In Their Own Words

Tiger I Ausfhrung Afrika

The Tiger was built from Tamiya's 1/35th scale Tiger I Ausfhrung Afrika kit. The figures are Cromwell's 1/35th scale Tunisian Tiger Crew, CF 64. After market products that I used were Fruilmodel tracks, and Tamiya's Tiger I Early Production Photo Etched Grill Set. I also used Third Group's "Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger I (#1) Ausf. E, sPzAbt 501 & 502" after market decals.

My primary guide for construction and finishing techniques was Tony Greenland's Panzer Modelling Masterclass, 1995. Also, I referred to an article in the July 1999 issue of Military In Scale magazine entitled "A tale of two Tigers". This article reviewed Tamiya's Tiger I Ausfhrung Afrika and Academy's German Heavy Tank Tiger I (Early Version) kits. I recommend this article to anyone interested in building either of these kits. My guides for construction and painting of the figures were How to Build Dioramas, 1980, by Sheperd Paine and an article off the internet called "Painting Faces: A Basic Guide to Improving 1/35th and 54 mm Scale Figures" by Mark Bannerman. I used three other books for painting and color references for the figures. The first two were published by Historie & Collections. They are German Soldiers of World War Two and Afrikakorps - Tropical uniforms of the German Army 1940 - 1945. Finally I referenced the Osprey book #9, Modeling WWII Figures. After discussing the construction and painting of the Tiger, I'll do the same for the figures.

Over the last several years, my brother, Patrick, and I have been focusing our modeling on constructing models of vehicles that fought in Tunisia in 1943. This was Germany's last stand in North Africa and was also a time period when German armor was upgrading, such as the introduction of the Tiger tank and the long barrel 75 mm cannons on the Panzer IV's. Actually, our original idea was to have some gigantic diorama with vehicles and panzers which could have been in Kampfgruppe Irkens, a unit organized in Tunisia in April 1943 from various parent units such as Panzer Regiment 5 and Schwere Panzerabteilung (sPzAbt) 501. That is why the panzer which I built previous to the Tiger was a Panzer IV F2.

After building the Panzer IV F2, I built a 57 mm Pak by Tamiya. After the Pak, I was ready for another panzer which would have fought in Tunisia. Of course I was itching for a heavy panzer and I wanted to try out one of Tamiya's newer kits. Since I got back into modeling in 1994, all of the kits I had built were older Tamiya kits or by Dragon (the Panzer IV kit). I knew that Tamiya had an early production Tiger I kit and I figured that I would have to buy a Tiger I North Afrika photo etched set in order to adapt the kit - that is, until I saw the Tiger I Ausfhrung Afrika kit. It was exactly what I was looking for.

This Tamiya kit was definitely a pleasure to build. The instructions were very explicit and all the parts fit together nicely. Of course, I did the usual prep work prior to gluing like sanding off mold seams and making sure that the parts fit together correctly. Overall, I would say that minimal filing and adjusting of pieces to get a good fit were necessary and I would say that the quality of the kit was very good. One part that I did think needed some extra filing was part #F28 (there are two of these) which fit into the intake pipes which are located on the back deck of the tank. I recommend that before inserting and gluing these parts into the rubber intake pipes, that the section of the parts which inserts into the pipes be filed down a good deal so that they don't cause the intake pipe to bulge out.

At this point, I'll go over the scratch built modifications that I included. The photo references that I primarily used for my model can be seen on pages 19 and 28 of Squadron's Tiger in action booklet. On page 28, one can see two spare tracks mounted on metal bars that extend from the bottom rear hull of the tank. This spare track mounting feature did not come with the kit so I furbished my own. I used a small, flat brass bar and cut it into four pieces. I then bent the pieces as seen in the photograph on page 28 and glued them to the hull using cyanoacrylate glue. A good close up view of similar bars on a Tiger can be seen on page 47 of Squadron's Afrikakorps in Action booklet.

Next, I installed copper wires to run from each of the Bosch headlights located on the lower hull to connector knobs located on the hull above each headlight. A good view of the headlamps and the wire that I added can be seen on page 18 of the Tiger in action booklet. This was relatively easy. I used my pin vise to drill the holes in the headlamps where the wires would obviously have connected and then in the lower side of each connector knob facing to the outside of the tank. I then inserted the wire in the headlamps and knobs as seen in the above mentioned photograph. The wire was copper wire taken from a piece of electrical wire that I stripped to expose the smaller copper wires.

