This is the first armor model I ever built, an Early Tiger I - Ausf E assembled over 20 years ago from a Tamiya kit (MM-156A).
There was also a motorized version of the same kit, and inside the hull are marks indicating battery polarity and underneath are holes for switches etc. I painted it but never applied the decals, which fortunately were kept along with the instructions. The thing sat on the shelf for many years, and moved with me to where I live now. During the move, the loader's hatch was lost and the bow machine gun was broken off, but the model was otherwise intact and remained untouched for the next 12 years.
The Big Cats campaigns and some of the builds in the Armorama constructive feedback section revived my interest in the old Tiger, and with the wealth of intformation available on the Internet, I learned a lot about such beasts. I decided to convert my Tiger to a version operated in 1943 by the 501st Heavy Panzer battalion in Tunesia. The photos below show the model pretty much as it was when I started the conversion. Fortunately, the tools and tow cables popped off pretty much undamaged.





The next post will show some of the steps in the transformation.

Cheers,C[ ]
Dick

looking forward to see that Old Tiger reborn ! keep us posted

Hi All
The photo below shows the old Tiger stripped down with the turret and tracks off, tools & tow cables removed and the molded-on track cables & tools ground off the hull.
I managed to slice off the commander's cupola without ruining it using a razor saw and cut open the vision slits with a needle file. I made spacer rings to raise the cupola to the proper height using dimensions obtained from the Missing Lynx site. In the process I discovered that the commander's hatch was installed upside down all these years, Happily, the problem was corrected without breaking anything. Live long enough and you learn amazing things!
The headlights have been moved to the front plate above the glacis, and the front track guards have been cut and trimmed to match those of the early Tunesian Tigers.
I made a new cover for the loader's hatch, but I'm not happy with it. I'd like to have working hinges, but my efforts so far have failed miserably, and I may have to settle for cementing it closed.
The weight holding the tracks down is a German 7.92 x 57 mm round with a 1942 headstamp, appropriate for that time and for the Tiger's two machine guns.


The photo below shows the underside of the tank and its many holes. I ground off the raised "Tamiya Plastic Models" lettering so the cover sheet would lay flat. The cover piece was cut from very thin Evergreen styrene sheet. I found a photo of the underside of a Tiger tank on the Internet, and used that as a guide to place plastic discs as covers for access/maintenance ports. The smaller covers were made with a rotary-type leather punch, but the two larger ones were drawn using a circle template, cut roughly to shape with wire cutters, and finished with files and sanding sticks.


It's going slowly, but we're getting there.
Cheers,
Dick

Will be interesting to see the end result. Doesn't look half bad for being over twenty years old to begin with.

Its in great condition for a tank that is 20 years old!

Richard,
I will be following with great interest as I have the same kit and have been contemplating doing the same with mine. Although I think mine has been sitting for almost 30 Years.
Man that makes me feel old.

Cheers Rob.

Detailed renovation. If you can provide me with the materials, I can make you some working hinges for the loader's hatch.

Christopher, Steven, & Rob: Thanks for looking in.

Matt: appreciate the offer to help. What sort of materials would be needed? I've been considering leftover thin photoetch brass for my next stab at hinge making.

The photo below shows a little more progress.

The commander's cupola is only dry fitted, and I may add another spacer ring to raise it up a hair higher.
The headlights are cemented in place, and wired with copper wire.
The bow MG barrel is an Academy .50 Browning barrel installed breech end outward. It's dry fitted and will have to do until I come up with something better.
There seems to be a rather wide space between the upper edge of the main gun's mantlet and the turret top with the gun level. Was there some sort of canvas cover in there to keep the rain and dust out? Looking through from the underside of the turret, I can see quite a lot of daylight. I'm pretty sure I assembled it correctly, so maybe it was just built with a sloppy fit.

Cheers
Dick

http://www.hobbyeasy.com/en/data/rztqvhd9xtrpl2l1dvsw.html
http://www.luckymodel.com/scale.aspx?item_no=PE%20TE053
They are both the same product. You can search for "voyager te053" for more results. If you want to make them from scratch, I would recommend heavy, aluminum foil.

Richard, I'll be following your rebuild for sure. Sure looks pretty good for a model that old. I know one thing for sure as the odds are I won't be around in 20 years to see how many of my models made it that far.

Joel

Hi All
It's been a while since I've posted anything because of an influx of house-guests. Not the Visigoths or the Biblical plague of locusts, but definitely a hindrance to model building. The photo below shows one more step in converting my old Tiger into the version used by the 501st heavy Panzer battalion in Tunisia. The original exhaust shields have been replaced with scratch-buiit more rectangular ones like those I've seen in photographs. The escape hatch on the right rear of the turret has been replaced with the second pistol port the 501st's tanks had originally.


Side view, showing the new pistol port on the right rear of the turret and the raised commander's cupola.

Head on view, showing the raised cupola and the lowered headlights characteristic of the 501st's Tigers.

I'm still lacking a replacement for the loader's hatch cover. I made one with working hinges, but the CA glue managed to plug the holes for the hinge pins and when I tried to drill out the hardened glue, they broke. Provided my patience holds out, I may eventually get a hatch which opens and closes. Otherwise, it will be Plan B, an eight pound sledge and a new kit.
Cheers
Dick

Hi Dick, no, there was no canvas. It's kind of hard to tell in your pictures, but it does look like the gap you're talking about shouldn't be there. Without a better picture of the area it's hard to tell what the problem is.

Dick,
That is just a poor design by Tamiya it's the same on mine and does not match the real Tiger, it looks like it was done to give more elevation to the gun. It is correctable but not without a bit of work.

Cheers Rob.

