Row of four
I've decided to start a new page to cover the work on my family of King Tigers and 1 JagdTiger. This will be a similar format to what I did with the Panzer IIIs I worked on previously. The same reason I work on those models is in force here: over the years I've collected parts to make up 2 additional King Tigers and also a Jagd Tiger. The JagdTiger is mostly from Christian Ludwig. As with the Panzer III models there will be a need to make mulutiples of parts to satisfy the requirements of the three additional models but unlike the Panzer III effort my original King Tiger is much further developed than was my original SutG III. I had actually run my King Tiger in itinitial tests. I may make upgrades to it but as it sat I was generally fairly happy with it. I'd worked on it when I had begun to incorporate finer detail into my models so while it isn't perfect in all aspects it is generally as good as I want it to be for now. It is a question of bringing up the other three to a further state of development. As my original King Tiger is covered in detail in its own page I will not cover those details here.
I will add information regarding the JagdTiger as I organize the models themselves. As might me envisioned 4 King Tiger sized models are challenging to stage in the same area!
I'm not stopping work on my Kaelble trucks but rather this time I will be 'time slicing' between the two projects. Jerry 06/28/2019
I've set in a photo and written a description about each of the 3 models in the photo below.
From left to right looking at the fronts.
Tiger II far left- possibly original Veroma model? Hull 'bones are" ok. Very heavy lower, beefy, thin upper deck, it's usable. Turret, beefy casting with molded details which I will remove in favor of self made detail parts, gun mantlet to be replaced, same with rear engine deck, all plastic, to be replaced. Rear of tank, exhaust pipes, to be replaced. Road wheels appear salvageable however sprockets, idlers to be replaced. Torsion system possible to see reuse. Tracks- plus here, it is a set similar to Geisswerk's bronze set, very nice and the selling point for me to buy this. No drive system, may install Maier 3 speed. I already made a repair to the front lower hull plate to replace sections cut out by some previous owner, awful. Contour of lower hull ends need attention.
Tiger II center- also possibly original Veroma model? Never have seen one I'm only speculating. I knew they were typical 1970s beefy, poorly detailed sorts. I looked for the quality of the 'bones' sparing me from making the big stuff. Very heavy lower hull, upper hull using Maier- like casting, turret ( not shown) also heavy casting but this the model I want to use pre-prod turret on. Track is very nicely cast aluminum but very much not to scale, pitch too course- to be replaced. Road wheels/ suspension likely to be reused but sprockets and idler to be replaced. Engine deck rear plate - plastic- details to be replaced. Has electric drive, untested. Contour of lower hull ends need attention.
Tiger II right side - my scratch build. Years in the making, too many years. I need to finish this. Fully functional, runs with Maier 3 speed transmission. Needs details and fender side / front fenders, paint. I'll likely replace main gun tube as it's far too heavy.
As I wait for some parts I need to finish up aspects of my Kaelble project and also needing to cast a few parts for it I decided to work a bit on the other King Tigers. I already cleaned up and amended aspects of the lower hulls for both the 2nd and 3rd models and I've also assembled the parts I've had for these plus those I'd gotten for the JagdTiger which is not itself pictured here. That hull is still unassembled. But below you can see the hulls for the second and third King Tigers, some of the wheels and some of the track sets for them. My goal is to have these three other Tigers to be sitting on their own tracks by june or July. There is a lot of work to do to get there. At that time I may decide to sell one of these two Tiger, not the JagdTiger.. Stay tuned. Jerry 04/11/2020
One of the frustrating aspects of this project, already apparent to me are the road wheels I have for two of the additional models and the fact that I have none for the third. Of course I will be using the what I'll term 'the standard' steel rimmed road wheel. If you go over to me original King Tiger project page you will see that I made my own wheels using one cast part and one pressed part. I know my own wheels are not perfect either but I like them. One of the aspects about them that I find most appealing is that they are made of multiple parts. This shows up in the model when viewed from the side, there's a certain depth that's only there in a object that is made from sepatate parts that is impossible to simulate in a one piece part. The other roadwheels I have are one piece wheels. Beautifully CNC turned from solid in the case of those I bought from WECOHE to be used on my JagdTiger years back and cast in aluminum as those which came with one of the ttwo other standard KingTigers I acquired. Looking at the solid wheels, then looking at my own and comparing these to photos of the real thing leaves me unsatisfied. I don't relish the thought of making 108 King Tiger wheels however I'm not sure what to do...
