Global Scale Modeller

Its taken an age for me to pull my finger out and start my next build. Its back to armour after my Fw 190 and I have joined the masses by taking on a Tiger 1.

Its my first Tiger 1 since coming back to the hobby last year. I was beginning to feel the pressure from the Tiger mafia so I have decided to get in line, lest I be ostracised as a freak for being the only modeller who hasn't built one! LOL

So here it is. Academy's Normandy re-release.


Got some after market goodies too

PE Zimmerit


Masks for the wheels and insignias


Saw these reviewed by Adam Mann (Manloon) on YT. They looked really good and will replace the awful kit tracks - more on those later



I'm planning to do a winter version on the eastern front so I've got some winter crew for the kitty


So, to the kit. First off, its a sturdy box and all the sprues are separately wrapped





Its a rebox of an earlier release from Academy and is basically an early Tiger with new parts to make it a mid version. There are lots of parts that aren't required such as the Fifel air filters, some early type details on the engine deck and an early type turret.

Original hull - you can see the 'early' reference.



Rubber band tracks - thick enough to bungee jump with! AND the guide horns aren't hollow!


There are loads of options as to paint schemes




The new stuff is nice


Solid gun barrel parts, the old 2 piece barrel is included on the old turret sprue but thank goodness, not required




Brand new turret too


Wheels (one of two identical sprues). The surface detail on the wheels is good and should come up nicely during painting and weathering.


So that's the kit. It all looks like a Tiger. I'm sure there's stuff an expert would pick up but I'm not an expert. I'm happy to crack on in my ignorance.

Running gear - the usual stuff


One set of wheels! - Germany lost the war because they ran out of wheels!


Test fit


Both sets done


Got started on the rear panel. The PE Zimmerit went down really well. I used a gel based CA glue and made tiny dots all along where the edges of the zim would be as well as a grid type pattern to make sure it stuck down really tight.



Test fitting of the exhausts


I stopped there because it was just too hot and I was very much in need of a shower! Till next time Guys!

Looks great so far. Must have payed top dollar for the kit and goodies.
I'll be watching.

I been wondering if the gel CA would be another option. I been using slow drying thick CA with good results. You been getting good results overall with the gel CA?

d6mst0 wrote:I been wondering if the gel CA would be another option. I been using slow drying thick CA with good results. You been getting good results overall with the gel CA?

Yes. I prefer it to the liquid stuff because you have more control when you apply it and it doesn't dry too fast provided you have laid enough down. Its still very unforgiving though if you don't the 2 pieces in the right place first time. You have a couple of seconds to adjust but that's it.

The slow drying thick stuff sounds better but I have never used it. Sounds like the best of both worlds. Control of application and more time to correct initial placement.

Good start. I have the same kit in my stash, just can't get the mojo to start building it.
Have you decided which marking option are you going for yet?

Excellent work for now! I built the same kit like two months ago, great kit you will see!

RonBurgundy wrote:Good start. I have the same kit in my stash, just can't get the mojo to start building it.
Have you decided which marking option are you going for yet?

Haven't quite nailed it down yet but it will be eastern front winter

LdiLuke wrote:Excellent work for now! I built the same kit like two months ago, great kit you will see!

Thanks mate. Its looking good so far. Hopefully get some more done today.

Things are going slower than what I would normally see with an AFV build. The PE Zimmerit is taking a while to do. Its fun as I have never done it before but its definitely slow going.

Its not just sticking it on, there are surface details that need sanding down, some of them very fiddly to get at, there's also working out what the PE kit is missing - see below.

I used the tool provided and Perfect Plastic Putty for the homemade zim. Wetted down with water it seemd to go on ok and accept the texturing. I wouldn't want to do a large surface area though!


Exhausts done. The rain guards were a proper faff but I got there in the end. Shrouds and track mud guards still to do.


More Zim. The panels are very accurate size wise and they fit like gloves.




Lots of fun with the gun mantlet. 8 pieces of PE, 2 of which required bending. It all went on well. I'll fill the gaps with more putty but its looking pretty good as it stands.


I think when all the PE is done there will be a fair bit of edging work to be done. I'll do it all in one go with the putty and go from there.

Pleased so far. The weather isn't helping. I thought it would be better today but I started to get a bead on almost as soon as I sat down at my desk!

Very nice work sir, never tried zim, might do so but with filler and using the zim tool, through your making it look very easy I know its not,keep up the good work

Looking good , that zimmerit on the mantlet looks like a pain to get on.