Dick,

I've rebuilt two older models, nothing in the age you have on your hands, those of that age all ended up in the garbage. But, I've found it helpful to strip off the old paint with spray on oven cleaner to get back to the bare plastic. This works well by just spraying it on, leaving it sit for 5-10 min and then rinsing it off; repeat on stubborn areas as needed. This also helps to remove old glue joints which may help your loaders hatch, maybe, but maybe not. Anyway, it may also strip back the paint easily enough to see if there are imperfections that need to be filled an sanded before getting too far in the process.

Just a suggestion and good luck with the rebuild.

Kevin

Thanks to everyone for their comments and suggestions. Should have another update shortly.

Cheers,

Dick

Wow, don't give up! This looks like a fun and rewarding project. It's making me wish I didnt throw out my old ( even older) stuff. Good luck, can't wait to see where this takes you.

Hi All
It's been a while since the last update. Been down with a bad cold for the past week.
After many failures, I've finally got a loader's hatch cover with working hinges. Not perfect, but it will have to do. The hinges were cut from an aluminum beer can and fixed to the hatch cover with CA glue. The hinge pins are bent straight pins inserted into holes drilled into the top of the turret. The handle on top was formed from copper wire.


Head on view with the hatch open. The gap between the mantlet of the main gun and the turret has been reduced by fitting a piece of plastic strip into the upper part of the opening.


The next photo shows the left side of the hull with the brackets I built to hold the track cables. On the original model the cables were molded as part of the hull. I always have trouble working with photo-etch parts and CA glue, and avoid it when possible. In this case, I compromised. The brackets were fashioned from copper wire; a short length was flattened with a few light hammer taps on the anvil of my hobby vise, then bent 90 degrees, cut off, and the round end was inserted into a snug fitting hole drilled in the side of the hull. Each bracket was then secured with a tiny drop of CA glue.


More to come soon.
Cheers,

Dick

Good fix on that mantle gap.

Hi all
Another brief update. Most of the major changes are done, and it's time to put the beast back together. The upper hull was primed with Rust-Oleum primer. I masked off the road wheels to avoid repainting the tires. I didn't want to take everything apart because the running gear was originally assembled using a jig, which I no longer have. I'll paint the wheels by hand when the hull is finished. A few rough places on the hull have been smoothed with putty.








More to come soon.
Cheers
Dick

Hi all
Since the last update, I've gotten the old Tiger painted. I was trying to emulate the original colors and patterns of the Bovington Tank Museum's Tunisian Tiger 131. The brown is pretty close, but the olivegrun came out darker than I wanted even after mixing in some light brown. I'll try to fade that somewhat during weathering.
Although they may be hard to see in the photos, I installed bits of clear styrene (cut from a spare Model T Ford windshield) in the vision slits of the tank commander's cupola.
The vinyl tracks were primed with dark gray Rust-Oleum primer, then coated with Magic Metallic steel followed by Magic Metallic rapid rust. I subdued the rust effect with Tamiya light earth acrylic, then painted the worn surfaces of the grousers with Model Master steel metallizer. I rather like the way they came out.
The hull and turret received a light coat of Future/Pledge, and after that dried overnight, it was time for decals. The decals went on quite nicely in spite of their age, but it was necessary to soak them for a very long time to free them from the backing paper.





It's very hard to see, but in the above photo, just above and to the left of the driver's vision port is the crouching tiger emblem of the 501st heavy Panzer battalion.



Next comes weathering, installing the tracks, adding the tow and track cables, and tools.

Cheers
Dick

That's really coming along. It sure is a far cry from what it looked like in the beginning! Great work!

Greetings to all ,
Cats may have 9 lives, but this Tiger will stop at two, as I've taken it as far as it will go. It's been a lot of fun, researching the Tunisian Tigers, and I've learned a lot which I may apply to some future Tiger build. Any such build will start with a new kit. I didn't have a suitable base handy, so I made do with a book.

The picture below shows the left side with the scratch-built track cables installed. I originally intended to use 0.45 mm 7 strand beading wire, which looks like cable, but it's plastic coated, and after burning off the plastic, it was too thin. I'm not certain how thick the track cables should be. The Bovington 131 Tiger's cables seem much thinner than those I've seen in photographs of other Tigers, and I based mine on a photo showing a Henschel factory workman installing a track with such a cable. He was working bare-handed!! and the cable he was using appears slightly thicker than his fingers, which were fairly slender. For my cable I used four strands of copper from a piece of stranded telephone wire, gripped the ends in a vise and chucked the other ends in a hand drill, twisting it until I had a suitable cable. The eyes on the ends were formed by bending the cable around a toothpick and secured the loop with a short length of 3-M heat-shrink electrical insulation. I used a heat gun just because it was handy but any heat source will work, and it takes very little to shrink it. I did the same thing to form the eyes of the tow cables. The cables are made from picture wire which is very close to correct scale.

The next two pictures show the right side of the Tiger, with the tow cables and radio antenna in place.


Head on view, which you don't want if you're an enemy tank.

Rear view, showing rust on the exhaust shields.

Looking down from above the left front quarter, showing the placement of the tools, tow cables, and cleaning rods for the main gun. I omitted the snow shovel from the glacis as it wasn't used in Tunisia.

As far as weathering, it's mainly Dullcote and a light dusting of talcum powder on the hull. The road wheels and tracks got a little plaster dust (bits of drywall ground with a mortar and pestle) mixed with Tamiya dark earth acrylic and water.

That's all, folks!
Cheers
Dick

great work on remaking the Tiger, Talcum powder eh? i havent heard of anyone using that before, it should smell nice!
A cheaper and probably more steadfast alternative to actual pigments would be chalk pastels that I have recently started using.
looking forward to your next 'un.

J

James: Appreciate the feedback.

Dick