ARMOR - Tamiya 1/16 Tiger 1 Group Build

Everybody's busy busy, making progress!
Looking forward to some pix, Roy.

As far as being worried about losing your PE every time you run if you are making the RC Tiger, lemme tell ya, you're gonna be tossing plastic, too! As White Wolf mentioned many a post ago, if you glue or solder all your PE properly, it should hold just as well as the plastic parts. Now, fenders and things like that will bend, of course, but the plastic would just snap off anyway.
I've seen them running these things at various events, and the plastic is always flying everywhere!
So, whether you go full Aber PE or go stock plastic, if you run the RC version, you are invariably going to suffer damage somewhere along the line.

But heck, ain't that half the fun?

I've never soldered PE before. Does anybody have any tips or know of any good links for an example?

Also what kind of glue would anybody recommend for glueing PE to plastic?

Can you smell what the Rock is cookin'?

Huh? Damage my Tiger? Say it ain't so! Man, Heaven help the poor schmo who runs into my Tiger. It will be time to give him the "People's Elbow"! Looks like you fellas are all over the website today. Thanks for the intel on the seams and
using putty. I assembled my muzzlebreak today and used Squadron white putty on it. After an hour, I started to gently sand it and I can't feel the seam anymore. (Looks great to me!) I'll hit it with the primer tomorrow and see how it looks. Kuma, as for my fenders, I went with the stock Tamiya ones. I could have taken my dremel with a sanding tool on it to thin them down some, but that seemed inconsequential to me. The gear puller was in the hobby store's catalog, but you can call Tamiya if you want to. The drive train is ready to go, although I haven't installed it yet. I just took the new gearboxes and Zagi's to the hobby store when they had my gear puller in, and they soldered the electrical wires onto the motors there for me. The gears came off clean and I had no trouble getting them onto the Zagis. I'm assembling my Tiger out of order from the directions. The way I'm doing it is I'm getting the exterior assembled and painted before I begin hooking up all the electronics. That way I don't goop up any of the really expensive stuff. (Not to mention my gearbox!) I'm also going to use sticky sided velcro instead of double sided tape to secure the electronics, so that I can pull them out when I need to perform
routine maintenance and upgrades. Once it's all painted, I'll put all the goodies in. Now for the bad news. I won't be able to post any more pictures until the end of October of even mid November. Sorry, it's an issue of "access". Here's some REALLY good news however. Knowing that I'm building a Mid version Tiger I, I figured out today what part A-1 is. It's the hub
where the first outer wheels are supposed to go. So I can use
them instead of those first two outer roadwheels. The Germans
took these wheels off when they encountered problems in deep
mud and snow.

Question for Erock: Hey bro, when you assembled the barrel and the flash unit inside it, did you do anything with that orange plastic stuff on the end? Are you supposed to leave it "As is"? (Do you cut it off?) The directions don't give any such advice, but other tank club websites have stated that you should paint the tip gray so that you don't get the bright red flash. This is a moot point for me, since the flash unit only goes so far into my metal barrel. Advice?

Tune in next weekend for "Camo on the Tiger"!

Roy

Know your role, Jabroni! (People's Eyebrow employed)

Man, I haven't heard any Rock references in a LONG time! Thanks for the laff, Roy!

Kuma,

I haven't dared try any soldering of pe, yet, If I had a resistance soldering setup (lots of bucks), I'd try it. I may give it a go with a small wattage iron I use for electronic stuff.

As for glue...super glue or epoxy is the way to go. Depending on the joint, I use either gap filling or the thin stuff. I do more with the gap filling than anything. You can also use an accelerator, if you want/need to do so. One thing I've found, make sure your ca glue is fresh. I've used the thick stuff until the bottle runs out, which for me is a very long time, and it seems to work, but the joints are just not as strong as they should/could be. I threw away a bottle of thin stuff last week that was so old it was as thick as the gap filling kind. It was so bad, it didn't even glue my fingers to the part when I oopsed with it!! LOL

Good luck with it.

Bill

QUOTE: Question for Erock: Hey bro, when you assembled the barrel and the flash unit inside it, did you do anything with that orange plastic stuff on the end? Are you supposed to leave it "As is"? (Do you cut it off?) The directions don't give any such advice, but other tank club websites have stated that you should paint the tip gray so that you don't get the bright red flash. This is a moot point for me, since the flash unit only goes so far into my metal barrel. Advice?

I had to really push and twish (no funny references here ) to get the flash unit all the way through the barrel. As for the end, I'm leaving it "as is" Don't want to short circuit the neon flash.



"Can you smell what Erock is cookin' "

Re : Unused Aber ???

Guys , before I go and order the frets I want from the US , would those of you that have frets you aint gonna use let me know ? I'd sooner have the parts in my paw , and put a few $ in your pocket .