Liamcraven666 wrote:Looking good , that zimmerit on the mantlet looks like a pain to get on.

privatepete wrote:Very nice work sir, never tried zim, might do so but with filler and using the zim tool, through your making it look very easy I know its not,keep up the good work

Thanks guys. The mantlet was fiddly but the PE parts were a good fit. The metal was thin enough that it could be bent without having to resort to using special tools prior to application. Once down I used a diamond file to sand down the PE edges and then the side of a file as a press to make sure the end pieces went in snugly where the mantlet is indented.

Made some steady progress over the last 2 days. The deck of the tank is on. Its a multi-piece affair with the turret ring section roughly square including the forward hatches then the various grill sections and the engine cover as separate bits to be glued on completing the deck aft of the turret.



Its a recipe for some grief because it has to be absolutely square when you put it together or it will not sit in the hull properly. I ended up fitting the grill and engine sections together first and placing them in position to dry before finally gluing the whole deck together. I ended up with a small gap where the larger grills met the forward section but I sorted that out with some very thin plastic card. No harm no foul.

The deck is where you have to do a fair bit of work to get the tank to look like the mid version it is supposed to be. The forward section of the deck has all the little attachments like smoke pot mounts and other bits that need removing. Not fun when trying to preserve the flat surface needed afterwards.



The turret went together nicely. Although its a 2 piece job its nice and snug with the roof on and the zimmerit will cover the join. The barrel is in 3 parts but they fit together rather badly. Its all very loose and I ended up wrapping the first part of the barrel with some masking tape to get the fit nice and snug as it slides into the long mount on the mantlet.




Its the forward part of the barrel that needed the tape in order to fit tightly.


Looking like a proper tiger now



Now for the first real nightmare. Although the PE Zim set clearly states that its for the Academy 'Mid' Tiger kit, the zimmerit for the turret fits the kit's original offering, not the new turret - that means the rounded viewing slits on the sides of the turret are in the wrong place. I don't know if its an accurate representation of a 'Mid' style turret, all I know is the turret I had built didn't fit the zimmerit sheet. In the end, I managed to slice off the vision slits without destroying them. I then applied the zimmerit and stuck what was left of the slits back onto the turret where the holes in the PE told me too. The result is ok, the zim looks great and i'll tidy up the slits with some filler.




PE engine grills and tow cables to do next then its time to decide what to do with the hatches. I have crew for the tank so some of the hatches will be open.

good work

Lovely job, you've managed that zimmerit very well.

Looking very nice, wish I could keep a kit that clean

Thanks guys. I do try and keep the plastic clean when I build. I know what a nightmare it can be if I get ANYTHING spilt on it.

Construction is all done now - hopeful on priming over the weekend.

Engine grill and tow cables on. The cables have some very nice fasteners on the rear deck, complete with the wing nuts which look really good.


Rear end all done


Side panel zimmerit and skirts all done. I dinged up the skirts a little - hopefully not too much



Changed my mind about the crew so I'm buttoning down the hatches. The crew will be used on Dragon's Wittman Tiger which is next up for me armour wise


Time to get into the workable tracks. They come with connectors for the spare tracks on the turret. You get a diagram for placement as there are no holes courtesy of Academy!




They're fiddly but the detail is superb and scale is much better - the kit connectors are far too large and there's no hinge detail


The tracks come with a separate insert for the guidehorns but it fits like a glove - hey presto - hollow guidehorns. Catnip for the Tiger fanboys!

For attaching to the turret you can see the track holder at the base of the link where the track rod would go. The top of each link then fits into the connector on the turret roof while the holder gets attached to the turret side with CA glue

Again, fiddly, but the end result looks well nice (IMHO)



So there she is. All ready for priming

Very nice tiger Stokesy44 love that ZIM work, I've seen that metal zim stuff for years, but always to nervous about buying it. But after looking at your build it looks awesome, any real trouble with it? And what glue? I had read that it had to be epoxy glue? Anyway great build. Looking forward to the paint work.

InitialProduction1 wrote:Very nice tiger Stokesy44 love that ZIM work, I've seen that metal zim stuff for years, but always to nervous about buying it. But after looking at your build it looks awesome, any real trouble with it? And what glue? I had read that it had to be epoxy glue? Anyway great build. Looking forward to the paint work.

Hi Mate.

I'm not really a PE fan either but the kit demanded it given I was too chicken to go down the home grown zimmerit route. Now its done I am very pleased with the quality of it. Fit wise it was perfect - the exception being the wrap around on the turret was for the original kit turret, not the new mid turret included in the box. The side vision slits didn't line up so I had to cut them off the turret and reposition them once I had glued the zimmerit on. It was also about 1mm too long to wrap the turret tightly so I cut it in two above and below the escape hatch and trimmed it to fit.

