Hi Everyone!
I usually blog over at Aeroscale, but while waiting for decals to arrive and reading lots of cool stuff here, I caved into the hankering to build a Tiger I.
I can't promise any great revelations of skill, technique or brilliance. I'm an old retread modeller who is trying to reach a skill of excellence that I never possessed before. I hope you enjoy my journey.
My LHS was out of Dragon Tigers, so I settled on an Academy Tiger...he seemed to have lots of those in early, mid, and late configurations. There are a fair few in-box reviews of the kit out there, but only a couple of build reviews. One review called the kit 'middle-of-the-road'. Since my last Tiger was the Tamiya Tiger I circa 1980, I imagine this Academy Tiger will be an improvement if the number of parts and sprues is anything to go by.
The model comes with a PE Zimmerit tool which I never used. I found some serrated bolts at my local Bunnings (Australia's equivalent to Home depot) which looked as if they would give me the appropriate amount of lines per centimeter and a 32tpi hacksaw blade.
Some pictures I found made the side hull and turret zimm look like it was done with a heavier-toothed rake. I liked the look, so I ended up like this:


For this Zimm I used acrylic based modelling paste. It's water-soluble, and chips off the plastic in the way that Zimm chipped off the original article(to my eyes, anyway). The only bad thing about it is that it will settle while drying, so to retain firm edges on the Zimm, I had to work in smaller areas and let it dry face-down suspended above the bench.

For the fronts and sides I used a smaller pattern for the Zimm, suggesting a smaller rake. I used milliput silver which can be rolled nicely if you dip your rolling tool in water first. With patience and a lot of water, you can waste away enough milliput so that only the raised portion remains. This of course is tempered by the size of area you are covering. I found that on the bigger areas, I left too much putty.

A fair bit of plastic has to be removed from the aft plate to get it to late model shape. And the zimm here is thicker than I wanted. I'm hoping that the smallness of the pattern will hide the error once painting and weathering is done.

Likewise on the bow it's too thick...but I'll show you that painted in a bit.

The mantlet and side turret hatches show the different methods and materials for application.

Finally the glacis.

I decided to use a black basing method for painting. The parts are primed black, and then painted in the proper color from the direction of light. Here is the bow plate:

This makes the detail in the zimmerit show up without the need for a wash, and without dominating the model.
I did the same with all of the wheels, sprockets, and idlers.



A guy was using this method over at Aeroscale to add depth to his cockpits, and I thought it looked fantastic enough to emulate it. His callsign is Scrodes.

My panzer yellow looks pretty green compared to the tan plastic and taupe bench. When next to the panzer red and green, it looks sufficiently yellow. I didn't want a large contrast between the three colors.

I use artist acrylics. I find a color swatch on the web I like, find a close likeness in a color mixing book, and go from there. It's a remarkably cheap way to paint if you're one who doesn't mind mixing.

I hope you follow along, and I always am always glad to your insights or critique.

Thank you for reading.

Gary

Gary,

I think the zim looks great! I'm excited to see your Tiger build progress. I'll be following along.

Cheers,
Dustin

Yeah, the zimmerit is cool - home made zimmerit is nice as it will give your model a unique look.

Dustin and Matthew,
Thank you very much! I'm excited to be doing this because years ago when I stopped model building I'd been frustrated at my inability to do zimmerit.

Cheers!

Gary

Looks good, looking forward to seeing the finished tiger

Hi Champy,
Thank you! I like that your avatar has you standing by a real Tiger!

Hey Everyone,
A little update. In the way-back when I was building a tank model, it just ended up sitting on a shelf. I've decided with this one, I'll add a little scenery and a little life despite my limitations. Back then I did the suspension and tracks first and finished with the less repetetive bits at the top. This time, it'll be the opposite because I want the suspension actually moved a bit to make that area more interesting to see.

My first surprise with this model came as I was assembling the 6-segment barrel. You can see in the picture that there is an attempt to show rifling in the barrel end.