Erock , wanna sell them fenders ? I'll give ya the GreatModel's list for 'em : Front Fenders (F fret + G minifret) 20.65 , Rear Fenders (G fret + G minifret) 17.60 , Side Fenders (I frets) 23.90 (and any of the M1 bolts ya care to 'donate')

WhiteWolf (awaiting his cheque)

QUOTE: Erock , wanna sell them fenders ? I'll give ya the GreatModel's list for 'em : Front Fenders (F fret + G minifret) 20.65 , Rear Fenders (G fret + G minifret) 17.60 , Side Fenders (H fret) 23.90 (and any of the M1 bolts ya care to 'donate')

Hey WW,

Send me an email to erock68@adelphia.net

I can get them out to you today, if you want (I'll send them UPS)

Eric I just saw some more pics on your build site. You really need to contact me by email. I think this build article you have done would be great on ww2modelmaker.com. Get back to me.

Cheers

Rob

Moses,

I tried to get your email from your profile, not there bud.

My email is in one of the posts above ^

My email is in my signature ya nut. If that doesn't work try justaskmoses@aol.com or moses907th@aol.com.

Cheers

Rob

Man, it's the stress I'm tellin ya'

I have to thank ...

... Erock for replying so quickly , and posting the frets to me even before I'd PayPal's him . Now all I need is the 02 , 03 and 07 frets ( A, B, C, D, E, & J ) and I'm good to go .

Crews are gonna need A-D , and the E grills are nice , but who isn't gonna use the S-mines , stowage bin hatches and vent-lock ? I'll buy 'em !

Then all I need is Dirk's copies of the track-holders , either
make my own cables or buy Dirk's , and then the gearboxes , and I'm good-to-go .

And Rockie :

You are supposed to use a bit of wire and ~pull~ the light in ... ~gently~ .

Being a tech & having to 'fish' cables thru conduits helped with that trick . And having 3 of the original flash assemblies help too ! ( the old flashes from the KT ) One's going into my Jackson , one into my KT/Porsche , and the last is still undecided ( perhaps in my T34 mockup )

WhiteWolf
( with most of the tricks - and aint it that season again? )

I was just looking at Dirk's parts and there were a few things that looked like they'd be really nice additions to anybody's build.

Whitewolf, Roy, anybody else that ordered from Dirk.... did you send a US money order or a Western Union payment or something? I'm not familiar at all with how people pay Dirk for ordered some parts. Those tow cables look beautiful!

JR

p.s. got my Tiger from D4W. I think the packaging itself costs $500 and the parts are the remaining. Geez talk about deluxe packaging. Anyways I actually built the tension pulleys last nite to kick off my 1 yr. build (probably take me that long!).

Kuma :

I ordered mine thru a friend in the RC Tankers , he said he sent it thru Western Union , cash pickup .

NOW , with that said , he , myself & another guy are planning another order . I've asked Dirk if we can consolidate one payment for multiple orders , but ship ~separately~ , to save on fees . Can you wait until Dirk replies ? It might save ya a bit .

Dirk IS sending me a CD with his new images & updated price list on it , but it may be as much as a month , as he's apparently got a JagdTiger project in the works . I'll have it up on DP-Thema soon as it arrives .

Kuma , you gonna let your Type 1 gearboxes go ? I'll take 'em if you don't want 'em . Anyone else got gearboxes to loose ?

I also have one of the old King Tiger gearboxes to trade/sell , if anyone wants spares for an older KT Henschel . Has pinion & the brass drive-arms the sprockets mount on . Only missing the clutch crank arm (easily scratched)

WhiteWolf

Whitewolf
I'm in no hurry. I haven't made a decision on which Tiger I'm going to try and model. So I might end up having to order extra stuff from Dirk if I try and go with a mid production update. But at the very least Im' thinking those tow cables and hooks would be really nice. So I can definitely wait to see what Dirk says to you guys. A group buy sounds good to me.

That Jagdtiger project sounds interesting!!!

I haven't made a decision about my gears yet. I've been thinking about it and it doesn't really make sense to me to add that reinforcement kit to type 1 gearboxes with plastic gears when I could just go out and buy the new gearboxes for slightly more. I just might go the same route that Roy did and get the new gearboxes and put in a different motor. If thats the way I go I'd definitely let go of my type 1 gearboxes. I just want to think it over a little more.

I was so relieved to see that the front of the Tiger I was removable to make gear maintenance easier. I thought it was glued in place or something.

I'm gonna have to hit the books hard over the next week and see if I can't finally make a decision on a Tiger to do. That 503 russia 1943 Tiger is pretty cool looking. But I'd like to try and look around. I was thinking it would be cool to do a Befehlswagen. So far I've only seen a couple pictures of them. I'd need more info for sure. And I'm not sure but isn't Wittman's Tiger with the kill rings a Befehlswagen?. The one Eric's doing now?