The rest of it fitted like a glove. It was flexible but not brittle and it came off the PE sheet really nicely when cut. The surface texture is finer than you might see on kits that have styrene zimmerit on them so I'm interested to see how it will look once the paint goes down.

I used a CA gel glue and applied tiny beads every 5mm or so near all the edges as well as in the middle areas of the larger pieces. I then 'rolled' the sheets onto the kit so I could adjust the positioning as it went down. The gel is easy to apply and as long as you're quick you get a second or two to take the PE off if you're not happy with the positioning.

Where the PE was slightly proud against an edge I either used a Tamiya diamond file to sand it back or the metal tubular handle of my hobby knife to burnish the edge down onto the plastic. For example, the large side panel sheets was fractionally proud on the hull upper edge so used the knife handle to 'role' them over. You can see the result in some of the above pics.

Overall, I was well pleased, especially given the £7 cost of the PE. Money well spent. I'd probably still be knee deep in filler if I had tried to do it myself!

I didn't get round to any painting. I've been working on the after market workable tracks instead.

I saw these tracks reviewed on YT by Adam Mann and was very impressed. For £20 I grabbed a set off EBay.



First, everything needs snipping off the sprues. The plastic is tough and the detail is very crisp - very little clean up was needed.

For each link you get the main piece plus the guidehorns and a cap which acts as a stop for the track pin. Once the cap is attached and the glue has dried, the attaching point from the sprue gets cut off leaving the cap in place. After that its on with the guidehorns and the link is ready to be wired to the next one. The wire is nice and snug and comes in lengths that will do 5 links. Once I got a few together I could see how well they moved - just like the real thing!



Progress


All done



I did my research, the Tiger had 96 links per side but that is too many for the kit using the Kaizen tracks. To get the proper sag, each side needs 94 links.

I used a longer pin to join up the final link and complete the track. That way its easier to take them apart once I've tested them.


Well pleased with the result.



Off to one side for safe keeping. Now I can get on with painting! FINALLY

Looking great so far, exited to see the finished model

Liamcraven666 wrote:Looking great so far, exited to see the finished model

Thanks Mate, so am I! The tracks have taken an age (partly due to my lack of application) but it time to fire up the compressor

Superb build in progress, one of the cleanest builds around. Looking forward to seeing some paint on the beast

OliveDrab wrote:Superb build in progress, one of the cleanest builds around. Looking forward to seeing some paint on the beast

Thanks Mate. Finally got the paint cannon out today. Been watching the vids on YT by Andy's Hobby Headquarters so I'm trying his method of black basing followed by a white highlight before the base coat. Got the black down today. Looks grey but that's due to the camera adding in the light to get more detail in the frame.





I have some masks for the wheels to show the rubber rims. I'll use them on these 8 wheels as they are the most prominent.


Stealth Tiger!


I gave the tracks a very light coat of black too. Just to get rid of the shine ahead of the weathering process.

Hopefully get more done tomorrow.

Nice!!!

That's really coming together nicely Stokesy. Love when the paint work starts. Can't wait to see the next update.

InitialProduction1 wrote:That's really coming together nicely Stokesy. Love when the paint work starts. Can't wait to see the next update.

Thanks mate, sorry its taken a while. I've been caught up with other stuff. Cranked up the old AB this morning. First up was white highlighting.









In truth I'm not convinced its achieved much. But hey, you learn by doing.

Then it was on with the good old Tamiya XF60 and things started looking up.



The white basing is still a little conspicuous on the side of the tank, I may give it a few extra puffs of XF60 to dial it back a bit.






I took the masks off and was well unimpressed. Off came most of the black I had used as the primer. I haven't used Eduard before and I'm none too chuffed with them. They are for more sticky than Montex and nowhere near as forgiving. Time to get the old hairy stick out and clean up the mess.



Voila - the old ways are the best - Lol.



I painted the remainder of the rims and then attached the final exterior wheels



Ready now for the camo



I'm going for the thin green tiger stripes option for Pz Abt 501, Eastern front April 1944. Should look nice provided I don't make a balls up of the application.

Thanks for looking in

It's really coming along quickly now , looking good!

It's coming along well. I look forward to seeing more. Nice work applying that metal zim, it can be problematic sometimes but you seem to be on top of it.

Thomas;)

Very nice Stokesy44, I do love tigers.

This is looking great!

