1/6th scale Scratch built Initial Tiger I Project

The intricacies and realism of this work are simply astounding. Well done!

HI Armourguy 

Man that is one heck of a job !  You really went all the way with the detailing and engine,fans and all. Simply outstanding !   

I am going to check out the videos on youtube !

best regards,

tread

I completed the tank's gallery webpage 1/6th scale German Initail production Tiger I #101.

On there I have more pictures of the model's out door shots, and all of the youtube videos posted. I also made some old style photos from several of the shots I took last.

I will be making one more end of project youtube video, once complete it will be added to the webpage.

I have also started on my next build and I already have new update parts fresh out of mold. More info to follow ;)

The last of the model's components have been added and the model is now complete!

The tank's tools (shovel, axe, sledge hammer, wire cutters, telescoping gun cleaning kit, crow bars, and jack block) are all scratch built out of wood, metal and resin.

An armorpax fire extinguisher was mounted to the rear right hand side grill work.

The tank's snorkel has also been painted and weathered.

Sometime this weekend I will take the model outside for some nice outdoor shots, After that I will give the shop a nice long overdue cleaning after which it will be on to the next project! More to follow.

The model's markings and weathering has been added.

I made the tank's markings for the sPzAbt 502. The crosses and numbers are painted on via stencils, while the 502 woolly mammoth logo were hand painted.

Of all of the panzer divisions the 502 was one of my favorite because of their logo!

After the markings the tank's weathering was added.

In addition to the road wheels being touched up I was able at this point to add the zerk fittings. Before the zerk fittings were added the wells were painted red. These zerk fittings are included with the road wheels kits.

a youtube video was also made prior to the model being painted

http://youtu.be/ur0Fkt-YC-4

http://youtu.be/SjvW0EE6AaQ

The model is now ready for it's tools and other finishing details. More to come!

The tool posts, and final electrical hookups were made and the tank was painted today!

Because this model is the initial version the tool post locations differ from that of the standard tiger Is, but I will go into this more in detail once the tools are added. The posts themselves are fabricated out of metal, brass and all have their weld beads added.

Before the tank went into painting it received it's final prime. All areas that I didn't want to be painted (grills, wheels, exhausts) were all masked.

Once the primer was dry the model received it's base coat of panzer grey.

After working on the model for months, it's very refreshing to see the model in one uniform color!

The model will now get it's markings and the weathering. More to come!

I have made a lot of progress on the tank's turret and gun details, and the tiger looks like well...a Tiger!

The turret's body work, side detailing, mantlet mounts and welds have been added

The cutouts for the side visors and pistol ports were cut into the sheet metal turret sides, Because this model is being built as an initial production vehicle the turret receives two pistol ports on either turret side.

When the Tiger was first developed this was the configuration that the designers had in mind, This feature was only prevalent on the first production batch of tiger I. After this batch the loaders side pistol port was deleted and a large escape hatch was was mounted in it's place.

The turret's retaining bolt was also added. The bolt allows the turret to trun freely, but keeps it retained to the hull.

On the turret's front the mantlet mounts were refined and thickener blocks were added to the turret cheeks. Similar to what was added to the hull These blocks give the proper armor thickness, and the illusion that the entire turret is as thick as these portions.

The tank's mantlet was also reworked before it was able to be mounted.

For the mantlet I used our the old resin mantlet that was designed to be used on this tank when they were first developed back in 2001. The old mantlet had the correct proportions, but had to be reworked because the original mantlet has the integral gunner's scope armor molded in. For the type of tank that I'm building the integral armor was not developed yet, so the molded in block was deleted via a mill. The molded in face plate, bolt were also deleted and were replaced. The mantlet itself was cleaned up a bit and new smoother casting was added.

Besides the mantlet's front portion being cleaned up, I had to fabricate the rear portion of the mantlet's rotor. Wood was used for the fabrication, which was then coated with fiberglass resin the same way as the hull.

All of the mantlet's front details (main recoil tube, faceplate cone bolts, and bolt lock plates) were added prior to assembling the tank's 88mm.