Hello, fellas!
Here we are already on page 30 of this sticky, and I ain't even got my kitty out of the kloset yet! Well, I did say from the beginning I wouldn't be building until the end of October.

So far, it's been great fun watching Erock's and Okieboy's Tigers come together, learning from WWMcB's gear-pullin' 1/16 RC wisdom (I'm gonna do that 1/16 Korean 76mm Sherman!), and hearing from frequent posters and participants like Kumakichi, Moses, and other stars o' the forums. Thanks, fellas!

Now that Erush has finished his fantastic Marder, he'll be diggin' into the kitty litter soon enough, leaving me as the only yet-to-build builder in this build!
But the day draws near when I shall finally yank down that big black duffel bag out of the closet...and then you'll hear me say:

"Hey, ya'll! How did you _________????"

It was all a clever part of my strategy from the beginning....heh heh heh!

QUOTE: Originally posted by J-Hulk Now that Erush has finished his fantastic Marder, he'll be diggin' into the kitty litter soon enough, ...and then you'll hear me say: "Hey, ya'll! How did you _________????" It was all a clever part of my strategy from the beginning....heh heh heh!

Great minds think alike, don't they Brian?

I'm doing some rearranging this weekend to try to clean off my desk for the big kitty. I just hope the desk is big enough

Eric

Sand and fill...sand and fill....Oh hey fellas! I've been busy with my muzzlebreak.
Finally got it done today though. Hey Kuma, your Tiger from Dave4what didn't come with the new Type 4 gearboxes? It should have. I just sent cash in a card
to Dirk. It took at least 3-4 weeks to get my parts back. All of his parts are top notch. I got tow cables as well and they are excellent. You mentioned tension pulleys? What are those for? (For those interested, I will have extra parts from my Tiger when I'm all done, namely: Feifel air filters, early version cupola, the air filter tube, and yes S-mine dischargers.)

I can't wait to start putting camo on my Tiger this weekend.

Roy

I have so many things going on at once, my heads spinning

It's our busy time at work so, I've been getting home pretty late at night (usually around 2:00 am) Not too much time, to have fun building, because the wife leaves for work at 7:00am

I then have to get the kids on the bus before 8:00.

I do manage to squeeze in some build time and a nap

Ugh, poor bugger... Sounds like me a couple of weeks ago. Hey Erock, did you
apply primer to your tracks before you painted them, or did you just hit them with
the paint?

Roy

QUOTE: Originally posted by okieboy Hey Kuma, your Tiger from Dave4what didn't come with the new Type 4 gearboxes? It should have. I just sent cash in a card to Dirk. It took at least 3-4 weeks to get my parts back. All of his parts are top notch. I got tow cables as well and they are excellent. You mentioned tension pulleys? What are those for? Roy

Yea I guess mine came with Type 1 gearboxes. A lot of the gears are that white plastic. Ya know I even asked Dave about that. He told me thats a common question people ask him and that he called Tamiya to find out why he couldn't buy kits with the new gearboxes. He said they only sell those in Japan right now. Whitewolf says thats not so but no matter. I have the earlier ones. So I guess if I want them I have to order them separate from D4W.

Well I'm glad you guys are happy with Dirk. His stuff does look terrific. I'd like to add a few of his parts too.

Those tension pulleys are for that idler wheel adjustment to take up the slack in the tracks. I took a picture of them and a few other progress pictures just to document my build but I just haven't found the time to upload em. I'm hopin maybe this weekend.

Ya know I'm still lookin thru the books to decide on which Tiger I'm going to do. Well its amazing how many pictures of #332 of the Schw. Pzr. Abt. 503 there are in Tigers In Combat Vol. 1. I must have seen over half a dozen pictures of it. Very clear and from different angles. I can only guess that one of its crew used to carry a camera around with him.

I'm in the same boat, Kumakichi. I've made no decisions on what vehicle to model! Or if 'm even going to model a specific vehicle.

I'm not certain (am I ever?), but I think the reason for the proliferation of pix of ol' #332 was due to a propoganda photo shoot using the Schw. Pzr. Abt. 503 as the subject. I could be wrong, though.
Or maybe the radio operator just got a new camera!

Brian, I've decided to do the #311 myself. Mainly for the camo scheme on it but I haven't found any pics of it yet in my books ( I do have a couple more to go through ).

However, if any of y'all run across some pics, let me know if you can tell if it has the early or late air precleaner covers on it. I would think it'd have the late one's but I'm guessing. Do any of y'all know for sure? I'm not going to worry over every rivit but don't want any glaringly wrong parts on it if I can help it.

Thanks guys for any help.

