- Member since
November 2005
|
Put a Tank into your Tiger. Part 2, the saga continues.
Posted by Anonymous
on Thursday, February 5, 2004 3:31 PM
It has begun.
The dark days of sitting alone and staring at the box are over. I stood up and faced the behemoth which is my Italeri 1:35 Tiger E/H1. As the lid slid off the box, sucking the ouside air in with a satisfying sluuush, the pristine plastic and brass bits gazed up at me in sheer anticipation.
As I had already studied the intructions well enough to have earned a Phd, I started the construction. Starting on the lower hull, I elegantly removed the parts from their sprues, freeing them from a life of cruel inprisonment and being withheld from being bonded to the ones they're destined to be with for all of its life on the display cabinet shelf, happily growing old and gathering dust together. I feel good. Cheekily the parts nestle down leaving the odd gap, begging to be filled with putty and tickled with sand paper. A mild disaster strikes. I find myself in a desperate situation without putty! Thankfully, unlike modern popular music, worse things have happened, so I calmly ,and more importantly, collectedly moved my focus to the turret.
The turret is a land of intricate construction, filled with vast wastes of plastic, dotted with the odd monolith of brass, not unlike monument valley, but less likely to bio-degrade as quickly. The commanders cupola seemed like the best place to start, as it didn't need as much items I don't have at the moment. I must embark on a quest into the lands of the shoppe's and aquire the majestic spools of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4mm wire from the realms beyond the gates of the hobby shop. I digress.. The cupola has a cluster of vision ports aranged around it, and the PE set included the interiour details of said vision ports. The size of the parts, which are huge if you're a mouse, and the intricateness just astounded me. I reeled to the fact that this was the most I'd ever spent on something not too dissimilair to drill shavings, and I was about to cut it up and paint it with superglue. This would require me to completely reset my brain. Thankfully that isn't rocket science.
After several hours of trudging carefully through the mine laden fields of teeny-weeny part assembly, I considered myself to be succesful in the assembly of what seemed to resemble the pictures I had seen once upon a time. And there was much rejoicing. So far I hadn't lost anything to the clutches of the tiny monkeys who leap out of the 7th dimension and steal the bit you were just working on and hide it under the sofa. The instructions called for some minor surgery of the kits bits, so, after carefully waving a knife at my own fingers and missing, I managed to slice off the offending items from the commanders hatch, the evilly molded on hatch levers. These parts were replaced by a threesome of merry brass parts and their stretched sprue sidekicks. The parts recovered well after the operation and are now on a diet of jelly and ice-cream until they can eat solids again..
..but it was far from over. I started on the hatch hinge, and vowed never to stop until all the PE bits were bent and glued into submission. That and when I needed the wire guages I don't have and the prospect of my girlfriend beating me to a mushy puree for not coming to bed at a normal hour. I removed more of Italeri's incorrectly placed plastic (but bless 'em..) in preperation for the attachment of the brass hinge. The first part went together lovely. For the hinge pin I inserted a length of what used to be one of those pins that are cunningly hidden in new shirts in the exact spot that would stab you either in your armpit, jugular or nipple. There it sat on my worktop. The light of my 70 watt bulb glinting playfully from its metallic metal surface. Proud of my creation I sat in awe of my own abilities. I was to be brought back down to the levels of mere mortals, when I attempted to use the PE sets hinge links. These proved to be slippery little rascals being too short and totally uncooperative. After I slowly started to loose my cool and suave je n'sez quois, the rift in space and time that we all know and fear started to slowly tear open. Light poured out of it like moviegoers from a britney spears movie. Anything smaller than the head of a flea and made of brass or plastic started to swirl around. The debris swirled faster and faster and I tried to desperatly cling on to all the irreplacable bits, but it was to no avail, one of the hinge links was taken. Brutally ripped from my bossom, it was gone. Lost forever floating out in the wastes of unused time and space along with Fergal Sharkey's career and William Shatners real hair. Its out there now, alone, cold, afraid. Its so tiny and defenceless.. At least its got janet Jacksons underwear to talk to, though. I was devastated. Destrought I peered through my tear soaked eyes for a solution. And there it was. A light shon through the darkness like a beakon. I realized I could use a small section of the PE sprue as new links. So be it. It turns out I shouldn't have bothered, as this turned out to be a much better and more workable solution. Hurrah! I assembled the hinge and attached it to the cupola and its friend, the hatch. Lo and behold, the hinge actually works!
And there was much rejoicing.
I decided to call it a night. Which was quite apt, as it was dark outside and everything. I was tired and considered I should quit while I was ahead. That and I needed those wires again to continue.
The saga will continue soon..
Here are the promissed images..
External shot of turret roof, tastefully decorated with the latest in PE fashion.
Similair, but with the hatch open.. Note the vision ports cheekily peeking through the hatch opening.
Join us as we take a look inside the turret cupola.
Part 2
And the saga continues.
My quest to find wire was succesful. I had ventured deeply into the depths of the hobby shop that doesn't sell kits, fighting the hordes of blue rinse macrame demons and tree hugging pottery goblins. With three different guages of wire and three tubes of oil paint in on hand, a green goo coated sword in the other, I emerged triumphantly. It was a long and terrible battle, but all is fair in love and modelling..
I did, however, completely forget to get putty...
On arriving back at the lair I continued with the ongoing struggle which is the Tiger. It would be a short battle due to to my excellent strategic insight to conserve my troops for a larger assault. Also because I had promissed my girlfriend to spend some time with her.. It was time to face the smallest piano-hinges since the beginning of time itself. These are small hinges. Think Bush re-election chances small, but maybe double that. After fumbling around with the tiny parts as if they were wet fish and I had vaseline gloves on, I finally realized that this would only work if I were cunning. I acted nonchalantly and snuck up on them when they weren't looking. I got them completely by surprise and managed to wrestle them onto some sticky tape. Hah! They didn't see that one coming! I had pre bent the hinges and laid a length of 0.3mm wire in the teeth. After reading them a story, I tucked them in making sure they were nice and warm and gently moved them to the mudguards. They looked so peaceful, I had to wipe away a tear.
On that note I called the retreat. I pulled the troops back to the confines of their cardboad barracks that lie in the grounds just past the sofa. The short but succesful skirmish resulted in a nice pair of mudguards with working hinges. The dings, dents and imperfections which are hallmark for my incompetence work nicely as shortcomings in German army parallel parking training. Happy with the result, I put everything aside for the evening and turned my attention to my girlfriend, who was sharpening her favorite knife and checking the clock.
Pics to follow..
|