(Login Malcolm_48) Registered Users from IP address 4.152.204.72
Hi Gaston -
How much did you stretch your Jagdtiger? From what I can find out 105 links per side is too much. The Tamiya kit provides 88 links per side for the King Tiger, and the pictures I have of the Jagdtiger at Aberdeen appears to show 94 or maybe 96 links on the right side (it's hard to count them). Friul got back to me and said that 90 to 92 per side is right for a Jagdtiger, but I think they're underestimating. The Aberdeen track is also very loose, laying on the roadwheels all the way to the second roadwheel from the front. 94 is probably the magic number.
A set of Friuls should be adequate, with a few links left to hang on the superstructure sides, but maybe not the full 24 that could be carried.
Feel free to contact me off-forum if you wish to discuss this in detail (just click on my name on the post).
Cheers -
Malcolm
This message has been edited by Malcolm_48 from IP address 4.152.204.72 on May 7, 2009 5:17 PM
They are right; I misplaced/miscounted my leftovers....
May 8 2009, 7:54 AM
I used 96 per side for a 2 mm excessive 10 mm hull stretch (50 cm)... There might have been more than a few that needed drilling; without a drill I barely completed the running gear. A fully-equipped Jagdtiger will require much more spares on the sides I think.
As for dimensions, there are wide disagreements on the lenght of the hull; 7.20 M. to 8m!: My last, and best-looking, stretch attempt turned in at 20 inches over the Tamiya hull; 10mm... (The Tamiya hull top's tapering plan view will not take this much stretch, and the side armor must be nearly fully replaced by a single large thick plasticard replacement)
This 10 mm value (500 mm actual) is probably too much, as the most plausible figures I know of are in a 14-16 inches range, which would be 350-406 mm max., BUT...
I was trying hard to match the profile proportions of the armoured superstructure, which has a quite variable appearance in some photos (based on the wheel roundness in photos, I bet on a somewhat longer-looking appearance; tricky because of the slanting...). Thus I stretched the Bandai armored box some 6-6.5mm at the top, maybe 4-4.5mm at the bottom. This may be excessive by VERY little, .5 mm at most, if that...
Once this is done, all that is left is to match the Tamiya Tiger 2's top hull decks, front and back, to the Bandai armoured box, which is how I got the 500mm stretch result. I would say whatever you use for a superstructure, go for a 7-8 mm stretch (400 mm max.) compared to the Tamiya kit. So the original hull top part by itself, from the front armour front top edge to the rear edge of the rear deck (w/o the vertical rear plate), goes from 120 mm original to 127-128 mm final. The difficulty here is that the front/rear decks are 1 or 1.5 mm off vertically, but perfectly paralell; not easy to achieve, believe me...
OAL of the Tamiya Tiger 2's hull, with exhausts, is 150 mm roughly, or 7.20 M; should be at most 127-128 mm for the Jagdtiger, or 7.55-7.60 M.
I went overboard in lenght because there are weird things going on; My gun barrel is a shortened 1/35 Dragon Su-100 barrel(the plastic one in halves), with a drawing-"verified" exposed lenght of 82mm, which actually matches very well with photos in diameter and lenght.
I think the Tamiya hull deck front details are too long, and the rear deck details too short:"compressed". This pushes the whole Bandai superstructure (and Su-100 gun) too far back, because even with a 500 mm stretched hull, I could barely match the 10.625 M. OAL quoted (if at all)...
To sum up I would say; go for a 7-8 mm Tamiya hull stretch. If using Tamiya hull tops for details, try to cheat; add a sliver to the rear deck lenght, take a sliver out of the front deck lenght. The armoured box superstructure roof side edge is around 57-58 mm long (on a 65 mm "base"). Its height is about 21-22 mm rear/23-24 mm front(remember the two decks are not level by 1 or 1.5 mm).
My main stumbling block right now is that to make the sides vertical-looking enough on the Bandai superstructure (by sanding to wafer-thinness), the Bandai sides will no longer match in any way the Tamiya hull top's original side armor angle, perhaps even when most of this is replaced by thick plasticard... It could be that the Bandai roof is too wide, at which point I will quit...
I have found flat-plate objects unforgiving of tampering and mating errors. I may make a last attempt, but I am quite puzzled at the difficulties. I highly recommend you get the 1/35th scale Tamiya, or the Dragon kit, and evaluate them, watching out especially for the superstructure's profile proportions against photos. These 1/35th scale kits look O.K., and will probably save you a heap of trouble... Don't use any of the smaller scale kits...
Gaston.
P.S. The Bandai mantlet must be enormously enlarged in all dimensions; 26-27 mm wide at the base, 18-19 mm tall, 22-23 mm long, very complicated curvy shapes throughout; mine is a blob of putty with a few lost Bandai particles...