The recoil tube itself is all machined out of PVC, and features the counter sunk O ring screws.

These slot screws are positioned around the tube in three locations, to on the top sides, and one set directly on the bottom.

Once this was assembled I was then able to fabricate the gun.

The gun itself is also made from lengths of PVC tubing.

While working on the gun I developed and added two new additions to the parts listings page http://www.eastcoastarmory.com/tiger.htm.

Resin Tiger I 88mm barrel adapter ring plug.

Resin early production Tiger I 88mm KwK 36 L/56 gun Muzzle brake. The later tiger used a smaller profile muzzle brake than the earlier versions.

to lock the barrel to the mantlet a retaining ring was machined and mounted to the barrel assembly. Because the Tiger I has a long barrel, and a muzzle brake a spring system was added To prevent the gun barrel from drooping. The springs mount to eyelets mounted on the turret's interior.

Once added the whole assembly is then ready to be mounted to the turret.

To mount the matlet to the turret I use two deck nails that connect to the rotor through the turret sides. The nail itself is concealed by the resin turret lift ring boss.

Once the detail cap is added the nail is covered up and is held in place via the lift boss. The Tiger used three lift bosses to lift the turret off the hull. Two were mounted on either turret side, and one was mounted in the center portion of the turret rear.

The tank's smoke grenade launchers and visors were added aswell.

I made two youtube videos which showcase the work that was recently made to the model.

http://youtu.be/XnA-ubF_Eg4

http://youtu.be/VUFwG39b5sw

I will now be focusing on the turret's top details like the Copula, loaders hatch, air cleaner, and bustle bins. Once done the turret will be complete!

I have made some more progress on the model completing the tank's front hull detailing. also some new parts have been added to the part listings.
http://www.eastcoastarmory.com/tiger.htm

The first batch of tigers featured several panel welds on the upper hull. These welds were phased out on the later production units.

The tank's early one piece front fenders were fabricated.

Unlike the later design fenders which were fabricated out of flat plate the earlier fenders were fabricated out of German pattern diamond plate. For the fender material I used the Photo etch German diamond plate from Mike Stannard.

The quality of the plate is excellent and most importantly the material is brass, which makes it very easy to bend and solder.

The early design fender was mush narrower than the track, and was mounted to the tank via two large hinges.

To secure the hinges to the hull the tiger had two jeep style hooks which secured the fender and kept it from bouncing around when the tank would drive.

Another component that was added was the water tight cover cap / tarpaulin mounts. for the bow MG.

In addition of adding the mounts I tooled up the bow MG snorkel cover cap. This cover cap would be mounted to the wing nut mounts and would create a water tight seal around the bow MG.

Earlier on the model I described that I made the Bow MG34 retractable so I can add this cap without having to make the gun barrel removable.

The tank's bow hatches was another detail that was added. For the hatches I used the resin set from Panzerwerks. The parts and casting quality are excellent.

The hatches assemble with ease and were painted prior to the installation.

The Panzerwerk hatches don't come with the upper periscope or the scope guard. For these parts I modified some spare puma hatch parts that I had on hand.

Another detail that was added to the hatches was the addition of the three bolt faces on the hatch top. These holes are where the fasteners where the hinge mounts to the hatch. The back end of the bolts would be visible through the hole. These three holes are also seen on the hull roof.

On the tiger I the hatches are not mounted flush with the upper hull, they sit on an elevated ring. Before I was able to mount the hatches I fabricated the rings out of machined PVC and added them to the hull. After the rings were mounted the upper hull welds were added.

The last bit of detail that was added to the model was the tank's bosch lights. For the head lights I used the set from Panzerwerk. Like the hatches the headlight castings are fantastic.

Like the tail light I decided to make the headlights functional. This was an easy mod in that the panzerwerk light is already hollow. An LED was machined down to fit snugly into the head light recess. After the LED was affixed I added one of my clear resin head light lenses to the light.

The headlight wire conduit and conduit mount was fabricated and added. The small wire was snaked through the conduit and the end cap like the rear tank.

The Blackout cover was made to be removable via a pivoting metal strap

The lighting is all connected and works well.

