My friend ZE Whitlow has given me a rescued Tiger II for Christmas. He had acquired it second-hand, and it had some issues, which he figured I could correct. The original model is a Panzer VI Tiger II, with a Porsche turret. However, the turret was missing all hatches, the radio operator's machine gun was missing, the exhaust system was destroyed, and, oh yeah, the previous owners had glued the wrong gun onto the front!
The main gun was that of the Henschel turreted version of the Königstiger, with the circular mantle that mounts the the flat-fronted production version of the überpanzer. After much research through many period photos and modelling resources, I got to work modifying the '88 to fit the early production Porsche turret. I carved off the round mantle, and then filed the the base of the gun back to round.
With the gun's base rounded, I drilled out the front of the turret and some distance into the breach of the 88, to attach them via brass rod.
With the main gun pinned and glued in place, I used extra hatches from a Tiger I model, which, surprisingly, fit really well. In order to have the commander's hatch open, I had to pin it in place using more brass rod. At this point, I addressed the broken exhaust system. I carved off the remains of the exhaust, and drilled out the roots. I'm building this to be a field-worn vehicle, so one pipe will be missing on the final, but for the other, I used some brass tubing to create my own.
The final bit was to use green stuff to add the mantle, which I texturized as zimmeritt, and added a detail the top hatch. (Apologies for the inconsistencies in the photography - my wife and I were trying out different settings on her camera)
Stay tuned for the paint-up!
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