While I wrangle the solution in my mind as to what to do about the road wheel situation I decied it's time I take a closer look at the JagdTiger hull kit I purchased from Christian Ludwig several years ago. A JagdTiger was right up there at the top of the list of models I wanted in 1:10 scale. Not many around and while I wanted one I couldn't get myself to scratch build one on my own so when I saw Christian's excellent 1/16 scale full aluminum and full plastic kits shown on RCU I decided to contact CHristian to ask if scaling up some of his kits to 1;10 was possible. It was and he'd had other requests for them so I ordered a 1:10 scale JT kit. It's cut from aluminum sheet with several sheets sandwiched together and bonded with adhesive and will build into a massively heavy model. As I've just begun to trial fit several of the major parts together I've included some photos below. Already I can see some short comings with a model like this. Christian has striven for scale thickness for several parts. The fromt and side plate are incredibly thick. This coupled with the plates being at angles with one another makes for some sloppy looking joints and some that appear mechanically unsound. Not sure if for the full sized vehicle if the plates or rather the interlocking sections were cut at angles to support the joints. I have to do a lot of fitting yet so I will see how it goes but I may have to make changes or perhaps even some new parts. I can see a smaller model with thinner plates would not encounter this problem. The more I look at this getting this hull fastened together functionally is a key step in the overall project. I also have to decide what I want to do with the front upper mantlet plate. I have the main gun already from Christian and a mantlet and alternate front plate from Sergei Federov but the latter will be of no use here; I hopefully can use it to help make a hybrid part that will work with the mantlet. Ain't modeling fun!!!!??? Jerry 04/14/2020
As I work with the JagdTiger upper hull plates the grim realization comes over me that the adhesive holding the laminations together isn't going to stand the test of time! As I file the joints to fit I hear disconcerting crackles and crunching sounds... As you may see from the first photo below the metal is in danger of completely delaminating; notice the thing small screw driver between the laminates. I realized to save this I have to assumne all of the hull plates are at risk of separating. My solution is to hard rivet the plates together at firstly strategic points near where joints will be made to fasten the hull together. These as I may have said will be accomplished by screwing the plates together. In so doing I do not want to run the risk of the plates popping apart. I'm start with my usual method for riveting that is to use aluminum wire or thin rod making the rivets as I go. I have acquired a small supply of 1/8" formal flathead rivets and have ordered more which will make this procedure much easier since I will be applying quite a number of them to ensure no edge of the plates can delaminate. This unfortunately is extra work but entirely neccessary it seems. I don't blame the maker of these kits, Christian Ludwig, he was after all doing me a favor making them. He recently told me that I am still the only one who purchased an aluminum 1:10 scale JagdTiger.... Jerry 4/20/2020
I continue with this JT hull but I'll only be certain that it will work when both upper and lower are fitted together. To get the front glacis plate to fit, it's nearly .750" thick(!), took a lot of fitting. I'd originally tried to get the casemate frony plate to fit but then keeping the alignment set wasn't working well so I switched to fitting the front glacis my reasoning if this fit and the alignment was square with respect to the casemate (fighting compartment) rear plate then it was as good as I was going to get it. As it was it took the better part of three evenings of careful filing with flat and square profile files to get this done. I didn't see an opportunity to utilize a milling operation to do thios plus it would be too easy to remove too much material too quickly. I am still not certain that all the plate are aligned correctly but I will be better be able to check this once upper and lower hulls are completely assembled. Any way you view this hull it's already shaping up to be an impressive model and quite heavy. As it turns out I'd purchased a casemate front casting from Sergei Federov years ago and it has every appearance of being a near perfect mate to this hull and you can see a trial fitting of it on the hull; it will need some metal added to align better with the rest of the hull but I believe this should work well. I also have a main gun mantlet that I'm going to try to use. When I'd purcased the base kit from Christain Ludwig He included the flat casemate front that I was fitting as I described above but stopped to try a different approach. Also I paid extra for a main gun barrel and part of the barrel shroud. I'm not sure it these were seaparate parts on the full sized machine. The photos I have support that it may have been as it seems well machine in closeup whereas the rearmost 'shield' part of the mantlet appears as cast so either the finish machining was only done to the forward part or they were two separate parts fastened together somehow. I'm going to try simulating the latter but it will require using the mill and a boring head although there seems to be a basic mismatch between the machined collar I have and the similar cast section of the mantlet. Difficult to explain... As I write this the mantlet is chucked and trued on my lathe and I don't want to dismount it for an explanatory photo! Jerry 04/26/2010
Puttered around with the maingun mantlet today; combination of mahined and cast parts. Not sure if I will trim back the cast part, very difficult to hold while machining as it's thin. I believe it would look a little better if trimmed but have to weigh potential for damage vs appearance.. Jerry
Update on this project 04/18/2023. Since I've now also jumpmed into 1/6 scale fairly heavily I decided to reassess this project. The decision I reached was to sell King Tigers 2 and 3 with my original Kint Tiger and the JagdTiger remaining. My original doesn't need that much work to bring it into a reasonably finished state and mechanically it is 95% complete. The JagdTiger I'll work on as time allows. The semi kit is a difficult one to work with however more than that I will not say. Jerry