G

Top work Stokesy

chalkyw wrote: Top work Stokesy

AgentG wrote:This is looking great!
G

InitialProduction1 wrote:Very nice Stokesy44, I do love tigers.

Morgoth62 wrote:It's coming along well. I look forward to seeing more. Nice work applying that metal zim, it can be problematic sometimes but you seem to be on top of it.
Thomas;)

Liamcraven666 wrote:It's really coming along quickly now , looking good!

Thanks for all your comments Guys.

Little bit of tidy up first. I noticed there were some gaps on the upper edge of the front plate where the PE Zim was not perfectly tight to the plastic so I applied some filler and resprayed. Looks better now.



Then it was on to the dark green camo using Tamiya XF61. I changed to a 0.2 needle and dropped the pressure down to about 15. Then it was a case of tryig to get in nice and close without splurging the paint. I have a H&S infinity which has a paint control wheel so that helped a lot. I set it nice and tight so I could pull the trigger quickly without splurging! Result looks pretty good. I may tighten it up with some fine spraying of the dark yellow but I'm inclined to leave it.












I made a Tiger II last year with a similar colour scheme but after the weathering it all ended up too dark. To avoid that this time, I may spray the kit with a yellow filter to keep the colours nice and bright. That way, once the washes and dot filters are done the kit will, hopefully, still look ok scale wise.

Once that's done, I'll do all the detail painting, cables, tools and spare tracks. Its moving along nicely now

Camo is great! Looking good so far, keep it up

This has come out proper nice Stokesy.

Quick question, are you going to detail paint the tools etc or are you going to leave them with the camo paint on?

RonBurgundy wrote:Camo is great! Looking good so far, keep it up

Cheers mate

Augustus wrote:This has come out proper nice Stokesy.

Quick question, are you going to detail paint the tools etc or are you going to leave them with the camo paint on?

Thanks Augustus

Yes, I will detail paint the spare tracks, the tools and the cables. I'll decide on the question of applying a yellow filter first then do the detail painting before a gloss coat for the decals and washes.

Still a ways to go but it can be pretty much non-stop now. Its taken an age to get this far (my fault) but I'm in the groove now so planning to get stuck in again today.

I decided not to apply a yellow filter. I think the camo is light enough without it. I'll just make sure I'm careful with the washes I use.

Got the detail painting done and did some chipping too.

Hull done




Then onto the turret




Happy with the results so far



Next up is a coat of aqua gloss for the decals, then another to seal. After that its washes for the hull and weathering the spare tracks and the exhausts.

Awesome paint job Sir ......I might have to have a crack at an African Tiger myself

Man am i glad I started looking through all the builds tonight, I'd been pissed if I had missed this update. VERY NICE Stokesy44!!.

InitialProduction1 wrote:Man am i glad I started looking through all the builds tonight, I'd been pissed if I had missed this update. VERY NICE Stokesy44!!.

chalkyw wrote:Awesome paint job Sir ......I might have to have a crack at an African Tiger myself

Thanks Gents. Your kind words are much appreciated

Got myself back to the bench today. First up was to do some more chipping. Good old fashioned method, glasses off, kit in front of face and a very small brush. Then it was aqua glossing in prep for the decals and the weathering. I also painted the heads of some of the tools black. They didn't look right in shiny aluminium and I was convinced to make the change after seeing one of Coen's builds.

Nice and shiny



While the gloss was curing, I got stuck into applying some pastels to the tracks. Nice thick coat of brown then shot through with white and orange for dust and rust. Only at early stages but I'm happy with the start nonetheless.



Decals on and dirt and rust applied to the spare track links on the turret. Mammoth decal session, I managed to get all 5 done!




Then applied more gloss to seal the decals and the pastels work on the spare tracks



Next up will be a pin wash and filters. I'm going with a pin wash as opposed to an overall wash as I don't want to darken the kit too much. Its very easy to make everything look dull, especially with the zimmerit as it will hold on to the was too much.

Only real paint job left is to blacken the exhaust stacks and detail them with rust effects. Everything else now is brush applied, save for glossing to fix.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear......I bought my first Tiger kit today on the back of watching this......what have I done

chalkyw wrote:Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear......I bought my first Tiger kit today on the back of watching this......what have I done

Lol - you sound like me a few months ago. This is my First Tiger since coming back to the hobby. I have Dragon's Wittman Tiger in my stash now too. I have bowed to the inevitable.

Like the Borg say, resistance is futile!

I can see the attraction given the Tiger's reputation but in addition for me there's something about the shape of it that lends itself to modelling. There's room to move if you know what I mean. Its hard to describe but its similar to the Tiger II in that regard, there's just so much space to create.