My first model after the 30+ year long hiatus was a Dragon model. It was fun, and accurate, but IMHO overly complicated for the sake of being overly complicated.
I think the same thing about the exhaust stacks here:

Five pins sunk into five shallow holes and then each exhaust covered with a plate with stubs that should align with the five pins. You can see that my five pins won't align with much because I'm not so great at keeping things aligned properly when they are no larger than splinters
In any event, I dropped one while painting so will remove all ten pins and replace them with brass rod sunk into holes deep enough to hold them straight. If I remember correctly, the Tamiya Tiger had the five pins molded to the top plate of the exhaust stack. Anyway...rant concluded.

ON Academy's Tigers you'll see a banner that says: Now with new asymmetrical turret. There is a separate sprue with top and sides. On the early version Tiger, there is one with a complete interior and some of the details show in this shot:

The original intent of the photo is to show that there is no coaxial machine gun provided. I made one with 1mm thick brass tube with a .25mm bore which I bored out to .6mm.

It's just dry fitted here. I stole a piece from the Fiefel filter system to help hold it into place when I decide to glue it in. BTW...on this Tiger, you are looking at all of the main gun detail.
The black/gray putty like substance is sprue dissolved in
Tamiya liquid cement. It has much greater tack than any glue alone and turns super solid after two days. I also use it as filler and putty.

While we're on the main gun: You get two options here. You get the time-honored two barrel halves that go from mantlet to muzzle brake, or a six-segment barrel molded in solid cylinder or tubular shapes that has crisper details than the two halves. But keeping it straight is very difficult. I failed, but won't point it out in the photos.

I had long ago thought that adding the tools as sub assemblies after painting was the way to go. However, the other day I read a thread where I understood that most find it better to paint them while on the vehicle. I'll try it that way.

There are two options for the tow cables as well. You can either use the plastic ones that have laid atop Tiger models from years gone by, or you can use some string and separate ends.
I served in a self-propelled artillery battery in the 80's. Our tow cables were coated with oil and wire-brushed periodically to clean off the accumulated dirt which stuck to the oil. This left them with dark, dirty-looking recesses and shiny white-metal raised areas. I don't know how I can get that look with string, so I'll use the heavier plastic ones. But they will go on close to last.

Today I went to the LHS to get some crew once I determined that tank's commander looked like Hermann Munster.

You can see him here in the directions.
After much scanning of photos, the only three crew members that get to enjoy a view while on the march are the radio operator, gunner, and commander. The hull hatches are offset outboard so the driver can't have his head out of the hatch and drive at the same time. The poor loader has no view whatsoever.

The crew I grabbed up are Tamiya's "Panzer Crew at Rest". I took some parts from the original commander so that I could avoid feeling like he was completely going to waste. I'll be affixing them to brass tabs which I'll glue to the tank as it nears completion.

Thank you for reading!

Hi Everyone,
I've had to break away from the Tiger for a while to complete a model for an Aeroscale campaign.

That done, I've been working on soft tissue damage and Ukrainian mud. I've had more success with the damage, and less with the mud. Here are a few pics.

The damage skirt is held on by bluetack at the mo. I had thinned the plastic using my Dremel, and then just bent the pieces where I wanted after separating the joints with the UMM scriber. I did a little downturn to the fender as well.


Right fender, too.


Left rear fender as well as the exhaust covers. I thinned them from the inside then pressed with my fingers. For the shot hole after thinning, I made a tiny hole with a drill and then used a toothpick the punch it in to a desireable diameter.

Thanks for looking!

Gary

Looking good, Gary. Keep up the good work.

Cheers,
Dustin

Thanks Dustin! What happened to that Tiger you were working on?

Gary

I'm trying to find time to work on it. I have to have to paint the road wheels and tracks, but I just recently start back at my old job in the oilfield. So there isn't much time to model currently. :-( but I'm glad to be working again. Lol

I hear ya. That taskmaster work swallows up too many hours that would be better for modelling.

And I know that the repetitiousness of roadwheels can drive a wedge into your modelling mojo.

