You would think, but I'm not sure why you'd keep the earlier turret bin? No reason to swap them I can think of; unless it was damaged or missing on the replacement turret?

James

Ok, I have a confession to make; I've raced ahead on this build and am quite behind on my posts. Will do my best to catch up, as I've been taking photos along the way you won't have missed anything.

So, lets get on with it:



Front Glacis plate; Tamiya parts clean up well, will add some texture to cast parts in due course...
The Aber MG barrel looks great and was a pretty simple addition, the fluted barrel sleeve is so sharp - impossible to get in plastic.

The keen eyed amongst you (David) may notice I've removed the wingnuts for attaching the MG cover. These just don't look good moulded on in my opinion. I may scratch some '3D' versions if I fancy later on as I have plenty of PE wingnuts, but I don't know if by this point in the war they may have been removed anyway?



ouch. really 'chewed' out the initial style fenders as I'll show these missing showing some very aesthetically pleasing curved armour plate underneath.



However Tamiya was over-zealous in thinning out the mudguard area, so I had to thicken the corners of this area out to match the thickness of the rest of the glacis.

So thanks to David's great site it seems I need to change the front and rear hull towing points to a slightly different design that these initial tigers had.

At the rear, we have before:



and after:


They look ok to me, just ok though!

Note I have filler in that sinkmark in the side armour now.

At the front this is what Tamiya give you:



fine for a later (early) model, but not an initial, so I started by filling the towing eyes with some plastic rod so I can sand the areas down equally with the surrounding plastic. See Davids earlier pics for what I'm aiming for here.



So lets have a look at the picture so far:



Starting to take shape.

Cheers,

James

You're removing the front mudguards? Take a look at this. The initial glacis plate was originally made with an armour mudguard for the Vorpanzer. This was crudely removed with a welding torch. Look at the texture.



Also, the original was thinned underneath, and the hollow is now exposed above the track. You'll have to hollow it out.

Also, add those two little holes on each side. They're 260mm from the edge.

David

Nice tips David! Thanks I'll get onto this....

James

Ok fellas,

Trying to catch the blog up with the build so here's some more progress.



Continuing on from the last posts I cut back the front dropouts and shimmed some plastic card together for the dropouts. In hindsight not even remotely happy with these, (hence the plea for better pics of this area), so will try to do a better job now I have some better reference.

In this pic you can also see the reshaped fender area and the shim of plastic underneath. Now need to add the other touches that David pointed out.



You'll also see the cast areas textured with Mr. Surfacer now.
The Tamiya kit is let down by a relatively poor fit of this lower glacis plate, which leaves a sizeable gap in the edge of the bottom armour plate. The edge of the hull sides plate is also poorly engineered with a notable 'notch' created where it shouldn't be. I've filled this using a thin peice of plastic rod. Unless I was overzealous cleaning up the parts then this is a really awkward couple of fixes for most people.
A better view perhaps of the reshaped fender area. David I wasn't wrong to drill out the holes in this plate was I?



An overview of the hull front including the roof showing I've been busy. The pesky S-Mine mounts are gone and I've filled 90% of the locating holes as I'll be using those Eduard clamps (I hope!)
I've textured the ventilator dome and took the liberty of adding some casting symbols, (I hope they had them now that David's following the thread).

Cheers, next time the engine deck....

James

Drill out the holes? I'm not quite with you. I was talking about the two very small holes on each side.

There are no casting marks on the ventilator hood, alas. It's machined.

David

David, I was talking about the bigger holes which I opened up (the ones on the edge).
Bugger, disappointed about the ventilator hood, will need to decide what to do here.

Thanks mate, appreciate the input you are offering into this build.

James

Hi James,
Looking good, is David possibly talking about the two really tiny holes in between those upright lug type things??

Mike

Hey Mike, he is I think, I'm talking about the larger holes closer to the outer edges. Tamiya mould these closed, but I've opened them up, just checking they are supposed to be open.

James

Yes, the small holes. 90mm apart, 260mm average from the edge.

Yes, the big hole should be open.

David

Excellent.

Cheers David, I have drilled the smaller ones tonight. Nice to know at least parts of this build are historically accurate......!

Cheers,

James

A quick update, this time the turret:



Surface textures have been applied using Mr Surfacer on the cast parts, and Tamiya extra thin cement on the rolled steel.



The join in the turret rear has been filled and smoothed, and the two large locating tabs for the turret stowage bin removed as I won't be using this.

Simple stuff!

Cheers,

James

Hi James,

Looking really nice, I will have to remember to copy the idea on those cast parts.....& what parts they were lol

Mike

Cheers Mike!

Remember though I have mistakenly added a cast texture to the hull ventilator dome which David informs us was actually machined.

James

hi James

very nice work,very, very clean with excellent details.

cheers
spit

Thanks mate!

Very much appreciated.

James

Just an apology for the lack of updates; I'm in the middle of moving house and as such have had to pack everything away. Should be in by the end of the month but then will have the 'unpacking period' to get through too.

I apologise, will mean there will be a delay before I can make more progress on this I'm afraid.

James