I will now be focusing on the tank's turret. More progress to follow!

Thanks guys, I have fabricated, painted and mounted the tank's engine hatch thus completing the rear engine deck!

I used my standard engine hatch hinge plate, but I had to back date this part for a better fit for the initial tiger. To do This I removed the triangle access hatch which was added to this part on later production vehicles.

The snorkel mount was added permanently to the hinge plate, and the internal snorkel tube was added.

This tube connects to the lower conduits that are located on the bottom plate of the tank. This conduit supplies fresh air into the fighting compartment for the crew.

The engine hatch itself is fabricated out of lexan and styrene. The hatch was modeled as the initial / early production pattern with the main locking tabs and the secondary locking tabs that would be for snorkeling.

The hatch interior was also completed and painted.
*note the tape in the intake will be removed once the model is finished*

Another difference between the initial tiger and the later production units is the difference with the rear air intakes. The initial tigers used a simple elevated steel plate to cover up the square air intake. When the tank would snorkel the spacer lugs were removed and the plate would be bolted flush with the engine hatch.

Once the fifel system was developed this plate was replaced with the fifel intake, but the plate was stored on the top front deck in case the tank would again need to be able to snorkel, which it would replace the fifel intake.

After the fifel system production was dropped and snorkeling abilities terminated, the tiger had a new cast metal air intake developed that was closed on three sides and was only open towards the rear.

The round air intake is the early version. The later tanks had a smaller version of this part which had less internal intake holes. When the tank would snorkel this plate was designed to screw tight against the engine hatch closing it off making it watertight.

I will now be focusing on the tank's front hull detailing (front fenders, hatches, headlights...etc) More progress to follow!

Amazing work! Truly outstanding - your dedication to your builds is outstanding and your blog updates are always a treat.

Admittedly builds on this scale do not interest me (in as far as tackling one myself) but watching your builds grow and see the work you put in intersts me greatly AG!

Beautiful!

wow..... that is absolutely top notch scratch work hats off to you my friend!

More progress has been made to the model.

I have completed tooling up many new components, and I added them to the listings. http://www.eastcoastarmory.com/tiger.htm

Tiger I grill work set. These grills feature removable fuel and radiator filler caps that thread onto the to their receptacles.

Tiger I Metal rear fuel tank shroud/ air duct set. The Tiger I had it's rear fuel tanks covered by a sheet metal shroud. This shroud also acted as an air duct that would funnel the air into the radiators via the radiator fans.

New Tooling telescoping snorkel set. While working on this project I decided to retool the tiger's snorkel system. This new version of the snorkel is made to disassemble like the real one. The sections of snorkel tube are threaded and are able to screw together.

The grill work components were pre painted before they were mounted to the tank.

because the model has a smoke generator I needed a way to refuel the system from time to time. Rather than running a refuel tube through the tank'
s body and having to pull it out of a hatch I decided to utilize the fuel filler cover caps on the grill work instead.

The cover caps unscrew reveling the filler spout. Both left hand and right hand fillers can refuel the system. This was done in case the model is on display at a model show, or in a diorama I can get access to the refueling system from either the left or the right hand side.

The rest of the grill work was added

The radiator caps are also visible through the radiator fluid cover caps.

The fan grill actuator ram was completed and mounted. When the grill is lifted the actuator moves with the grill. As I mentioned earlier these actuators were designed but were never installed on production units, but the mounts on both the lower hull and grill remained.

I decided to add these parts to the tank is being built as a very early production unit, and it adds a unique detail element.

I will now be focusing on the tank's engine hatch. Once installed the tank's entire engine deck will be complete. The model's progress will also speed up as this area of the model was the most time consuming and difficult. Mopre to come!

As a quick update I made some progress to the tank's rear interior including permanently mounting the fans to the tank and completing the plumbing.

The fans were mounted to the tank via two countersunk bolts that were screwed into the hull side. These bolts were covered up and will be sanded smooth with the body work.

and In addition to the fans I added the tiger's prototype hydraulic grill opener.