Good luck,

Gary

Hi everyone,
I'm continuing on with my occasionally maligned Academy Tiger. I've been working on mudding the roadwheels and chassis, but will save the bottom half of the machine for last, once I have a base built.

Anyway, today I went to my local Bunnings for wire. The Tow cables that come pre-bent and fused to attachment points always seemed like a cop-out. I'm happy to say that Academy got most of the options right here.

For the rear deck, you are supplied with four wingnut cable tie-downs that are pretty nicely molded.


For the fore deck, you get four larger wingnut fitted cable-head tie-downs.

For the guy who wants to lay his own cable, Academy supplied a length of string. Here marked A. It's a little too thin.

At my local Bunnings, I found some picture hanging wire. Because it was packaged, I had to buy the two that I thought would be closest to what I wanted. Wire B is rated heavier than Wire C, but is closer to the desired thickness.

Here is the two wires I bought compared to the preformed and pre-tied-down cables. aka the cop-out cables.

I'm modelling a S. PzAbt 506 machine, and it seems that most of their tanks I've seen in pictures at Tiger im Focus carry their cables in the more handy shackle-to-shackle configuration.

I may use the string to replace this cable that is usually seen hanging attached the left side.

I fear scratch-building plausible tie-downs might be beyond me.

I've always had mixed feelings about painting the pioneer tools. Especially the wooden handles. Wood doesn't stay pretty and yellow for long out in the weather. And I doubt they were issued with varnished handled shovels and hammers.
Here are two pictures of the mattock handle from my shed. One on a taupe background, and one on a blue background. Same lighting situation.

Since my Tiger won't be blue, you can pretty much bet that the wooden handles of the pioneer tools and the gun-cleaning-rods will be a few different shades of gray.

Thank you for looking,

Gary

Looks good Gary. Good choice to use real wire. Some good fellas told me to do that with my Pz. IV and it was way better. Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Dustin.

Gary

Hi Everyone!
Today I had my first go with Panzer Putty:


The Tigers from S. PzAbt 506 I've been looking at seem to mostly have a simple striped pattern. Honestly, I wanted to keep it simple, too.


After spraying on the green, I added more Panzer Putty to keep the red from the green.


I took two shots on different background of the painted, pre-sealed subject.

Even though I only let the paint dry for half an hour between colors. I'm using artist acrylics, btw. The Panzer Putty didn't lift off any paint or fragile pieces from the deck of the tank. It left a nice soft-masked edge, too. I do free hand for exhaust stains and weathering, but mask for all other occasions. I don't want my subject painted by my hand and Iwata to look free-handed by mne and Iwata.

Thank you for looking!

Gary

Hi Everyone,
After a couple weeks of looking at my first attempt at camo, I decided that a little freehand would look better. So, I fuzzed up some lines, and redirected others to get get here:






Now I can add exhausts and all of those pieces that break off easy, then detail paint.

Thanks for looking!

Gary

Looking very good, Gary! I believe your choice to add in the free hand camo was the right choice, it looks great.

Cheers,
Dustin

Hey everyone,
Getting closer to the finish line. Once I got a rythym going, assembling the Friuls went well. I ended up using a screw gun as well as a pin vice to drill out the holes.

The runs were quite long. I didn't realize it when I assembled them, but I should have left more wire sticking out of each joint.

Once I got the pickle solution problem figured out, my tracks blackened in seconds. The top one has been wire brushed to bring out the raised effects.

I only glued the front and rear roadwheels into place. The rest are held in by the track and the other wheels.

How bout that sag?

The suspension is free to conform to whatever shape of base I place it on.


And this is the frontal view.

I still have some mud to spatter, and a base to complete. And maybe another wash or some figure face painting.

I've been enjoying this kit. How good or bad are ICM's Tiger and Panther in this scale? My LHS still has some, and I might cadge one since they are relatively cheap.

Thanks for looking!

Gary

Looks killer, Gary. Keep up the great work.

I really like the workable suspension.

Cheers,
Dustin

Hey Dustin,
Thanks! The moveable suspension was one of the major reasons I bought this kit.

Gary