Hi all -

It's been over six months since I posted these photos of my first Tiger II:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/170112#1428178

Now I've gathered my wits and everything else I need to take a second shot:



I'll be using DML 6301, which includes pre-molded zimmerit and should should keep my blood pressure down. I'll be recycling the Friul tracks from my first build, so that will help too. The other items I'll be using probably aren't necessary, but will help around the edges (e.g. better scale thickness on the track guards). There's a lot of PE in the kit and the Griffon sets, so I won't be using all of it. Rather, my goal will be to use the track guards and whatever else makes sense from the kit. I picked up the Griffon tool clamp set because I heard they go together more easily than Dragon's and I'm determined to make decent tool clamps this time around (famous last words).

This is the first model where I've put significant time into researching a specific vehicle. There were only 50 Tiger II's produced with the "Porsche" turret, so researching a specific vehicle isn't entirely impossible. For general background, I used Osprey's "King Tiger Heavy Tank 1942-1945" and "The Modeler's Guide to the Tiger Tank". Then I dug into Jentz and Doyle's excellent "VK45.02 to TIger II" and became interested in the vehicle shown on pages 80-81. The caption provides the chassis number (Fgst.Nr. 280031) and confirms the production date as May 1944. Additional photos on the Tiger im Focus website provide the missing information needed to build Fgst.Nr. 280031 accurately.

The next step was to determine the unit the vehicle served in and where and how it was destroyed. The Tiger im Focus photos provide part of the answer as they list the vehicle as turret number 133 from 1/s.Pz.Abt. 503. Eddy Nevarez (Braille) helped me with the rest by digging up information from multiple sources on Operation Bluecoat, the assault by the British XXX Corps on Mont Pincon, and their subsequent capture of Le Plessis Grimoult on August 7, 1944. From these sources, it is possible to piece together the story of the destruction of turret number 133 by elements of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division. Apparently, a British patrol stumbled on a "large German tank" being resupplied and attacked with a 2" mortar. Sergeant F. Bolt, who was with the mortar team at the time, thought the bomb went down the tank's turret and exploded. Others thought it hit the resupply vehicle, but either way the result was a massive explosion and the destruction of both vehicles.

The final step was to determine how turret number 133 was camouflaged. Eddy was of great help here too, pointing out that the scheme shown in the kit's instructions is not a good guide for vehicles from 1/s.Pz.Abt. 503. Apparently, the vehicles from this unit had olive green patches applied in a unique soft edge pattern over a dark yellow base coat (rather than the hard edge three-color scheme shown in the instructions). The photos on the Tiger im Focus website support this position. To give me a better idea of the vehicle's probable appearance, Eddy pointed me to several plates by Trojca. With that information in hand, I had everything I needed and was on my way.

Sorry to be long winded, but given the eternal interest in the Tiger II I thought folks might be interested in the "color commentary". At any rate, I want to thank Eddy, who has been very generous with his time. If I've gotten anything wrong above, I hope he will correct me. With that said, I'm going to dig in ...

I look forward to seeing your work!

Subscribed to the thraed at waiting to follow along

I'm glad to see that you posted your build!
I'm expecting big things from you! :3

Hi guys - thanks for following along. My in-laws leave for the airport this afternoon, so I should be able to show some progress over the weekend.

I do have a question (already). Does anyone know which tool clamps would be correct from the Griffon set (early vs late)? The late type would be my guess, but the early type matches what came with the kit.

Here are some progress photos for those following along. It isn't much to look at yet, but I hope to make decent progress this week (now that the in-laws are gone). First up are the sprockets and road wheels. Great definition on these parts, but there is a faint mold line that needs to be cleaned up on each wheel. The suspension arms are attached to the hull already and the wheel hubs are off to the side for safe keeping.



These next two photos compare the kit's pre-molded zimmerit to the Eduard PE zimmerit used on my first model. The first photo is the kit, the second photo is the Eduard set (yes, I know how bad it looks). Just my two cents, but I think Dragon has done modelers a tremendous service with its pre-zimm'ed kits.





I've also finished most of the rear hull. The tail light isn't labeled in the instructions, but if you look hard enough it's on one of the sprues. Good ol' Dragon, keeping you on your toes. I've puttied the attachment points for the plastic brackets for the jack, as I'll be using the PE parts ... at least I'm going to attempt them before resorting to the plastic.



And a random question ... are there any modelers in New Jersey who are good with PE? I'm struggling with PE - especially three-part tool clamps - which I've been practicing off to the side. I'd like to look over someone's shoulder to see how they do it. Yes, I know ... practice makes perfect ... but it would help to know if my problem is technique, tools, or some combination of the two.

Thanks for watching and all input is welcome!