Erock, you haven't posted any new progress pics for a couple days on the website. Yer slackin off!!! I saw your post about your schedule lately, just messin with ya!!

Eric

Yea I know what you mean. I either want to find a specific Tiger to try and model or model a Tiger from a certain company. I just wanted to try and research for a Tiger and see how it worked out.

My vote is for the radio operator. I think his wife sent him that camera just so she would know where he was at!

I found a nice shot of a Tiger of the 505 Schw. Pzr. Abt. that looks just like the #214 shown in the instructions book. And I found a bunch of other tanks that looked interesting. I'm narrowing it down I think. I did find an early befehlswagen of the 503 Schw. Pzr. Abt. But don't think I want to do that one. Decisions...decisions....

Or maybe I'll pay homage to Mike's excellent Tiger in the "And now for something completely different" thread and do it up in orange, black, and white!

Alright, I got my turret and main gun assembled and it looks bads$$! Man, that turret gets heavy once you load all that equipment and the metal barrel in there.
That was the last step before I paint the camo on my beast.
Kuma, you have to get some pics posted on those tension pulleys! I need to see about getting or building some for mine,
because that's one of the weak points of this tank. There is little
give to allow for the occasional rock, so you could mess up your
gears or throw a track.

Roy

Hey Roy,

Sounds like your just cruising along Really wish we could see your progress. Before and after paint is always fun to watch. Really looking forward to seeing your camo job.

As far as those tension pulleys go you have them to. I didn't modify mine in any way. I just built them the way the instructions said to. I'll try to post some pictures anyways. I'll toss up a basic website or something.

I have to say I really enjoyed building the metal part of the kit so far. But that blue goop just had a mind of its own! [:0] I'm gonna spend some more time with my face in books looking at Tigers this afternoon. Got home early from work

I'm kinda leaning towards doing a Mid production with zimmerit and doing damaged zimmerit. I'd like to show some combat wear and tear but not an abused Tiger.

I'll try to post some pictures this evening if I don't fall asleep first. Its been a long week.

Sorry Kuma. I thought you had built yourself some spring loaded pulleys for the
idlers wheels. A guy in my tank club happens to be a machinist and he built
some for his King Tiger. They work great. I thought you did the same thing.
Yeah, the thread lock is a major pain. It leaks everywhere, but is absolutely necessary.
For my Tiger I'm going easy on the battle damage. I'll probably only do a wash and show some wear with graphite. After working so hard on the zimm, I hate to
chip it all up. Perhaps a year or so later when I get tired of the present look, I'll
change things up a bit with a new paint scheme and some damage.
I love the Mid version the best though, because it gives me the most latitude when customizing the vehicle and placing it in various theaters. I'm modelling my Tiger after a tank in the 101 Schwere Abteilung, as it saw action in Western Europe. Good luck with yours!

Roy

Guys :

I think J-Hulk's report of my RC wisdom is a bit over-stated . I have been in the RC field for over 20 years now , having started with that big styrene Lindberg PT-109 kit (would kill to find another) and then fell in love with the Tamiya Lancia Rally (aka Frog-in-mufti) most of what I know came as tips from others , or I discovered it independantly (reinvented the servo-wheel!)

You want RC wizzes , look at Willy's machining for the semi's & tanks , Dick Bernier and the guys that scratched their T-34's (Yahoo's Armor Scratch Builders) , Kenny Kong and his tracks ... I could go on , but you get the idea .

Kuma :

If they are mostly white gears , with no black over-cover , they are Type 1's . I may compile a set of ID pics for someone to host .

As for motors , wait until Willy has tested his new motors , as he says he has some that have the Zagi's beat , and at $10 USD each .

Put that 'pully' idea to him , he might make parts for the kits (KT , T1 & maybe even the M4)

And remember , I still want at least 2 sets of Type 1 boxes . I'd rather put $ in your pocket than buy retail , hmmm ?

As for assembly ... I can barely handle simple camo schemes , and weathering is an accident for me . I ~may~ try Zimm'ing on the KT hull I trashed trying to make working hull hatches , but don't count on seeing it on my tanks !

I assembled my T1 in hopes of running this summer , so now I have to strip it down to paint it ~properly~ ... so if anything , I'm further behind ! I still have to buy a DMD or a pair of ESC's to run the gearboxes I need to buy as well ! And thats AFTER I make my own template for making new holes for the boxes in the static kit's chassis !

Of 'em all , my Sherman is closest to done ... and even it is missing its aft engine deck in anticipation of the E8 kit ...

Erock , would you post those figure images ? I think the guys might wan't 'em for their Allied tanks . They could go in a Pershing just as well (or a captured Tiger ... *ducks fast*)

WhiteWolf
(behind after fighting with his ISP's techs)