Next, I did some modifications to the smoke dischargers. First, I cut notches into the rims of the smoke dischargers using a jeweler's saw. Obviously, the smoke dischargers did not come in the kit with the notches already, but should have to have been realistic. See page 8 of the Tiger in action booklet for a good view of the notches. When cutting the notches, I just eyeballed the proper dimensions of the notches while looking at the photograph. I also scratch built the smoke discharger wires as seen on page 11 of the same book. First, I glued small pieces of plastic onto the back of the dischargers to represent connectors knobs that the wires would attach to. The plastic pieces were small "rivets" from my Dragon Panzer IV kit.

Using the smallest drill bit I could find for my pin vise, I drilled holes into the tip of the connectors knobs and installed the smallest copper wire I could find into them. I found that the wires were actually much smaller than the openings of the holes, so I used milliput to fill in the holes around the wires and also to further cement them in place. After mounting the smoke dischargers to the turret on their brackets, I brought the three wires on each side together and carefully twisted them together and to make them look as much as possible like one wire. With these small copper wires, I had to be careful because they were flimsy and would break with too much bending. After forming the three smaller wires into one, I then drilled a hole into each side of the turret roof where the combined smoke discharger wires enter into the roof as seen in the photograph on page 13 of the Tiger in action book, and inserted the smoke discharger wires.

I made a slight modification to the three sided plastic "ridges" on the top of the turret which were supposed to serve as a guide for mounting the smoke discharger brackets. They didn't look realistic to me and I saw nothing that resembled them around the smoke discharger brackets in any photos I looked at. If anything, the photos revealed that the brackets were welded on and these "ridges" were supposed to be weld seams. Therefore, I decided to make the brackets on my model look like they were welded on. To do this, I dabbed small amounts of Tenax - 7R Space Age Welder on the "ridges" to soften them up and used my hobby knife to make many small cuts in them. This gave the "ridges" the appearence of a weld seam.

Another modification I did was to make the side skirts look like they had been bent out a little after the Tiger got too close to some branches while going through an olive grove or while rolling over some cactus plants. An example of bent out side skirts on a Tiger can be seen in the top left picture on page 19 of the Tiger in action book. The skirts in the kit came as one long solid piece, one for each side. I believe that there were actually four smaller equal sized skirts on each side, each one bolted separately onto the tank. The skirts that came with the kit had grooves where the individual skirts would have been separated. Using my jeweler's saw, I simply cut down one groove on each side to cut the skirts in two. I cut the middle of the skirt on the left side and the front quarter skirt on the right side. After filing, sanding and smoothing out the cuts, I then glued on the four individual skirt pieces. To give a skirt that bent out look, I simply adjusted it in or out while gluing it on.

The metal tracks by Fruilmodel were well worth the added expense and extra time. Having done so much scratch work and modifications to the model, I had to have the most realistic tracks possible. This was actually the second kit that I used Fruilmodel tracks on. I had used their earlier track links on my Panzer IV F2 kit, the types that had to be crimped to each other. The Tiger Fruilmodel track links were their later types that were put together like the real thing, with a metal bar running through the individual links. With the bars holding them together, I had no worry of them coming apart. The links came in plastic bags and some filing and sanding of flash was necessary. The "track pins" that came from Fruilmodel were actually a coil of wire, I presumed to be aluminum.

At any rate, I found this wire to be too soft to be able to stick through the guide holes in the individual links. Once again, I found the appropriate sized copper wire from a one foot piece of electrical wire. Even with this wire, I found it necessary to use my pin vise and an appropriate sized drill bit to drill through the guide holes to remove flash and to open them up before inserting the wires. The wires were simply clipped off flush with the track links at the insertion points after joining each link together by inserting them through the guide holes on the "male" and "female" sides of each link and then using a drop of cyanoacrylate glue at the insertion point, being careful not to use too much glue so that the tracks were still movable. I did not drill all the way through each link. I stopped when I had only partially penetrated into the last guide hole on the "female" side. The final links of each side I did not connect until after painting and dry brushing the tracks completely and I was ready to put the tracks on the model.

So that the tracks would rotate to some degree, I did not glue on the drive sprockets or the road wheels to the shafts. Since the drive sprockets needed extra support in order to stay on without glue, I drilled holes into the shafts of each sprocket and through the hull of the model and inserted an approximately 1.5 mm diameter brass bar into the sprockets to act as the drive shaft. I found that the best way to install the tracks was to lay the tank upside down with the turret off. I laid the upside down tank onto a small, stuffed animal which inserted just into the turret ring which allowed me not to damage the paint or break anything. The tracks were then threaded around the road wheels and the final track pins were put in.