Listen to me! I've gone full geek!

Stokesy44 wrote:

chalkyw wrote:Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear......I bought my first Tiger kit today on the back of watching this......what have I done

Lol - you sound like me a few months ago. This is my First Tiger since coming back to the hobby. I have Dragon's Wittman Tiger in my stash now too. I have bowed to the inevitable.

Like the Borg say, resistance is futile!

I can see the attraction given the Tiger's reputation but in addition for me there's something about the shape of it that lends itself to modelling. There's room to move if you know what I mean. Its hard to describe but its similar to the Tiger II in that regard, there's just so much space to create.

Listen to me! I've gone full geek!

Lol, thankfully I haven't gone totally insane and abandoned my British theme as recent builds of Tiger 131 have given me an idea for a dio......so all is not lost for me but I suspect you've gone too far already

Just a small update today. In my defence there has been a lot of sport on. Anyone see Leicester get out of jail at Gloucester Friday night? Go you TIGERS!!!!!

Back on topic. Washes and pastels. I did a pin wash on all the panel lines I could find on the Tiger using Ultimate dark dirt (luvly stuff)



Once that was done I went to work with pastel chalks and some of the lighter Ultimate washes. I used their mud and concrete to add minor touches of dirt and dust in order to get rid of the glossy sheen still on the hull (haven't done the turret yet). And I got stuck into the exhausts and shrouds with black and orange pastels for blackening and rusting.



I think I'm getting to the point where I don't want to dirty it down much further until I add specific mud splashes to the running gear and lower hull. As already mentioned I don't want it to get too dark.



Happy so far, next up are light applications of dust and dirt to the turret to match the hull. You can see the turret is still a bit shiny in the following pics. Time to get dirty!




Thanks for looking in

REALLY like how crisp it looks, and then we get to see you play with it in the mud haha . Looks amazing Stokesy44.

InitialProduction1 wrote:REALLY like how crisp it looks, and then we get to see you play with it in the mud haha . Looks amazing Stokesy44.

Thanks mate. Once I finish the turret I'll put the tracks on. Then its weathering the tracks and getting all muddy!

I hope to finish it in the next day or so as I've got Tamiya's new M10 in the post and I want to build it in the Tamiya SIG.

I'm calling it. This one is FINISHED

First up was the turret and barrel. I applied Ultimate concrete wash to add a washed out look and added mud and rust via pastels for general dirt. Sorry there's no pics of it cleaned up, I forgot to take them as I wanted to get on with the work -


Then it was on to the tracks. After a brown and orange pastel wash last week I applied Ultimate washes of mud and rust to get some real colour into the tracks


I then had a look at them on the tank and colour wise they seemed ok.



I then took them off again and got to work dry brushing. I used Vallejo metal colour steel for the first layer and had a look at how they were going. You can see the difference immediately, the lower track has got a nice distressed metal look to it now.


Outer sections of the insides done


Steel done on both


I couldn't decide at this point if the highlighting was enough. In the end I thought it wasn't and applied a light dry brush of dark aluminium. This is how they ended up.


Back on the tank for review




I then went to work on the road wheels, applying Ultimate mud wash to the wheel rims and pastel dust to the wheel faces to take the shine off. In then end I decided not to muddy the tank up too much, reasoning a spring / summer timing for the model as opposed to caking it in a winter look. To do mud properly I need some proper pigments and while they're on my wish list a few other items have precluded their purchase this month! Anyway, the wheels.



Then to finish I went over the whole tank adding pastel and Ultimate wash detail as I saw fit. Not particularly structured I know, but who cares! Oh and I put the bow mounted and turret hatch MGs on.

I redid the pin wash on the turret as some of the concrete and mud had settled there and I wanted to get rid of it. In the end I think the turret turned out ok, the paint looks a little distressed but it hasn't gone dull - which is what I had been scared of all through the weathering process.



So to finish off, here it is. Verdict wise, the Academy kit is pretty decent. Some imperfections but then it was cheaper than a Tamiya and half the cost of a Dragon - you gets what you pays for matey!








Thanks for stopping by and if you have commented along the way, thanks for the encouragement and banter. Next up for me is Tamiya's 2016 M10 TD in the I Heart Tamiya SIG. All good fun.

Cheers Guys

SUPERB Stokesy

chalkyw wrote:SUPERB Stokesy

Thanks mate, much appreciated.

Not a big fan of Academy kits but that turned out very nice. I may have to take another look at them.

thanks for showing your build.

thomas;)