Background
I had been wanting to build a Tamiya Tiger I for some time; when I finally got one, I had learned during my earlier King Tiger build that I needed to figure out fairly early on which particular tank I wanted to model. After pondering the question a bit, I decided that I was going to model Tiger 332 from sPzAbt.503.

Tiger 332 had a long and interesting history. It was built in late February or (more likely) early March 1943. It was issued to sPzAbt.503 in May, 1943 and survived in combat for nearly 10 months, until finally being knocked out by “friendly” fire on February 27, 1944 in fighting near Oratoff , by a Panther from LSSAH.

Tiger 332 had a lot of photographic coverage during its lifetime. Some of the best photographic coverage of this tank can be found in the book Der Panzerkampfwagen Tiger an Der Front Bildband und tiger Fibel im Bild.

References
Good references are indispensable when trying to do an accurate build of a particular vehicle. I frequently referred to a number of books and web sites while constructing my Tiger. Here is a list of books and web sites that provided much useful information :
Books
Der Panzerkampfwagen Tiger an Der Front Bildband und Tger Fibel im Bild (ISBN 4499226880)
Germany’s Tiger Tanks D.W. to Tiger I (ISBN 0764310380)
Tiger I and Sturmtiger in Detail (ISBN 978193057134)
Tiger! The Tiger Tank: A British View (ISBN 0112904262)
Tigers at the Front (ISBN 0764313398)
Tiger I (AISN B000E8PYF4)
The Modeler’s Guide to the Tiger Tank (AISN B00125RT0Q)
F.A.Q. (ISBN 8496527611)
Web Sites
TigerI.info
Missing-Lynx
o Missing-Lynx: Continuing Discussion on Tiger 332 from sPA 503
Armorama
o Armorama: How to Create Accurate Weld Effects

Hull Construction
I began my build with the inner hull and suspension. Based upon my experience with my King Tiger, I decided to chuck the stock system and use the Wecohe suspension again. I like the compliance that this system gives compared to the stock system. It’s also adjustable, so I was able to compensate for the weight increase (finished weight was 19 pounds) that this model saw compared to stock. I also too the opportunity to stiifen the chassis by bonding eight 1/8 thick aluminum strips to the bottom of the chassis, between the suspension rails. I also took the opportunity to install Daryl Turners idler upgrade kit, since I plan to upgrade to metal tracks. This was fairly easy to install, thanks to the detailed instructions that come with the kit.

This is as good a place as any to talk about the various glues and adhesives I used for this build. For the most part, all of my plastic-plastic (styrene) joints were made using Tamiya’s Extra Thin Cement. This cement penetrates the joint easily and dries fairly quickly. For metal-plastic joining, I generally used either a gap filling CA adhesive or a 5 minute epoxy, depending on what was being assembled. I use 5 minute epoxy exclusively when attaching photoetched parts, because of the much stronger and tougher joint available with epoxy adhesives (I try to minimize the time I spend searching the carpet for knocked off photoetched parts), as well as from concerns over the durability of the bonded on photoetched parts; CA adhesives are known for degrading over time due to reaction with moisture. For more structural bonding, such as the chassis stiffeners, I use an aerospace grade adhesive, Hysol EA 9394… good strong stuff. No matter what the adhesive, proper preparation of the pieces being bonded is essential. Plastic parts should be cleaned with soap and water at a minimum; a light sanding followed by wiping with alcohol is even better. Metal parts should be sanded and wiped with alcohol.

Next, I began work on the outer hull. I decided to install some goodies to improve the durability and appearance of the tank. I purchased and installed metal sprocket guides from Tankzone. I chose these sprocket guides over the others that are available, such as those available from Wecohe, as they represent the correct hull shape of an early tiger (which this build represents). The metal sprocket guides were bonded to the outer hull using epoxy adhesive, as well as being bolted on like the standard Tamiya ones. I also installed idler support bearings in the outer hull to provide additional support for the idler wheel. These were simply a press fit into the existing openings.

At this point, I added a bunch of weld beads along the outer hull and sprocket guides. This is probably the most time consuming bit of detail that I do to my tanks, but I like the effect it creates, so I just park my butt in front of the TV and do it. I create the weld beads by applying an epoxy adhesive (Hysol EA 9394 is what I use for this – I have tried this technique with Milliput with some success, but find Milliput to be kind of a pain to work with), allowing the adhesive to partially set up and then tooling the appropriate weld texture into the adhesive. A good tutorial on this technique can be found here.

I scratch built a track holder out of 1/8” thick styrene for the front of the tank that was a better match for the one on Tiger 332. There is also another part to the track holder that is higher up on the hull, but judging from the photos I’ve seen of the real tank, it might be a bit fragile in scale, so I added it later in the build.

