Dragon Tiger I Late 3-in-1

[wing_nut]

I see you are up to your old tricks again Bill. Kickin' butt and takin' names! Nice!

[Tojo72]

Nice work on the Zimm,Bill

[wbill76]

Thanks Marc and Anthony, doing my best!

[Leon]

Great work on the zimm and tracks Bill .Looking forward to next weekends update.

[fightnjoe]

bill she is shaping up very nice, per your usual standards. really crisp. i have only zimmed twice, both times it was the homemade version. both times was less than satisfying. i may at some point do a tiger again. (did a king in 1/35 and tiger 1 in 1/72) may have to get some of the prefabbed stuff to try.


joe

[wbill76]

Thanks Leon, me too!

Joe, can't beat the Atak zim IMHO. It's thin enough to allow you to damage it or modify it if you want but is also durable enough to work with easily. The sets also typically include full resin parts replacements where needed for things like turret mantlets and other similar parts, so they are worth it in that respect as well. Like you, I've tried DIY zim myself in the past and ultimately decided that I could get better results in less time going this route. Give it a whirl sometime!

[Deano]

Good progress here Bill , the Atak zimm looks great ...keep it coming!

Deano

[wbill76]

Thanks Deano! Will do my best to keep this one moving along at a regular pace.

[wbill76]

Oct 9, 2013 15:45:10 GMT -5 @dickyf said:

I don't even LIKE Tigers...but here I am gazing childlike at yer perfect track assemblage and pristine torsion bar arrangements Bill and thinkin' where am I goin' wrong...........

FLAWLESS

Thanks Dicky! The pull of the darkside is a strong one, don't gaze too long! You've already started talking about building a wingy-thingy today after all.

[406 Silverado]

Silly me, I was checking for an update...but it's not Sunday yet..

[thug626]

Good morning Bill,
Getting caught up on the build. Very clean work going on here. The Atak zim is wonderful stuff to work with. I played with it on a couple of occasions and was delighted by it. Very nice work on the kitty's "shoes"

Dave

[modelfreak72]

Very Nice!! The tiggy is coming along great! If you don't mind to much, I noticed that one of the guide horns is missing on the tracks just before the second to last road wheel. I missed a couple myself the last time I did MK tracks. Bu I didn't notice until I started to weather them. Looking good Bill!

[wbill76]

Rob, have to be a little patient there buddy! I've been running like crazy because of all the new kit announcements and stuff that's been coming out, everyone's gone a little crazy with the run-up for Christmas! Would you believe that the last week and a half has seen almost 100 new kits announced? Madness I tell you!

Dave, top of the morning (or whatever time of day finds you!) as well good sir! Love the Atak stuff and glad to have you stop by.

MF, good eye on seeing the missing guide horns. They were left off deliberately to allow the tracks to be test fitted and give me a little bit of room to work with using the tweezers and were added after the photo was taken. Thanks for the comments as always!

[deafpanzer]

You can run but you can't hide! Finally got to read your whole blog today as there was 11 pages of new thread for me to catch up. Man, did I ever tell you how much I love Tigers? Looking great especially the tracks and Zimm...

Looking forward to your update soon...

[wbill76]

Glad to see you're catching up on things Andy! That's the price you pay for time away I guess.

[thug626]

Officially I'm two hours behind you.....but then again to us dark siders (aka night shift folk) morning is a relative term.

Dave

[sollie]

late for the party, Nice read so far and really looking fw to were this is going. Great as I'm starting a late 1/16 full rc tiger soon

[wbill76]

Dave, very true. I've done my share of night-owl work so know exactly where you're coming from!

Sollie, not late, right on time! Glad to have you along.

[dupes]

Tracks and zim look great Bill! I totally agree about Sundays and modeling...super easy to bang out all of the endless repetitive tasks while being distracted by the gridiron.

[wbill76]

Thanks Dupes! Tomorrow ought to be a good day at the bench...the Niners game isn't being televised so I'll be listening to it streamed online instead, that usually makes for a good session as I get the best of both worlds in the process.

[TRM]

Making an extra bag of popcorn now for the show!!!

[wbill76]

Oct 12, 2013 20:38:09 GMT -5 TRM said:

Making an extra bag of popcorn now for the show!!!

Mmmmm....popcorn!

[pt109]

Wow Bill you know you're gonna swoon the place with a Tiger build, and a Tiger 1 at that!

Excellent progress my friend....

Cheers, Paul

[wbill76]

You're not far wrong there Paul! Have to be careful with Tigers around this place.

[wbill76]

This round of effort focused on getting the remaining zim work done on the hull. First up was the left side. The kit includes pre-formed brass fenders with PE braces that need to be added to them to construct each fender portion. Dragon designed them to sit on the little mount tabs and the Atak zim set sits flush around them, so it's necessary to cut the Atak panels to allow the fenders to sit correctly. I decided to leave one of the fenders off on this side to show the detail and the zim extending down the full hull side for a little variety.



Because the hull side integrates with the front plate, I went ahead and installed it along with the glacis plate so I could get everything lined up. The three fenders were installed and some Squadron White putty used to fill back in the gaps on the zim panels where needed.



The front hull plates received their zim panels as well and the ball MG mount installed along with the driver's visor. Just a little bit of putty was needed to match things up with the zim and fill a couple of gaps.



Then the right hull side received its zim and fenders using the same approach as on the left side.



Next came the details for the engine compartment as called out in Step 7. The kit provided PE frames for the fans are a very tight fit into the space available and they also make it impossible to fit the radiator hoses (parts G13), which isn't a big deal for me since all of this disappears under the hatches and screens regardless.



I installed the roof plate for the hull next, working at the front using liquid glue and moving slowly toward the rear to get the hull to close up properly along the edges. The engine compartment hatches were assembled and installed. It's worth noting that the part numbers in Step 11 for the fan hatches are reversed in terms of which side they belong to but nothing that isn't easily figured out with a test fit. The kit supplied larger intake PE screens were bent so some careful straightening with pliers was required before they were installed.



Rounding things out for the day, I added most of the rear hull details outlined in Steps 5 and 6. The tools and other remaining gear will be installed later on after painting.



Still more work to do on the hull before heading over to the turret.

[Leon]

Awesome work on the PE and zimm Bill,Really starting to shape up nicely.

[bigjohn]

Nice progress for the weekend Bill, She is starting to come to life now!

[wing_nut]

1st Plastic? Then resin? Now brass? Be still my heart.

[TRM]

Cruising!! Lovely work on the Zimm/fenders!! Making great progress!!

[wbill76]

Thanks Leon!

BJ, got a lot done while listening to the Niners game, sometimes not having the game shown on TV is a plus!

Marc, yep, this one's got it all! Well almost...this was one of the original 'all-in' kits that Dragon put together that made such a huge splash. So much stuff provided in the kit you really don't need to add much to it IMHO.

T, thanks as always, you sneaked this one in on me!