Hello fellow Jersey-ite! here are a few tips with working with PE-
cut parts on a a sheet of glass, this way the part doesnt get damaged.
a #16 xacto blade works best for cutting PE off the fret. To remove the last bit of the nub, just rub it down carefully with a medium grit sanding stick.
get a pair of super fine tweezers, and hold on to parts carfully. Think twice between gripping a part, as carelessness can result in the part plinking into space.
get a good quality PE bending tool. Trust me, it makes all the difference.
Think 6 times before bending PE. Once its bent, its hard to go back. Focus on your work to avoid as many mistakes as possible.
When attaching a part to plastic, use thick super glue, this way the part stays where you put it and you have some time to adjust its position.
Solder parts whenever possible. Soldering is really fun and actually pretty easy. I found Rick Lawlers article in FSM a great guide on soldering.

Any more questions? post them here!
Thankfully our boys at AK interactive are producing a video on working with PE. I hated the stuff before when i began modeling, but once i began to get comfortable with it, i fell in love with it.

Hi Jon - Thanks for the PE input. I didn't know AK Interactive is working on a video, but it sounds like it will be a worthwhile purchase. Anyway, here are the tools I've been using for PE:

- 4" Hold & Fold
- Xuron PE shears
- Various drug store tweezers
- Gorilla Glue CA
- Needles (to apply the CA)

My bane at the moment is the three-part tool clamps, which are hard to ignore on a German tank. I've been trying to master the method shared with me by Bruce (meaty_hellhound) because it seemed straightforward:

1. Bend the base / lower part of the clamp
2. Glue the base / lower part to the model
3. Glue the tool into place in the base / lower part
4. Bend the upper part of the clamp and place it over the tool, gluing it only at the front half (the end that is bent down and catches, not the end that has the ratchet tightening handle)
5. Bend the ratchet handle, but not all the way. Leave this piece spread open just a bit
6. Place the ratchet handle, lining up its holes over the twin pins of the clamp
7. Squeeze the ratchet handle closed, swivel it to the correct position, and glue it with thin super glue.

I get through steps 1-5 easily enough, but for the life of me I can't get the pins on the base and strap to fit into the ratchet handle. Heck, I can't even SEE the pins and holes. So two questions for you (and anyone else who has mastered tool clamps):

1. Do you use a magnification aid?
2. What tools / tweezers do you use to manipulate the ratchet handle into place?

Some more progress photos showing the tracks fitted. I'm recycling these from my previous Tiger II, so it was really just an exercise in fitting them to the model. I do wish I had had this tool from Micro Mark when I assembled them ... accelerates the process and spares your fingers.

http://www.micromark.com/Special-Offer-Precision-Power-Screwdriver-and-Universal-Chuck-Combo,9714.html









My adventure with PE continues too. I managed to get the brackets for the jack onto the rear hull, but not as cleanly as I would have liked. I put the brackets on the hull - in perfect shape, no less - then found there wasn't sufficient clearance for the jack due to the access cover that juts out from the hull. I don't think that's a problem if you use the plastic mounting brackets, so maybe just something to watch out for if you opt for the PE. Anyway, I pried the brackets off, assembled them with the jack off the model, and then glued the whole assembly on. It's slightly mangled but I wasn't prepared to scrap several hours of work.

I've also continued practicing with tool clamps and had two "breakthroughs" this week. First, I bought a pair of reading glasses as a sort of poor man's optivisor ... amazing what you can do when you can see properly. Second, I discovered a bend line that I had missed previously (I'm using the two-part Griffon clamps). So now i think it's down to practice (I think).

Thanks for reading this far. Comments welcome!

Nice work Bill! Always nice to see the Friuls coming on!

About the brackets for the jack: I have the same kit and I found out too that the fit isn't that great so I went for the plastic ones, great you managed it though.

About the tool brackets: I gave up to make the workable because I always messed up so I cheat a bit on them now (that's the three part brackets of most manufacturers)

Although I love the Griffon etch (my favourite next to Voyager) I must say I hate their two part brackets...I really can't get them decent , so I'll be glad to see them coming together.

I think one has a glutton for punishment if one wants to work with etch...luckily the results are great afterwards...love it LOL

Keep it up mate, you'll do fine

Cheers

Nice work Bill...

I am only 18 so my eyes are young, so I dontbuse any magnifying aid. Unfortunately I have yet to to do a PE ratchet, however, I would check squadron.com or micro mark for a few sets of tweezers. The problem with using drug store tweezers is that they have a broader tip. The best tweezers for PE are needle nose tweezers, for obvious reasons.

Wouter - Interesting that you don't like the Griffon tool clamps. I find them to be about as difficult as the three-part clamps So that's great ... now I have two varieties of clamps I can't make.