Finally, I modified the bow machine gun slightly by drilling a hole in the barrel mouth using a pin vise to make it look like it had an actual opening. Also, I added an antenna after drilling a hole into the antenna mount. The antenna was a piece of .012 inch diameter brass wire.

While painting the Tiger, I primed all pieces with Floquil's light gray primer. The interior of the Tiger was painted Model Master's Panzer Interior Buff while the base color for the exterior of the Tiger was Model Master's Afrika Braun, 1942. I painted the interior of the Tiger as I constructed it. Though not visible in any photos taken, I painted the breech of the 88 mm Pak a metallic color and Interior Buff, as seen in a photo of the interior of the turret on page 24 of Schiffer Military History's 1991 book, Kampfpanzer IV Tiger I by Horst Scheibert. I painted the commander's cupola periscope vision ports a dark metallic color and then a coat of clear green to try to represent glass. I then spread a layer of Microscale's Micro Krystal Klear over each vision port to achieve a more glass like look. I used the same method for the glass in the periscopes of the hatches for the driver and radio operator.

After completing most of the construction of the model, I air brushed the Tiger with primer and then with a couple of coats of a mixture of the Afrika Braun and 20% light gray. The purpose of adding the light gray as opposed to adding just white was not only to give the paint the proper scale effect, but also to give it a more faded and dull look from the exposure to the North African sun. Next, as prescribed by Tony Greenland in his Panzer Modelling Masterclass book, I sprayed a glosscoat over the model and applied the decals with the aid of some Solvaset. Surprisingly for me, the area with which I had the most difficulty with the model was in the applying of the decals. It seemed like the decals were too soft as I was trying to adjust them into the proper position on the model and that they wanted to come apart if I tried to move them one way or another. I later found out later that I was using too strong of a solution of Solvaset and that I should have used more water to thin the Solvaset.

I also used a method I had used before on my Panzer IV to help ensure that decals didn't develop that "cloudy" look, especially the large ones with a lot of clear space in them. After adjusting the decals into the proper position I dabbed a little extra Solvaset onto the decals with a soft brush. Then, I sparingly dabbed on some Future floor wax onto the decals with a soft brush. Of course, this made the decals very soft and I couldn't expect to adjust them any further after applying the Future floor wax. I let the decals set for at least 24 hours and then sprayed a coat of dullcoat over them because the Future floor wax left them too shiny. Actually, I believe it took several coats of dullcoat to finally get rid of that shiny appearance. After letting the dullcoat dry for at least 24 hours, I then resprayed the Tiger with another coat of glosscoat. My final spraying of the model was with a glosscoat because, according to Tony Greenland, the upper-structure of a model should have a satin appearance.

The next step was to apply a wash to the model using oil based sepia extra diluted in about 75% thinner. I applied the wash only to obvious places that needed darkening to give depth, such as around hatches and other places where the recesses needed to stand out. Next, I dry brushed the upper-structure of the Tiger starting off with a 50/50 mixture of white and Afrika Braun. I dry brushed all edges, tops of rivets and bolts, and practically every detail that stood above the surface of the tank. With each dry brushing pass over the model, I kept adding white until I was finally dry brushing with white by itself. I found that by using an oil based white, I could dry brush longer before having to re-dip my brush in the paint and that it applied easier to the surface of the model. The disadvantage to oil based paints is that they take much longer to dry than enamel or acrylic paints. Though it would seem that I was close to being finished with painting at this point, using the Tony Greenland method, I still had much painting to do on the sub-structure of the Tiger.

I air-brushed the sub-structure of the Tiger with a mixture of Humbrol Dark Earth and 30% flat black. I sprayed the sides of the Tiger from the mudguards down, the bottom of the Tiger, and the lower front and rear hulls of the Tiger. I feathered the lower front and rear so that the dark earth would transition easily to the Afrika Braun of the upper-stucture. In addition, I also sprayed the road wheels and the tracks this Dark Earth mixture. As opposed to the upper-structure, the sub-structure was left matt.

