New Tamiya 1/16 Tiger 1

Drew,
I know that lots of people paint them before you assemble them. You can always paint them while everything is assembled but it takes a steady hand and a small brush. If everything is already glued, I wouldn't sweat it too much. It will just take you some more time to make it look good. Just don't make the mistake I did and put the tools on the outside of the tank before you paint it. I had to pry them all off and repaint them when I found out my hand wasn't steady enough to paint them while they were attached. Although you are working in a larger scale then I am too.

Well I painted mine before I installed them on the model, but really its not a problem on this model since the roadwheels are not glued on but held in place by a little screw, you can always remove them and paint them if you find it too hard to paint them while installed.
Oh and I believe you will find some stuff that you absolutely got to have for your Tiger on this site, http://www.backyardarmor.com/

Drew,
put everything together then prime. use the Tamiya primer, which is good for metal and plastic.
WWw. backyardarmor has a very long delay before you get your order. I order directly from Germany, it took about a week to get them. it took about 2 month to get those parts from Backyard armor. Also there is no commnunication or customer service.
email me privately if you want to know mre: aiguo_zhang@hotmail.com

my 1/16 rc website:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeochp7/

enjoy. tom

What I think you are referring to is just the arms that hold the roadwheel assembly. There's no reason to prepaint them, hit them together with the hull. That's how Erock did it and it's how I plan to as well. I painted the roadwheels themselves on the sprue and that worked very well since any trimming is hidden by the rubber wheels. I even futured and washed them before assembly and plan to weather them heavily with mud before final installation.
It's a great kit, I'm in the middle of all the PE details on deck. Post some pics of your progress when you get a chance. Here's a little detail I particularly love...

Thanks AusF, that is exactly what I was concerned about. So you don’t think it will look too bad or I guess the best thing to ask. Too tacky if I don’t bend each axle arm down and paint the hull behind it (knowing that it won’t be seen and hidden by the road wheels). Hopeful I will soon understand what is acceptable and not acceptable for painting expectations when I am done asking all my stupid questions.

Thanks for all of your patience.

Also, do you know if Erock still has his Tiger group build site somewhere?

I have the arber set also, but my eyes are really bad and my workspace even worse, so I think I am going to give it to my uncle (who gave me this spare Tiger 1/16 so we could tank battle). I really have to salute you guys who can handle that small craftsmanship. I don’t ever think ill be a watch maker.

No problem, ask away...
If you're Airbrushing, you should be able to get in the tight spots without too much trouble. The area is going to be real hard to see and will get dirty pretty quick driving around I'd imagine.
As far as Erock's site, I remember a while back he mentioned that his hosting costs were going up and he was thinking about dropping it. I don't think he's been around in a while.

Erock's site may be gone, but the 1/16 Tiger I group Build lives on here at FSM:

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=6246

70-plus pages of 1/16 mayhem! Enjoy!

It's a cryin' shame that I never started on mine...