Danny - Thank you for the kind words and good to have you along for the ride.

Jon - I hear you on the need for good tweezers. I'm looking around for a set, but in the meantime I've ordered some PE pliers from Xuron that should help.

And a few questions I'm hoping folks can help me with:

1) Does the seam line visible behind the tracks in the photo below need to be filled? It's so prominent it looks intentional, but I'd like to confirm.



2) The directions tell you to remove something from the rear hull (photos below). Does anyone know what this is? My guess is it's a fuel vent line that wasn't there on early production vehicles.





3. Does anyone own the PE rolling set from the Small Shop? If so, are you happy with it? I'm curious whether it's worth the money as I stare at the front fenders and contemplate how to get a smooth curve.

@BillGorm - Bill,

You have a nice start on your project, the Fruil tracks really add to the realism.

To answer your first question: Yes, fill in the seam line but take care not to fill in the interlocking recess cutout. Fill the curved plate leading up to the glacis plate. This is a single 80mm thick armor plate on the real vehicle.

To answer your second question: The kit instructions are correct, you need to remove the left side fuel vent line and block. A single fuel vent line and block was added in April of 1944 to the right rear upper deck corner. The vehicle you are rendering was produced in May 1944 and would have had this modification.

-Eddy

Hi Bill:

The seam behind the tracks: not too sure if it really has to be there, I don't think so. You could fill it or put some mud on top of it later on

the things that has to be removed according the instructions are indeed fuel vent lines...however, I'm not sure if you need to do that, I always thought that some later KT with the 'Porsche' Turm also had them on the back of the engine deck...I can be mistaken though

I just did my PE fenders yesterday for the first time and it's ok, but I can imagine that the tool of the Small Shop can be very useful indeed.

Looking great so far

Cheers

LOL, Eddie was a bit faster...listen to him

Cheers

Hi - here's an update on my Tiger II. The hull is together (at last) and I've puttied the few gaps that needed it (e.g. the seams behind the drive sprockets). I've also added the main access hatch to the engine deck. Not too difficult, just time consuming as I replaced the plastic grab handles with wire and drilled out the hole that would have been used to open the hatch. Other than that, I've been working my way through the PE hinges and tool clamps. It's been really slow going, but I'm happy with the results so far. The PE is far from perfect, but I'm satisfied it's the best I can do at the moment.

The hinges for the front fender:



The crow bar on the left side of the hull. I attached this per the kit instructions, but after looking at several photos I'm not sure it's correct. Ironically, the plastic part in the kit with pre-molded attachment points appears to be correct. Does anyone know for sure?



The crank on the left side of the hull. As far as I can tell, the kit only provides this part in plastic (i.e. with pre-molded clamps). I cleaned up the part, shaved off the clamps, and added PE clamps ... which probably took me an hour altogether.



Thanks for following along. All comments / advice welcome!

I made good progress this week. I attached the tools and cables to the sides, drilled out and attached the headlight, and attached the ax and sledgehammer to the front hull.

Left side. I appear to have lost one of the rear brackets for the tow cable. Hopefully, I'll find that rattling around in the box tomorrow morning. Incidentally, I wasn't sure whether the tool clamp handles should face up or down. Down seemed more logical to me.



Right side. I made a dumb mistake and mis-measured the tow cable. It should be 240 mm with the two heads (20 mm apiece). I mistakenly subtracted 20 mm and ended up with a cable that was too long by 20 mm. I didn't want to rip everything off the model because it was attached very securely, so I opted to cut the wire at the rear most point and join the ends. They go together quite cleanly and will be glued tomorrow.



Headlight. Unlike my previous build, I drilled out the wire leading into the headlight. Looks better when the electrical supply actually reaches the light ...



Ax. I've gotten the hang of tool clamps (two-part Griffon clamps in this case) and I'm happy with how this came out. My previous attempt at PE was an unmitigated disaster, so this is vast improvement.



Sledgehammer. Can anyone confirm whether the handles on the clamps should face in or out? I found two separate photos in the Modeler's Guide to the Tiger Tank that show the clamps facing out, yet later in the book I believe the author shows the clamps facing in.



Access hatch. I mentioned last time that I drilled out the hole where the crow bar would have been inserted to lift the hatch but forgot to provide a photo.



Next up are the fenders. The photos taken of vehicle 133 after its demise show no fenders, but I suppose it's possible they were salvaged by another tank crew. There is an earlier photo that shows this vehicle with its left side fenders mostly intact, so I guess I've got some latitude ... which is good because I might ruin a couple fender sections along the way.

Thanks for following along. Comments / advice welcome!