When the designers were designing the tiger they didn't feel that enough cool air was going to be drawn out by the fans when the grills were closed, so they designed a system to open the grills remotely via two hydraulic actuators.

It was soon discovered that enough cool air was able to get into the system with the grills closed, so the idea of the actuators was dropped. However the mounts for the actuators, and the grill mounting nub were left in their place on the production vehicles. Since I am building my model as one of the first production vehicles I added this unique detail to my model.

The actuator ram will be added once the grill work is mounted, and will be fabricated out of aluminum.

The last function that was added to the tank's rear compartment was the addition of the sound system.

A frame was fabricated over the engine compartment so the grill work and the engine hatch will sit flush with the deck.

Because my model is not RC, and will only be "Idling" I didn't go with a more expensive RC sound card unit. Rather I will be using my small MP3 player that has a sound file that I created with the real maybach idling. This sound file will be set to repeat on my MP3 player. For the speakers I found a cheap pair of MP3 player portable desktop speakers from a $5.00 store.

The speakers were removed from their original frames and were mounted into the vehicle.

This system works well for a static tank, but not for an RC vehicle because I can't create the engine starting, accelerating, and shutting off. One advantage that this system has is that I can play music out of the tank when I'm working in the shop 

I'm currently working on the grill work masters. Once complete they will be added to the model along with their air duct. More to come!

The engine compartment is all complete.

All of the HL 210 engine bay components were added. These components include the fan gearbox, the fan shut off clutches, the engine bay cut off duct, and plumbing.

These resin components and the resin engine bay components for the HL 230 have been added to the website http://www.eastcoastarmory.com/tiger.htm. The HL 230 set is different because rather than using one gearbox to power the fans with external clutches like on the HL 210, The 230 uses two smaller gearboxes for this function with a built in clutch.

lots of other small details were added like tank's throttle control cable, exhaust duct shut off cables and snorkeling shut off / venting equipment was also added.

One interesting feature that the Tiger I had built in was the feature to snorkel. To do this the tank's engine compartment and crew compartment were water tight, but the fan / fuel tank locations would free flood. Because of all of the duties the cooling fan cluster perform the tiger had an elaborate system for closing off the engine bay. The fan's drive shaft had a clutch mechanism that would interrupt the fan's power, and all of the cooling vents that would lead into the fan clusters would have a cable controlled shut off valves. Later in the production run to save time many of these features were removed or were disabled.

When I was pondering about starting this project I wanted to take advantage of the lack of a fifel system, and the lack of grenade guard grills. I wanted to do something special that I haven't done or seen before. I first started with the idea of the functional fan work, then from there the idea of the complete animated engine/ cooling gearboxes began to trickle and take shape in my head. When I was designing the Maybach engine kit I built in the spin able flywheel and spindle for this purpose.

The engine compartment animations include the main flywheel spinning,

exhaust smoke

and spinning fan cooling gearbox, universal shafts, and connecting shaft

To power the engine I hooked the engine up to a reduced geared electric motor, for the smoke system I used my standard system from harbor models. To make the smoke emerge from the stacks I casted a hollow tube in the exhaust manifolds so I can run the smoke through them direct to the exhaust stacks.

The part that required out of the box thinking was for the fan gearbox, to power the gearbox I utilized two small motors. The first motor was machined into the resin gearbox that is part of the engine. The wires were funneled through the engine crank case casting, a cover cap was then added to conceal the motor.

For the gearbox itself I actually transformed the static transmission casting into a small functional gearbox. The cavity for the gears and motor were all machined into the casting, The power wires emerge from the spot were the oil tubes would emerge from the real unit, thus concealing their purpose.

to hook up all of the drive shaft a small RC boat universal coupling shaft was mounted from the engine to the gearbox, and for the fan drives two modified small RC car drive shaft bones were utilized.

by using this format the optical illusion of the functional engine is accomplished. A sound system will also be added very soon.

A youtube video was uploaded which describes the compartment details in depth and shows the animations in action http://youtu.be/mTUjFUtSXb4

More to come enjoy :) !

