Marc , careful now , dont get all shook up and pass out or anything ....................... . Thanks , Is the wedding over ?

Gamera , thanks , will be here to see those pics .

Yeah great work all around guys but gee that turret looks fantastic Carl!

BTW: Started airbrushing the camo on my Tiger- hopefully photos soonish!

well carl my face is a little flushing I'm breathing heavy.  I think I'm in love.  with the turret that is.

Dupes , that will keep you busy for a while .

I sprayed the turrett with MM panzer gray , as a primer to bring out the surface detail ..i think i'm satisfied with the results , for now .

Egads, you guys are flying! Got about 20 pages to catch up on from the last 10 days or so.

Bergetiger coming soon. :)

Here's an experiment .I havent tried this before so i'll see how it looks with a coat of primer over it . I did the gauging on the surface and then applied some smears of Bondo glazing randomly .Then i used a stiff brush soaked in lacquer thinner to smear the Bondo around . When all of this mess cures out i'll sand it smooth .....not competely smooth ,i want some imperfections to be left on the surface . I know the armor on the King was rolled steel but it lookd to perfect as is out of the box  .And besides this is a bad a$$ tank and it needs some roughed up skin ...............something for my future oil washes and weathering to stick to .

JOE RIX

SMJmodeler

wing_nut: The paper zim' had some challenges but the results look good!

TB379: Great to see the paint fly..lookin' forward to seeing the camo' work!

JOE RIX:  The primed zim' looks good, the effort was definitely worthwhile.  Hey, don't sweat the build speed...you have until the end of April!  FYI, you need to bore out the second view hole on the mantlet next to the barrel.  The mid' had two holes versus one...check the instructions.

SMJ - I'll be danged if you ain't right. Checked my reference and then the instructions and sure as shootin' there it is to drill out the second hole. I got lured in by the fact that the PE zim panel only had one hole. What's that old addage about assuming? Anyhow , I got er drilled out, Process lifted the zim panel but I got it reglued. Thank You SMJ for setting me straight on that. That's exactly what makes working in a GB a real worthwhile pleasure.

Carl - So, this Dark Side stuff enables you to accomodate 48 hrs of benchtime into a 24 hour day? Hmmm...Ponder this I must.

Joe ...that and being retired

SMJmodeler

Shellback:  Talk about sweatin' the details...WOW! Superb work  BTW: Where'd you get the great photos?

SMJ , the pics i used are of Tiger II tank #332 when it was at the Patton Museum at Fort Knox . Its been moved to Fort Benning . Here's a link to some pics of it from Prime Portal when it was at Fort Knox . By the way the port side of 332 has been cut open (turret and hull ) to show the inside .

http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/dmitry_kiyatkin/king_tiger/index.php?Page=1

JOE RIX

Thank You SMJ for setting me straight on that. That's exactly what makes working in a GB a real worthwhile pleasure...

JOE RIX:  You're welcome...but I have to admit, I didn't point out this oversight because I'm a Tiger expert (there are some true experts here on this forum that I lean on for help) but rather by a mistake I made when I glued the pieces behind the mantle before drilling the hole.  It was an easy fix but it made me well aware of the second hole.  Anyway, I told ya' I got your back on this build and I agree it does make these GB's a real pleasure. 

BTW:  Where do you fall in the light versus heavy weathering camps?...hmmm?...care to truly experience the power of the darkside.?!

SMJmodeler

wing_nut: The paper zim' had some challenges but the results look good!

TB379: Great to see the paint fly..lookin' forward to seeing the camo' work!

JOE RIX:  The primed zim' looks good, the effort was definitely worthwhile.  Hey, don't sweat the build speed...you have until the end of April!  FYI, you need to bore out the second view hole on the mantlet next to the barrel.  The mid' had two holes versus one...check the instructions.

SMJ - I'll be danged if you ain't right. Checked my reference and then the instructions and sure as shootin' there it is to drill out the second hole. I got lured in by the fact that the PE zim panel only had one hole. What's that old addage about assuming? Anyhow , I got er drilled out, Process lifted the zim panel but I got it reglued. Thank You SMJ for setting me straight on that. That's exactly what makes working in a GB a real worthwhile pleasure.

Carl - So, this Dark Side stuff enables you to accomodate 48 hrs of benchtime into a 24 hour day? Hmmm...Ponder this I must.

Shellback:  Talk about sweatin' the details...WOW! Superb work  BTW: Where'd you get the great photos?

Eric .......... cat naps

T-Bolt, looking good with the coat on.

Marc, ditto to you sir.

Catl, just noticed the welds on the track hangers. Do you ever sleep dude? 

Will have been at the bar for an hour or so...maybe

Joe Rix, the PE Zimm look great.

I got the wrong one, it's made for a Tamyia and I'm trying to make it fit the Dragon. It's close but I'm havinmg to do more work with oputty than I thought so I'm making mine with more "battle damange" than I ha first planed,

Marc , paint looks good . Have fun ...........we wont see on the evening news being hauled off the airplane will we ?

I've been looking at some pics of the Konigs Tiger and this Steel Cat has some rough surfaces that i want to attempt to duplicate .

The housing for the bow machine gun looks to be a cast piece .

I duplicated the cast look by first stippling the surface with a stiff brush soaked in lacquer thinner . When that cured i lightly sanded the surface .

Then i used a soft brush dipped in lacquer thinner to smooth the surface .

Here's the gun base housing of the  which is cast and machined.

The armor plate on the front of the turret is rolled steel but it still shows emperfections on its surface .

I used a engraving bit to rough up the armor plate . The gun base was given the cast look with the stippling process .

