More from the 'Dark Interior'!

Hello again! And welcome to everyone who is following these 'Tiger Tales'. Now that summer is finally abating, and normal service with the weather gets back to regional regularity, I hope to really get these poor neglected Big cats back up to speed.

 Here are a few images of  the '211' Doppelganger', it has had a little more detail added to the turrets fighting compartment, namely a scratch bracket for the MP40 next to the turret walls escape hatch, along with a padded disc to arrest the discharged spent shell cases, also some more work on the gunner controls for the gun and turrets traverse. And the one remaining front fender/mudguard has been finished and re-attached.

And here are some more shots of the soon to be 'Toasted Tiger' with an initial layer of dark red-brown applied, in order to give the later stages of basecoats and distressed paint applications a good foundation.

So that is where it stands until I return home next week, hopefully with a camera full of pictures of the La Gleize Tiger Ausf B , formerly of the 2nd Kompanie of the s.SS.Pz.Abt 501.

Once again thank you to everybody who is following these pages... Thanks for the support!

Phil.

 

Interior rumblings

Hello again, good to be back! Hopefully with summer drawing to a soggy end, the call of the bench will become stronger!

 I am still waiting for the brass tread-plate, and the CMK sets. With our ever efficient customs and postal service, up to their old and new tricks...  I went to the books and web, in order to find anything on the later interior layout of the 44' Tigers... And there is not much, 'Jentz and Doyle's DW to Tiger 1 has the best clues to the stowage racks, that populated the 'shelf' above the turret ring, as well as the turrets mechanisms for the turrets traverse and gun elevation. A real lot of items that were stowed upon the turrets interior wall have been removed by this point, (unless the Saumur Tiger, has been gutted , whilst sat in Northern France?) there appears to be very little conduit and mountings at all compared to say, the earlier produced Bovington and APG Tigers. To me it looks as though these 'bins' that populate the lower turret interior took most of the previously wall stored items!

So it was off to the cutting mat, with some stock styrene sheet, rod and strip, for an attempt to try and replicate these later additions to the 'minimalist' Later Tiger Interior!

Now on the back 'shelf' in DW to Tiger 1, of the Saumur Tiger, there are a couple of images that show smaller compartments, for what looks like 'episcope' components etc, but I am not sure if two or three differing patterns are fitted between the main guns counterbalance cylinder and the escape hatch?  As you can see the Verlinden kit is anything but comprehensive! So a lot of very visible smaller detail has been added, whilst trying to keep it 'through the hatch' yet detailed enough to show a 'light destruction,!

A fair part of the interior details can be seen through the open hatches, as with all the 'ports' open, the interior is well lit. In keeping with the fire that '211' was part gutted with, I have tried to show the spent shell case basket, as partly burnt. For this I rolled out some 'Green Stuff two part Epoxy' to a very thin depth, and impressed a piece of cloth into both surfaces, leaving the putty to cure for an hour, it was then 'torn' from the rolled out piece and formed onto a brass tube frame armature, to give a kind of  'toasted'  remnants look to the remaining shreds of cloth!




Okay some more scratching of the interior stowage, to compliment the sparse Verlinden parts, then back onto a little more detailing of the main gun and it's ancillaries, then we should be reaching for some paint in earnest in the near future eh?



Thanks again for the continuing interest folks and friends... Cheers Phil.