Grant! I have only one box so far that has the instructions missing! I must have dropped lucky? Though I still cannot workout what I am supposed to do with sprue TK??? Ahh the drone of the PSI building up!!! Worth the wait!

Cheers Phil!

Terrific job Grant - it may just inspire me to revive my Tiger build.

Thanks for explanation about the shovel, Grant. Good research.

Tamiya Mid Tiger was my first model. Not so many build yet, though

truly inspirational, the both of them.

thank you for posting this information.


reb

Those are some nice looking
I really like the different style of Zimm looking forward 2seeing it with paint

and the decals as well, lwant to see how its in the zim grooves, or pkaced there.


reb

Hi all,
Thanks for the interest and pics.

A paint shop update.
I've tried to take a few pics of the paint stages when decent daylight was available.

Primed; Chaos black (which ran out after the first coat) 2nd coat of Vallejo's 'Black Grey' :





Lifecolor's 'Dunkel Gelb' base coat:





The camo's on, Agama's 'Red Brown', and I've started base coating the metal parts;
Still a long way to go and the camo should be much more subdued by the end:





Grant.

lookin great!
was the dark gray very hard to mix and shoot?

reb

Cheers Reb,
The 'Black Grey' was from the Vallejo model air range sprayed unthinned.
I wouldn't normally use this as a prime base, but there was already a coat of 'Chaos Black' (from an aerosol) under it.

I usually prime Vallejo aerosol cans, but I had none in house:



Grant.

Hi Grant. As the tracks are workable, is there any reason why you had them in place when spraying? I have a set of these as well, and bought them over using indy tracks, so I could keep them seperate. Just curious.
Nice spray job by the way ... its already looking the part.

Hi Frank,
With the Masterclub or Friul track sets I would assemble and paint them off the the kit.
But with these AFVClub tracks; the glueable 'bridging' part between every two links is quite narrow, relative to the width of the link. With a length track finished I noticed they 'splayed' quite easily and looked a little too fragile for me.
So I decided to glue them along the full width of the link and fit them as I would 'Magic Tracks' , i.e. Fit the tracks on and glue the idler last to get the sag right.
The tracks are also glued to the sprocket and along the underside of the inner roadwheels.
Painting them fitted is not a problem. By the time all the washes and weathering is done, any imperfections are well hidden

Grant.

clould you do a pic and tell on the tracks? i have a dragon 6406 in progress and it has the one piece track in it, and since i've never done indy tracks of any sort all knowledge will be greatly appreciated.


reb

what kind of decals are going to be used?

reb