Three large-scale tanks awaiting a rebuild..
Not sure if anyone is interested to see this, but here goes: this is a set of 3 large-scale German WW2
tanks I've recently bought second-hand on Ebay with the intention of rebuilding, detailing and improving them.
They are the 21st Century Toys 1/18 Panther and Tiger, and the Tamiya 1/16 King Tiger. The 21st Century tanks
are pre-assembled and in some ways are closer to detailed toys than scale models. However they make a good start
for superdetailing.
Currently I haven't done any work on these models but I am planning to start work on the Tiger soon. I've chosen this
to start with as it needs the least adding to it (it already has partial interior detail) and because it is the tank
I have the most reference material for.
The Panther and KT will be a lot of work, as they have no interior. I don't have any reference material for the Panther interior so I'll have to try and look out for some!
I would be very interested to know about:
- Any websites with photos of the King Tiger and Panther interiors, particularly the Panther
- Any suppliers of 1/16 AFV aftermarket material in the UK.
Here's a picture of each (with an extra picture of the Tiger interior):
Panther Ausf.G - the least impressive of the three, with no interior and rather heavy
moulding in some areas; still, with plenty of scratchbuilt additions inside and out, and a new
paint scheme, it should look very good.
Tiger I - very impressive by 21st Century Toys standards, it has partial interior detail -
turret cage, driver's seats, gun breech, engine, hatch locks etc, as well as realistic weld seams and armour texture.
King Tiger w/Porsche turret (1/16 Tamiya) - not as good as Tamiya's more recent big-scale tanks, but still an impressive model. Absolutely no interior though (as it's intended for R/C) so plenty of scratchbuilding and research will be required here! The hull MG barrel is missing here (it was broken off when I got the model), but isn't lost thankfully - I have it stored away along with the other removable parts. (Scratchbuilding a new one would have been a pain)
I'll post some more pictures when I've made a bit more progress! (or any for that matter!).