One more update before I call it a weekend as I found time to bend the fenders I intend to use. For the left side, I used a photo of the real vehicle as a guide. For the right side, I picked an equal number of fenders at random. They were surprisingly easy to bend ... attaching them seems like it will be a tougher task.

Hi everyone - here's a small update. I've finished the engine deck and unless I've missed something that means I've completed the hull. There are 3-4 small things to fix (e.g. the "floating" weld beads on the glacis) but I'll come back to them later. I left the wire cutters off the left side of the engine deck because I couldn't get them into one of the PE tool clamps and I didn't want to use the pre-molded part. Call it artistic license. On the right side I chose not to mount the spare antenna (at least I think that's what it is). If I find out that's a more "permanent" piece of equipment then I'll attach it before I paint.

So it's on to the turret and gun barrel. Man, does it feel good to be past the PE and back to plastic and cement.

Bill,

Your making some good progress. That is a really clean, good looking build.

@BillGorm – Bill,

Yes, you’re making good headway on this build. I’ve been really busy lately and I’m just now catching up. There are a few things you could have done on the hull and I will point them out here but they are not important enough to go back and change now.

1) The hole you drilled for inserting the crow bar, to aid in opening the engine hatch would only have the opening on the hatch edge end of the tube. A plate was welded to the other end to prevent the crow bar from sliding through when opening the hatch.
2) The three small engine hatch-locking plates were usually rotated at 90 degrees, from where you placed them, to keep the hatch from bouncing during travel.
3) The installed support guide, on the right armored exhaust cover, for the engine hand-cranked starter was almost always stored inside the vehicle until needed.
4) There were two types of engine air intake armor cover castings on the engine hatch on the early production Kingtiger. The higher armor cover resides at the rearmost opening on the hatch and a shorter one on the forward opening (closest to the turret). This was to assure that the turret cleared the air intakes cover when the turret was rotated over it and the vehicle was at an extreme angle (hill). I don’t have this kit in the stash but most of these kits do come with the correct air intake armor covers and the instructions almost always have the correct one (shorter) marked as not for use. In any case all of the air intake covers supplied in the kit will allow the turret to rotate without any interference.




The spare antenna case does need to be installed. This item is a factory fitted piece.

Bill, you have done a remarkable job on all of the photo-etched items. And as John, aka ‘Big-John’ mentions and I concur with him, this is a really clean, good-looking build! You’ve also managed some excellent photographs on your last posting here.

Happy modeling,
-Eddy

Hi Bill,

Looking very good so far, very clean build and some great work on those pe tool clamps. Just a couple of things. Firstly on the left side, the upper clamp for the tow cable is missing. You have this mounted on the right side but not the left. Is this just an oversight or is that accurate to reference pictures?

Secondly, just something to watch out for when fitting the hub covers to the wheels. I've built a few of these kits (2 porsche and 2 Henschel) and on all of them I found the fit of the hub covers rather tight. On a couple of the outer wheels the hub cover would not go all the way in without sanding the torsion bar. I would advise you dry fit these parts to make sure they all fit in the correct position.

Oh yeah, gotta love those magic floating weld beads

Cheers
Matt

Hi guys - Thanks for the encouragement and the additional eyes to get this right (or as right as possible).




Funny that I missed this completely on my first build and now have gone too far (literally). Maybe my third Tiger II will be the charm. Anyway, this one is fixable, so I'll add it to the list.




Ditto.




This is blindingly obvious, yet somehow I missed it. I'm going to let this one go because I think I'd do too much damage prying the parts free.




I did mount the bracket but then knocked it off. I've got the part to the side and will re-attach it at the end.




Is this the circular protruding object that looks like someone's pipe (visible in the first and second photos)? This is one of the more delicate parts on the model, so I could probably get it off without too much effort.




I'm not sure I understand this one. Are you saying the two rear engine intakes should have prominent covers over them similar to the two closest to the turret? I'll take a look through some photos and the sprues this evening.

C[ ]

@BillGorm – Bill,

Here is a link to page two of Marco Sari’s, aka ‘Jupiterblitz’ Initial Production Tiger II build log. At almost a quarter of the way down the page you’ll see a marked up photograph of an Initial Production Tiger II’s rear deck were you’ll see the height difference between both armored air intake domes.

The information that I gave you is incorrect in that the instructions will have you place two of the shorter armored air intakes verses two of the larger armored air intake domes that I mentioned to you on my previous posting, I apologize for that mistake. Read through the text and check to see if the sprue mentioned is the same one that comes in your kit? The following photograph in the link is one that Marco posted showing the correct configuration of the shorter air intake dome placed in the forward position and the larger one in the rear position.

Hope this clears any confusion I may have caused you and the viewers.

Happy modeling,
-Eddy