Thanks guys, it's been awhile since I had any updates, but I have been working on the building and mounting the tank's special engine.

On the engine bay I completed the inertia starter clutch mechanism. On the real tank to engage the inertia starter this clutch would swing outward and make contact with the receiving clutch mechanism on the engine. This would then allow the manual starter crank to turn the inertia starter gears. For this component I fabricated it all out of brass.

Once the part was fabricated it was painted, weathered and installed.

Before I was able to mount the engine I gave the entire engine bay some weathering.

The engine itself was built to identical specs as the other display versions that I built in the previous post, but this engine has a special feature that I will go into detail about in my next post.

The engine is now mounted permanently into the tank's hull.

For extra detail I made the air filter duct removable via small pins so I can display the engine's carburetor and manifold detail.

Currently I completed all of the masters and molds for the fan clutches, and cooling system for both the HL210 and HL 230. Once ready these parts will be mounted completing the engine bay, and added to the website. More to come!

I completed the paint work, and all of the plumbing . control rod work on the engines fully completing them.

Unweathered

HL 230

HL 230

Weathered

HL 210

HL230

Now with these two display engines out of the way I can assemble the tank engine that will go inside the engine bay. More to come. 

The last of the parts have been tooled and were added to the engines completing them. The engine kits have now been posted to the product line http://www.eastcoastarmory.com/tiger.htm . 

On the engine's top portion the fuel primer pump, and cooling intakes were mounted. The cooling intakes differ between the two engines. Because of the 230's fan drive shaft design the air intakes need to bend and snake around the  shaft locations.

On the engine's rear the engine stand, flywheel and starter mounting bar was mounted. The starter bar equipment locations differ on the two engines. On the 210 the manual starter clutch receptacle was mounted directly to the flywheel. This was changed on the 230 where the clutch was mounted below the flywheel. 

The manual starter drive shaft was fitted and runs through the oil tank as per the real vehicle. 

Finally On the engine's front the main cover, drive shaft spindle and drive shaft were mounted. One special feature that I built into the engine is that the drive shaft is full function. By turning the drive shaft the spindle and rear flywheel spin. 

Both engines are now being painted and finished Once ready I will post pics. 

tigerman

Glad I caught up on this. Wow is al I can say? How long did it take to build your other Tiger? Where do you get all your parts? And where do you display them?

My last tiger took about 3 months to complete. The model was an exterior model only which speed up construction. 

I have the build posts posted on this forum.
/forums/p/108473/1086512.aspx

 /forums/t/110656.aspx

All of the detail parts that you see on my models are made my me. I machine and scratchbuild all of the masters, I then make my own molds and resin castings in house. All of my parts are listed on my website http://www.eastcoastarmory.com

As for display / storage, I typically store the models in my work area once complete. Most of the time I keep each of the models under a plastic tarp to keep the dust off. 

Glad I caught up on this. Wow is al I can say? How long did it take to build your other Tiger? Where do you get all your parts? And where do you display them?

Thanks, I have completed more parts on the engine completing the engine side details. 

On the tank's left hand side the Oil filter canister, water cooling tank, and alternator. 

On the tank's right hand side I completed the tank's manual inertia starter and electrical starter.

The next parts that are to be made are the flywheels, engine mount, and inertia starter shaft. Once made the engine will be complete and added to the product line. More to come. 

Thanks guys, the engine kits are now about 75% complete

Once I have a few more parts, I will be releasing a "half" engine that is designed to have all of the top details so it fills in the engine bay.This set will be intended for RC tanks that have electronics and machinery in the rear portion of the hull, or for builders who don't need a whole engine but would like detailed engine insert. This set will also be much cheaper than the whole complete engine.

I completed the tank's exhausts manifolds and fuel sediment separators.

The exhausts are molded with their heat shields installed. 

The engine's oil tank was also mounted

Like many engines of the period the Mybach engines had sediment filters in the fuel lines. The way these worked was the fuel would flow into the separator from the fuel tank. If there were any rust, or other heavy fragments they would settle on the bottom of the glass jars and would not flow into the engine and possibly clog the fuel system. 