Just a quick thank you too all for your comments and a couple of base coat pics.  Heading to Chicago for a wedding.  I plan to start drinking at the airport.

Joe, TBolt... Day-um that's nice work.

Thunder , looks good , waiting to see more paint .

Joe , the p.e. zim looks very nice .

Joe, the primed zim looks even better then the brass look. Keep up the great work.

wing_nut: The paper zim' had some challenges but the results look good!

TB379: Great to see the paint fly..lookin' forward to seeing the camo' work!

JOE RIX:  The primed zim' looks good, the effort was definitely worthwhile.  Hey, don't sweat the build speed...you have until the end of April!  FYI, you need to bore out the second view hole on the mantlet next to the barrel.  The mid' had two holes versus one...check the instructions.

Finally, I feel as though I have made some degree of progress compared to the wild a** rate some of you all are moving at. After some careful filling with Mr. Surfacer 500 and Gap Filling CA and careful sanding I got the PE zim on the gun mantel all smoothed out. Then PE zim on rear plate. A bit off kilter in a couple of spots but I can easily accomodate that.

Okay, promised pics: Here's the Tamiya KT as the painting process gets underway. First, the turret ring, axles and exhausts were masked:

Here's the running gear after two coats:

And the main structures -- you can see a few thin patches that'll get hit in the third round:

I added the cable to the headlight on the forward hull from fine wire, my first time attempt at cabling. The last grab handles and the AA MG mount are now in place. When the paintjob is done I'll go round and drill out all attachment holes for external fittings.

As you can see from the shade of green, I'm trying a scale colour effect, an addition of 20% dark yellow to pale the green a bit.

I may not get a chance to paint tomorrow, I have work, but hopefully I'll get the camo done over the weekend, maybe spray the tracks as well. The next round will be a base green again, the underside remains to be done, hit all thin spots on the hull, and turn the wheels over to zap the backs, plus the hubs still on the sprue.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hi all, well I just finished my second session of spraying the big kitty, and it'll take a third just to finish the basecoat! The weather has been strange and the paint seems to want way more thinning than usual, so I've been chasing the ratios and using more tank pressure than I should. It's looking nice, though, the Cavalier zim looks great under paint! I'm using Tony Greenland's recommendations for hue, scale colour and lustre, and it's going to be interesting to say the least. I may run the yellow and brown deliberately underthinned for the weather conditions to get finer/tighter control when I come to lay down the soft-edge camo, which in the pattern as researched is very wavy, almost frilly edged... Pics soon!

Mike/TB379

Hey everyone thanks a ton for your support !

Carl - Holy cow!! With the skills and attention to detail you demonstrate you're the dadgum poster child for The Dark Side. Absolutely awesome work.

 I've managed to finish up touching up the  PE zim on the gun mantle. Looks half descent. Atached the rear plate and added some of the PE zim there. I'll get some pics here soon.

Wing Nut - Nice job on the paper zim. Looks great.

Well , what an ordeal .By the sounds of your discription i'd say it takes some patience ! But the results look like they came out well . The "bow tie"shaped thing next to the fan is a stowed cover for the engine ventilation fan .........i believe it was used as a restriction on the air flow for use durring cold winter operation to cause the engine to run warmer ...kinda like when you see Diesel trucks partially cover their radiator shrouds in cold climates ...........................................

WOW guys... outstanding work a cross the board.

Last update before painting begins.  YIPPIE!!!

One of the problems with the paper zim is that fact that it’s paper.  Sanding and “chipping” leaves a frayed edge.  Just like when you tear a piece of paper.  I soaked the paper with thin CA and dabbing off the excess with a q-tip before it sets.

A little fuzzy but you get the idea.

I only did the CA on one side and it does not affect the surface at all.  But is does make it a bit more durable.

With CA

Without CA

The gun blister was a nightmare and in the end didn’t work at all.  The piece with the cut segment did not fit.  I couldn’t get all the gaps to close.    Needing more work time I used the white glue instead of the gel CA and the segments got pretty soaked and were tearing off as i tried to work them together. I think the seams would have looked mad anyway.  They give you round disk to wet and, in their woods, “stretch” over the bulge.  Wet paper doesn’t stretch… it tears.  So that was a bust. I ended up softening the plastic with liquid glue and tried to replicate the pattern.  Not great but it is what it is.  A couple of pics of how I shaped the zim before putting it on in the event someone else tries this stuff and gets it to work better than I did.

You can sort of see them blister here.

The bit of raised plastic on the side of the hull that is supposed to be the rack for the extra tread was chiseled off to make room for the paper ones from the zim set.  I don’t plan to put any treads on the hull and use these to hang on the turret.  The Tread where separated so they could be linked.    The thing with the 2 bends is a strip I cut off the paper sheet to test soaking it in thin CA to make it stiff.  One end with bent then soaked and the other was soaked, cured and then bent.  The latter actually cracked so when making the rack I went with bend first.  Make some pins from wire. The cable loop is there for a test fit since I will attach one end of the cable on the bracket.

Not sure the function of that piece by the fan but it is on a 1/35 “G” I have so I made one.

Carl- Nice work taking care of the fender hinges!  Pay you $18.95?  Little too much but one or two  would be sufficient?  

Tigerman: I didn't use hairspray but the product I used is intended to simulate that technique.  I used AK Interactive Heavy Chipping Effects Fluid.  It was my first time using the stuff but I'm a real fan of it already!

deafpanzer: Glad you noticed the subtle fading on the numbers...thanks for the comments.

JOE RIX/ Alex Shaw/ Gamera/ malone duke:  Thanks for the comments guys!!!

Shellback: Thanks for your comments on my Mid.  I'm really enjoying watching your detail work...impressive surgery on the fenders!