The next step, as outlined in the Panzer Modelling Masterclass book, was to dry brush the sub-structure with straight Dark Earth and then to keep adding quantities of the base color, Afrika Braun in my case, to the dark earth so that there would be a subtle transition between sub-structure and upper-structure. The higher areas of the sub-structure would of course receive more dry brushing with more Afrika Braun added to the mixture until I was dry brushing with straight Afrika Braun in order to achieve the subtle transition between sub- and upper-structure. This subtle transition from sub- to upper-structure is especially apparent at the lower rear of the hull and may appear as a type of weathering.

The same type dry brushing was applied to the tracks and to the road wheels. For the road wheels which faced to the outside, straight Afrika Braun was dry brushed as the final step so their appearance would be almost as Afrika Braun as the upper-structure. The inner parts of the road wheels were dry brushed with the Dark Earth/Afrika Braun mixture, but were left a darker appearance to give more depth and to represent more weathering than the outside road wheels. I found that dry brushing the sub-structure with a Dark Earth oil mixture is easier because of the large surface area needed to be dry brushed. The oil paint stays longer on the brush, doesn't dry out on the brush as quickly as the enamel Dark Earth, goes on smooth, and speeds up the process. I just added the Afrika Braun enamel paint to my Dark Earth oil mixture as I made my dry brushing passes over the sub-structure, road wheels and tracks until I was dry brushing with straight Afrika Braun.

The oil based Dark Earth mixture is as follows: gold or yellow ochre - 3 parts, black - 1 1/2 parts, red oxide - 1 part, white - 1 1/2 parts. Before gluing all my road wheels together (up to this point I had only glued certain sections together) I masked them off using Parafilm so that I could spray the rubber portions around the rims. I used Model Master's Flat Sea Blue with about 15% white added as my color. After letting the paint dry for a day, I dry brushed the road wheels adding white to the sea blue until I was dry brushing almost with straight white. I found that unless the final dry brushing mixture is almost straight white, one barely notices that an edge or a raised detail has been dry brushed.

After I completed my dry brushing, I sprayed the muzzle break a mixture of sepia extra and thinner, a little thicker than the mixture used for the wash. I had to be careful when spraying this mixture so that it didn't spray on too heavy. I found that the best way to spray on this mixture was to spray it on in several light coats, allowing it to dry in between coats. Also, I brushed on this mixture in the smoke discharger openings, the muffler openings and on bottom side of the muffler flaps

Not to forget the tools for the Tiger, I sprayed the machine guns, the metal tools and the tow cables flat black with a little white added for somewhat of a scale effect. Objects to be painted wood such as tool handles were first painted Tamiya Dark Yellow. Once the paint was dry they were washed with a mixture of thinner and approximately 33 % Burnt Sienna oil paint. I found that I had to apply several coats of the Burnt Sienna mixture to the wooden parts in order to achieve the right wooden appearance.

My next step was to dry brush the metal parts of the tools, the tow cables, the muzzle brake, the machine guns, the drive sprocket teeth, the edges of the tracks, etc. using Hannants Oily Steel. I believe Model Master's Steel would work well, also. The object of this dry brushing was to give the metal objects a metallic look as if some of the original black paint had rubbed off in different areas. Not only were edges were dry brushed, but the flat surfaces were lightly dry brushed, also. Next, I used Chrome Silver to dry brush the highest raised detail of the metal objects such as the edges of the shovel, the edges of the muzzle brake, the tips the machine gun barrels, the tips of the drive sprocket teeth and the rims of the smoke dischargers. As explained by Tony Greenland, the Chrome Silver added a brightness to the tips of these areas in contrast to the Oily Steel which was already dry brushed on.

The final step to completing the Tiger was the application of pastel chalks. For the upper- structure, a 50/50 mixture of dark brown and black pastel chalks was prepared. The chalk sticks were scraped with an exacto blade and the resulting powder was ground as fine as possible with the blade. Next, using a 10 aught brush, the powder was carefully brushed in a thin line at the base of all raised detail on the tank, blowing off the excess. Black pastel chalk was applied to the base of the raised detail of the sub-structure. If too much chalk was applied in an area, I simply used a damp cloth to wipe it off. Using the chalks had a similar effect as a wash - bringing out depth and making the small details of the model stand out. Finally, I used the chalks to represent rust stains where water drained from around bolts and other metal parts. For this purpose, I prepared a mixture of 50% orange to 50% black chalk powder. An example of where I applied the "rust" chalk was to the bolts on the side skirts. I simply "painted" the chalk in a downward direction as the rusty water would have drained due to gravity.

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