A funny thing happened to me from the Painting Table to the Model Box ...
I had just under-coated the so-called German Wonder Tanks (from Pegasus) Matt Black and had put them to one side (eyeing up the Boulton Paul defiant and Hawker Hurricane) when I thought I should really put the tanks "back in the box" (so I or small child didn't break them)!
Pandora's box of unfinished models was opened and I spied my old pair of Airfix Tigers. Hmm. The comparison (Fujimi v Airfix):
Now this annoys me, all because of the missing back stowage bins (you know the story of the Airfix designers basing their model from a reconstructed Tiger, done in haste without the ubiquitous stowage bins in place, so they never made it to the final Airfix model ). Just think of all those generations of misguided teenage Airfix modellers getting confused with their AFV recognition charts ;)
I had made these two Tigers yonks ago but they were never used as they looked a bit silly next to their Fujimi and Hasagawa cousins (with back bins). Taking inspiration from a certain
Tim Marshall's web-site and his
Tiger Turret conversion I decided to take the plunge and have a go myself, it looked simple enough.
The basic conversion, a new back:
Starting with glueing two small bits of squarish plasti-card sticking out from the rear turret (using the Fujimi turret as a guide), a third longer piece was bent and rolled over joining the back of the two. Getting it sufficiently curved was rather tricky, so I settled for glueing piece three in place and then sticking a forth bit of rolled/bent plasti-card over it to get the extra curve needed, Finally I carved a rough curve to fit the Tiger turret from a very thin bit of plast-icard and put that over the bin framework. This irregular shape was carved back to conform to turret/bin shape.
A little extra detail (Two Back Flaps added):
Two small squares of plastic were added as bin flaps and a small square hole was drilled into the middle of the back stowage area (as per the Fujimi model).
A spot of Panzer Yellow (Tamiya XF-60 Dark Yellow): It looks rough in close-up, but it's good enough from a distance and there is a bit of camo and weathering to follow :)
The refurbishment continues ...
