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MIG Late King Tiger (July 1945)

Skinny_Mike

Well-known member
Hi guys! Here is my entry into the fray. This is the special edition King Tiger from Ammo of Mig. The plastic was done by Takom for Mig. I haven’t done a compare yet to see if it’s the same as the Takom tigers but I bet there are some common parts.

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I wasn’t sure if we needed a time stamp for this one, but here it is just in case.

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My plan is to build this out of the box as the July 1945 what if version. I haven’t decided on a paint scheme just yet.

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Thanks for watching folks, more to follow.
Mike
 
Interesting kit Mike! Most likely it is the plastic from the Takom kit and is repackaged for Mig. Nothing wrong with that as the Takom kits are quite nice. What would be interesting is what goodies were added or changed.

Speaking of Mig, does anyone know how his wife is doing? Always sorry to hear about that kind of tragic stuff.

I should pull out my Tiger as well but am leaning toward a shelf queen with wings.

Will be watching Mike! (y) :popcorn
 
Nice of you to join in. The latter KT's had a base coat of dark green, with dark yellow and brown blotched over that, according to one of my books. Gary S.
 
Ellie is doing well so far. Mig is supposed to have helped with the research for the King Tigers. This one probably has a lot in common but with new turret, rear deck, gun etc. I'll watch this with interest.
James
 
Hey everyone! I decided it was time to get moving on another build as my Ferrari is now into the body-painting phase which means small steps forward to the finish line. Since the plan is to build the Ammo King Tiger right out of the box, I felt this was a good second kit to occupy my time as I finish the car and then get started on the fairly detailed M113 build.

I have just a little bit of progress to show for today. I started on both the hull and the turret, to get an idea what I was dealing with. The kit is manufactured by Takom for Ammo, and as far as I can tell they used the common parts from their King Tiger series. I assume they used the parts from the Henschel turret KT without Zim, which is the kit I don’t have so I can’t really compare. The hull pieces all seem to be the same, they have all the locating points for the interior, which was not included in this boxing. It also builds up the same, with the scale thickness for the armor.

The first step of the kit is to add most of the tools to the upper hull half. I skipped this step for now. I plan to place this on a small diorama, and I am still not sure what the story is that I want to tell. If I go with the idea that the war went on a couple extra months but was still a lost cause, then this tiger would have been rushed out the factory door without any of the non-essential gear, like tools. The alternative is the option when the tides have changed and Germany is on the offensive, in which case they would take the time to send out fully equipped tanks. I’ll admit, I’m leaning toward the first option.

Geez a lot of words just to get to what I have done! Step two builds and adds the cover over the driver and radio operator. I decided to not build this as a subassembly, but instead add the hull roof and then add the hatches and ventilator once it was installed. I did it this way because, the parts are molded in a scale thickness. That makes the roof fairly thin, and flimsy. By attaching the hull roof first, I was able to get the part secured down and not have it warped anywhere. Then I added the remaining pieces to it. I also added the inside portion of the glacis plate. This builds up the thickness of the armor, but also has the mount point for the radio operator’s machine gun.

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Next I moved on to the turret. I simply started adding parts. The sides and the rear wall are all molded together. Then you add the roof and there are two pieces sandwiched together for the front wall of the turret. The three posts on the turret roof, that I think are mounts for a jib crane are removed for the late versions of the turret. I also filled in the top mount points for the spare track holders as the July 45 version didn’t have these as they interfered with the new sights. Last think I did was to add the commander’s cupola.

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My reference material on the King Tiger is pretty light, does anyone know if the cupola had a weld seam around the base where it meets the turret roof? I plan this to be out of the box, but I want to experiment with adding weld seams a little bit. Any help is appreciated!

Well that’s where I am. Its not a lot of progress yet, but I have a feeling this one will be going pretty quick.

Thanks for looking!
Mike
 
Hi guys! I am making progress on my Tiger, but I have a couple of questions that hopefully someone can answer for me. There is a seam where the rear plate and the belly plate come together. I found a picture that shows this on the tank, but I can’t tell if there is a weld there or not. Does anyone know? Here is what it looks like on my build.

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The second question, I think I know, but am looking for confirmation. The drive sprocket was a single cast piece with the tooth rings bolted on, correct? Basically, this seam should not be here…

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Thanks for the help guys! I should have some more progress up soon!

Mike
 
Hello again everyone! I didn’t realize its been so long since I posted any progress here. Time to change that!

First up I added all the suspension arms, drive housing and the rear hull plate to the lower hull. Everything fit just fine. The torsion bars are included in the box, but they are not intended to be installed and since the parts for the interior are not included there really isn’t anywhere to mount them.

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Next I painted the periscopes because they need to be installed from the inside. I used MIGs periscope green which is a “clear” green color, painted the back of the periscopes in chrome silver and then the rest of the housing in flat black. I also painted the top of the hull and the inside of the periscope covers in MIG’s Reseda Green Option 2 from their late war German colors set. Once the periscopes and the hull mounted MG42 were installed I assembled the hull.

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Next step was the engine deck. This particular version has a different layout then the production King Tigers, including armored louvers and a three-door engine access hatch. The kit breaks up the deck into the left side, right side and the middle.

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I primered the left and right side and then also painted them in the base green. This was a lesson from a previous build where the plastic color was visible under the etched grills.

I completed the engine access covers before installing the pieces on the hull. The kit has no handles for the engine doors, which seemed odd to me, so I made some out of brass using my grab handle tool.

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I ran into a bit of an issue when I tried to install the engine deck. First off the instructions would have you install the center section first and then the left and right sides. The side pieces however, have a ridge that is supposed to go under the center part, I assume to support it. I decided to install the sides first, to avoid having to force this all together. I also found that the left and right sides are too long to fit in the hull, as you can see in the photo below.

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After some work with the sanding sticks, mostly on the rear hull portion, I got them both to fit and didn’t need to use any filler!

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And then I slide the center part into place without any issues and added the photoetch grills included in the kit.

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The all the tools, and other fittings where added to the hull.

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Lets talk about the tracks. The kit includes link and length tracks. The detail is actually pretty good, but I have always had issues with link and length so I went searching for some aftermarket tracks. This tiger, like the last production version, has the 18 tooth sprocket and the single link tracks, unlike the earlier version with the two separate link types. The only aftermarket ones I could find are from Fruil, and they aren’t even marketed for the Tiger at all. They are, as far as I can tell, the correct type so I went with them.

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I ended up making a small jig to cut the track pins and then went to assembling them. Overall not to complicated. The tracks for the right side required almost no clean up, but I had to drill out the holes and sand off some flash on the left side. I purposely made them a couple links too short, and I will fix the length once the suspension is on and secured.

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I ended up getting a coat of primer on the hull yesterday and plan to lay down the green today. Hopefully I’ll put up an update later today.

As always – questions and comments are welcome – and thanks for watching.

Mike
 
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