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  • Image 2 - I put the nuts on the inside whilst knowing they needed to be castellated - and then I discovered Adlers Nest make exactly what I need - so they are on order and all this will have to be removed and done again - plus there are square blocks welded around the idler port holes that will need to be added.

  • I will add every weld seam that is left as well once I have all the major elements on the back plate - ie the rest of all the studs, brackets etc.

  • Here is a comparison of the kit part to my reworked section of the hull side - note the difference on the sizes of the holes in the kit part

  • Comparison of the rear plate - note that in the photo where they are overlaid - even allowing for camera parallax distortion it can be seen that the port holes do not line up. Again I am not saying my work is perfect here but this part is just wrong.

  • My main beef with this has to be the fact the way the kit is portrayed as being an accurate rendition of the hull plates of a KT. As this is a relatively simple kit to portray the emphasis should have been on making sure that where there are points of egress to each hull plate a little bit more research should have been done to ensure that everything is in the right place.

  • Image 5 gives a partial view of rework to the rear idler - all nuts and bolts and locks washers have been replaced - note also the bevels on the inner edges of the inner pair of wheels. All spokes have also been re profiled as they all taper on their backsides and the central hub also has a very marked taper. The innermost wheel as well also has a dished inner section engraved - was hard to photo - will show this in a later set of images.

  • Images 6-9 shows the initial work being carried on the running gear. I am trying to replicate the suspension (what exists of it) as closely as possible. This means replicating each bush & bracket where possible and it is really interesting trying to replicate each item based on how the original items worked - in fact the way I will connect up the one fully in place torsion bar will only be fixed at the non-wheel end and will actually 'torsion' within its bushes at the road wheel axle (not that intend putting an load on these parts). Image 6 shows the majority of the LHS suspension parts as created so far.

  • Image 7 shows the work in progress on the LHS floor rib strenghtener - idler axle hole is not drilled yet so the part is not fully profiled. Provisionally fitted are hubs and bearings

  • Images 8-9 show - a bit precariously - how these parts will all fit together once all crafted. Everything is just in rough position here - a section of the lower edge of the rib strengthener must be removed as it is actually located directly over the run of captive nuts it is currently sitting next to.

  • A lot of this work will get covered once the idler mechanism, shock absorber, fuel tanks etc are fitted but the fun as ever is trying to replicate as much of what still exists in the tank as is possible. Hopefully I will be able to get some much better photos taken and updated soon.

Wheatcroft King Tiger Hull

 

We are fortunate to have one of the best exponents of scratchbuilding - Lee Lloyd - as part of The Research Squad. Few modellers go to the lengths he does in order to produce accurate parts. Below is his initial work in replicating the rear end of the King Tiger in the Wheatcroft Collection. This is a copy of his article that appeared on Missing-Lynx earlier this year. The text below is a preamble to the captioned images in the slideshow above.


 

Hi Guys,

A while back I posted up some work I had been doing over at the superlative 16th scale KT build pages hosted by Dave Parker. Recently I was asked to post up some updates to my own King Tiger I had been working on and so here is some of that work. In the initial section I have replicated the post from the KT site to give a history of what went before...

 

Old History..

Nearly three years have passed since I have done any serious modelling but at last I am back on the ball. [A move to a new country, getting established, new jobs, houses, schools etc - where has all that time gone?]

Anyway my modelling preferences have always been defined by unusual subjects and this offering now is hopefully no exception. One of my projects, never defined down to an exact vehicle, has been to scratch/detail a subject down to the correct shape (internally & externally) as accurate as I can make it with the tools I have to hand.

Two things then came together that finally got the juices flowing and got me started here. The first was working with The Research Squad and getting to see the back end of a wrecked Henschel King Tiger and the second was the release by Mig Productions of the Henschel KT hull with accurate thickness plates.

Fantastic I thought - all I would need to do is just take the back end of that kit and then add all the junked/wrecked interior and Bobs your uncle. Alas things are never so straight forward. Almost, but not quite...

A while ago I was in contact with Adam Wilder and he was incredibly kind and sourced for me one of the KT kits. Even better was the fact that I was told this was cast in a special resin and I have to say in all honesty the kit was superb. I have NEVER had a resin kit with so many large flat sections that were just that. Flat, un-warped and with very sharp detail - incredible - I was very impressed and so after printing out about 300+ photographs I had taken of the wrecked back end I set to work on the rear armour plate...

...and immediately hit a brick wall. I had been wondering what it was that had had me puzzled for a while and it was when I was cleaning up the bolt holes for the armoured exhaust shrouds that it finally struck me that not only were bolt holes not lined up but the holes were not quite in the right place...

So an investigation into this revealed that the rear plate part in the kit was wrong in almost every aspect i.e. A trawl though my many books, plans etc revealed

  •     the plate was not in scale thickness
  •     the plate was not the correct dimensional shape
  •     every port was not the correct diameter
  •     every port was not in the correct place
  •     bolt/stud holes were not in correct alignment

Basically the whole part was incorrect. Now let me add here that these conclusions were taken from direct measurements from an actual vehicle that I had unrestricted access to. So when I say 'this is the size ' then that is the truth - "remember though truth for this vehicle only!" I am not speaking for all King Tigers - just the one example I have had the opportunity to play with. In general though I think I can reasonably extrapolate that the measurements that were taken from the actual vehicle to be true across the general spectrum of King Tigers.

And so began the big fix where I then decided to scratch build the hull plates myself as every kit part that that I measured was just not correct. Again let me state here it is the kit dimensions that are wrong, not the kit itself. MIG Productions have mastered a very good kit - it is just the fact that the original master was not as accurate as perhaps it should have been. At the same time I was also very lucky to be sent by Tom Cockle a partial Dragon KT kit that had in the wheels/axles etc that I wanted. As this had a lower hull/rear plate etc it was also very useful in being able to compare that to real measurements and the MIG kit. I have to say that the Dragon KT is very accurate indeed and it makes me wonder if the MIG kit designer had ever seen one of these as even the briefest of comparisons would have shown him that his parts (especially wrt the rear plate) were significantly wrong. Yes the Dragon kit too has some errors but in general these seem to be related more to the actual manufacturing process that a fault in kit dimensions.

So what I plan on showing here is the work on this kit as it develops. This is the very early stages indeed and already in the work shown here I have stuff to correct! - This I will detail later on. Already I have scratched the side plates 3 times each before I was finally happy with the general profile and alignment of drilled holes etc.


So here goes: A few shots of the vehicle I am modelling - note that the myriad of images I will post up here are taken from 3 different photo shoots of this vehicle spread over a period of about 2 years - thus the difference in lighting and removal of certain parts

 

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