On the engine kits the glass jars are casted in clear resin to further enhance the look of the engine. The fuel lines are going to be added once the engine is painted. These lines will also come with the kits.  

Another difference between the HL 230 and the HL 210 is the number of fuel separators. The earlier HL 210 utilized 4 separators, and the HL 230 utilized two separators. 

HL210 (*note the last two separators will be added later)

HL230

Next I will have most of the side engine wall detailing complete including the starter, alternator, and cooling coil. More progress to follow.

Thanks Bodge, I completed more of the engine components.

The Magnetos are complete, and are used on both engines.

The magnetos were added to both engines. On the 210 the magnetoes are mounted to the magneto arms, and on the 230 they are mounted side by side on the fan drive gear box.

HL 210

HL 230

Unlike the HL 210 which has a single drive shaft to power the fans the HL 230 uses two drive shafts, one for each side. Because of the new fan gear box the air cleaners on the HL 230 use a different arrangement (2 large air filters,as opposed to three smaller ones on the 210) .

With these batch of parts you can now see the differences between the HL 210 and HL 230.

Currently I'm working on the exhausts and the other lower side engine details (Oil tank, engine starter, water condenser...etc) Once complete the engines will mostly be complete! More to come.

Amazing work, the best scratchbuilding i have ever seen. You are one very talented guy,Massive well done

I got some progress on the HL 210. 

The HL 210's air cleaner manifold system is also different from the 230. On the 210 all four carburetors are connected to one large air duct. On the top of the duct three smaller air filter canisters are mounted. On the 230 the single air duct and three canister system is replaced by two smaller ducts and two larger air filter canisters. 

To power the tank's cooling fan / radiator system a gear box emerges from the rear of the engine. On the end of the gear box housing is a out put wheel which wold be bolted to a drive shaft, that would power a small transmission that would spin the cooling fans when installed in the tank. On the 230 the gear box set up was altered in that rather than having there be one out put shaft that emerges from the center. Two out put shafts would emerge from the gear box sides. Each of these two output shafts would then be connected to dive shafts and each would power a transmission that would power the cooling system. 

Both engines share the same magneto, and exhausts manifold system. I'm currently working on the 230 air intake system, and gear box/magneto cluster. 

Once complete I can move downward to the exhausts, starter and oil tank. More to come!     

Thanks Ben, Most likely the 1/35 model will be built, or placed back into the stash. Believe it or not I don't build as many 1/35s anymore because I'm out of 1/35 space

It has been a while since my last post, but I have been working on lots of small engine bits and masters. Currently I completed the engine's rocker arm covers. There are many more smaller parts that are currently in molding. Once ready they will be added to the engine.   

The rocker arm cover castings are going to be used on both the 210 and the 230, but there will be different components to add on to the covers that will make them different 

Currently I have the rocker arm parts for the 230 complete and the 210 parts are currently in molding.  

with the next update I will have more parts complete that once added will distinguished the two engines from HL 210 to HL 230. More to come. 

Hey AG,

First off I have to say I'm glad I'm not on dial-up with all these great photos and secondly I have to admire your dedication to your work. It's great stuff. I mean, I prefer kits that can assembled on my bench and stored in a glass cabinet in my bedroom but that's just me! Each to their own! I build 1/35 and you build 1/6.

Your website is a great read btw.

Your attention to detail is brilliant and I like the fact that you have actuallt bought the Dragon Initial kit as a reference (what will you be doing with that kit on completion of this behemoth)

I've just finished building that very same same kit - I built it as Tiger '100' with the side bins. It was my first proper 1/35 Tiger build and I thought I'd start very early then mid then go onto a late build. I'm hooked on Tigers now. I loved my build and it's a personal favourite to boot!

Are you going for this version? :

Good luck with the final assembly stages and the painting/weathering and keep the updates coming!

All the best,

Ben

Thanks,

 I have completed the molds for the crank case, lower engine plate and the carburetors. Currently I'm finishing up the rocker arm covers and I will soon be on the air cleaning system. Once the masters are ready I'll make the molds and cast up a sample set.