Lowering the Tamiya suspension is surprisingly easy, as is sawing accross the metal hull to keep the precious symmetry of those rear idlers axles...
Tim, that is exactly what I did. I worked off Doyle's drawings reduced to 1/48 in CorelDraw, and went from there. I made the plates scale thickness and the tabs and notches just like the real thing, and that is how it fits together. The hardest parts have been scratching the roof details and the mantlet and saukopf, but I'm quite happy with the way they look. The lower hull and swing arms and axles are all scratched as well, rather that fooling around with the Tamiya hull, that way I got the right wheel spacing. I will post pictures soon.
Gaston, The number I have from the drawings is that the Jagdtiger is 17.76 inches longer than the King Tiger at full scale, or 9,4mm in 1/48. The Tamiya engine deck fit perfectly, and the front crew hatch area was a little tight but it fits.
It initially looked like the sides would fit perfectly and save massive work, but in the end it looks like they won't match...
Your method however has problems of its own; scratching required for;
-All the hull joins and bevels.
-Unique top hatches with numerous rivets and numerous roof details.
-Complex, assymetrical, protruding rear doors with large riveting.
-Unique mantlet.
-Entire suspension layout with suspension arms and perfect axle position.
-Front deck detail/riveting?
-Symmetry?
Each one of those is a huge deal for the average builder, which is why I persisted with my lazier method...
I assure you flat plates are the absolute hardest thing to get right, compared to sculted rock-like lumps like the Pershing or cast Shermans... The margin of error is near zero...
I re-sculpted with putty a composite hull Firefly out of the Azimut resin, and it was nothing in comparison to the necessity of symmetrical flat surfaces... Maybe it's just me...
Thanks for the 9.4mm figure; very useful; 477 mm ! I wasn't to far with my previous attempt.
What will you use for the gun? The 1/35th Su-100 gun was about my only bright idea in this whole thing...
Does your drawing confirm the exposed barrel lenght at 82mm?
All the problems you bring up on the scratchbuild exist, and have been successfully completed, but it wasn't easy. The amount of work is too much for the average model builder, but I have become pretty good at scratchbuilding, and I'm very deliberate and persistent. I use my computer to draw up the parts, then print that out and spray-glue it to styrene sheet, then cut and shape the parts. As long as I shape correctly and measure carefully as I go, it all fits as designed on the computer. The hull plates were hard to align perfectly when assembly started. I built some interior framing to keep everything straight and square as it was glued together, then removed it later. The roof was difficult too, as it came so late in assembly after the sides, rear and mantlet were locked into place. I did have to cut one of the rear corners apart and shift things very slightly, but that made it perfect.
I have yet to tackle the gun, but I have a piece of aluminium rod that I can turn on my drill press and probably get a decent result. The drawings differ from the side and top views on the exposed length of the barrel. The side view shows it at 79mm, the top view shows 81,4mm. I will be using the longer dimension. Would you like me to send you the drawings? They are already re-sized on my computer, and will print out at 1/48 scale.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the nose . I used Tim's dimensions for the glacis and front lower plate, and the angle of those parts turned out to work best at 86 degrees, not as sharp as the Tamiya King Tiger, but it looks exactly like my reference photos when viewed from an angle.
I don't bother with the hull nose for the JT, because to me that lower bow plate looks significantly more upright, and thus deeper, than the real King Tiger's, and this makes the kit's front end look closer to a Jagdtiger's front end. The slightly oversize(?)and overly bulbous hull mg position may contribute to the really short appearance of the Tamiya glacis plate...
If you scrape .3mm off the top of the Tamiya glacis, you get this plate nearly a full 1mm shorter that a real King Tiger's, as Tamiya did it about .5mm short compared to the 51.7 inches of the actual KT glacis (a precise measurement from a French museum). It's still a mystery to me why the Tamiya front glacis area looks so much shorter than it is dimensionally. I think the glacis width may be a tad wide at this point, and when combined with the more upright lower bow plate, this creates a decidedly non-KT-like blunt-nose appearance...
I would correct that front hull if I was building... a King tiger! The Jagdtiger is my way of cheapening out of that(!), not least because the Tamiya KT turrets are truly awful... (The worst is the front roof angle on both, but in fact only the Henshel is correctable, and ALL the flat plates need moving...)
The front hull issue is actually a major reason why I persisted so much with this conversion; there are a lot of complicated details there, and that solid metal lower plate angle is simply unacceptable for a King Tiger, and couldn't be tougher to fix...
For a Jagdtiger, it passes muster as is, if barely...
Rumors of my perfectionism are greatly exaggerated...
. I used Tim's dimensions for the glacis and front lower plate, and the angle of those parts turned out to work best at 86 degrees, not as sharp as the Tamiya King Tiger, but it looks exactly like my reference photos when viewed from an angle.