To provide some additional support for the drive shaft and help improve gearbox life, I decided to install a brass drive shaft support bushing. I was hoping to be able to hide them using the stock drive covers, so I purchased the Schumo Sherman drive shaft support bearings, since they seemed to have a smaller outer diameter. Figuring that I would have to do a bunch of filing and dremelling to get them to fit, I was very surprised that they fit almost perfectly in the driveshaft opening with next to no work on my part. I bonded those into place using epoxy adhesive.

My next step was building the front plate assembly for the upper hull. There were a couple of challenges in building this assembly; first there was some significant battle damage to this plate on the real Tiger 332 that needed to be done in scale on the model and second, the fit up of these parts to the upper hull wasn’t thebest (there was some war-page of the parts) and to get proper looking weld beads between the upper hull sides and the front plate the parts needed to be properly positioned.

The battle damage was done the hard way, using various hand tools, such as scrapers, knife blades, picks, etc. to get the shell impacts to look just right. I made a small build up of putty on top of the front plate over the hit above the driver’s visor, to simulate the deformation of the plate that can be seen on the real tank. Of course, I added more weld beads as needed.

To position the driver’s plate correctly against the upper hull, I scratched come friction clips out of some scrap ABS I had on the shelf. The part glued to the front plate has a slight reverse angle on it to draw it tight to the upper hull.

After completing the modifications and installing this assembly on the outer hull, I installed the inner hull into the outer hull, then added the idler arms and the individual swing arms and adjusted the suspension. I noticed when test fitting the swing arms that there was a small amount of play between the swing arm and the hull fittings, which sounded like it would cause a rattle when the tank was running. I wrapped each swing arm with a single wrap (about 1/8- 3/16 inch wide) of Teflon plumber’s tape around the swing arm where it fits into the hull fittings. This helps reduce friction and takes up some of the slack between the 2 pieces. Adjusting the suspension is fairly tedious. Wecohe provides a template for setting the angle of the swing arms (and they’re easy enough to set but there’s lots of them), but my experience on the King tiger was that that angle was inadequate for a heavily loaded tank and must be increased somewhat. I I had to revisit this step later in the build, once I got the tank on its wheels and tracks (with gearboxes, battery, etc), with it close to to the final running weight.

Motors and Gearboxes
I removed the motors from the gearboxes and broke in both of the gear boxes for about 30 minutes in each direction (using some old motors I had, along with some nice gritty toothpaste). I also broke in the motors, also running each one for about 30 minutes in each direction, powered by a couple of D-cells. Once the gear boxes and motors had been run in, I cleaned everything up and installed Schumo reduction gears on each gearbox and reinstalled the motors.

When I was doing this, I noticed a small problem on the right gearbox; the frame of the reduction gear made contact with one of the gears in the Tamiya gearbox. Fortunately, the problem was easily fixed with a few swipes of the file. I used these gear reductions in my King Tiger and didn’t have an interference problem or at least I didn’t notice them). If I use these again, I will have to keep an eye out for this problem. The left gear box was fine… When all was said and done, the gearboxes seemed to run a bit smoother.

After everything was assembled, I lubed the gear boxes with a little Teflon spray, followed by a generous application of the Tamiya ceramic grease. I made some gearbox covers from some aluminum tape I found in the garage and bolted these gearboxes into the hull. The Wecohe suspension, the Sherman bushings and bonded aluminum pieces in the hull made installation a little difficult, but a bit of wiggling and the gearboxes slipped in ok.

Hull Deck & Miscellaneous Details
I began this phase of the construction by adding weld beads to the side and front edges of the deck. This was done with the deck in place on the hull, using the saran wrap trick to make sure I could get it apart afterward. What is the saran wrap trick? In order to prevent the weld bead from sticking to the hull sides and thereby preventing the removal of the deck when needed, I put a piece of saran wrap that had been treated with a Teflon spray between the hull deck and wall before applying the weld bead. The saran wrap was then removed after the epoxy had cured, leaving a joint that could be separated. I found the deck was slightly warped; this was corrected by bonding a 6 mm rare earth block magnets that I got from Gaussboys.com to the side of the turret, and a piece of steel shim stock to the underside of the deck.

I then added the engine hatch to the deck. This was built per the kit instructions with a couple of exceptions; I added a couple of metal handles to the hatch (from the Schumo detail set) and added some CA weld bead to the air intake (I’ve seen a number of photos that show this piece was a welded assembly – a thin bead of CA along the appropriate edges simulates this well).

I then added Schumo Bosch headlights to each side of the deck. I decided to use both, even though most pictures of Tiger 332 show them missing. Since the real headlights were designed to be easily removed and replaced, I figured that they were just stowed away when the photos were taken. Besides, I needed some way to show me I left the power on… For the lights, instead of LED’s I used grain of rice bulbs, as they seem to give a more natural light color than the LED’s. These were ultimately wired to the receiver, powering on when the receiver is getting power. A couple of pieces of aluminum tubing were bent to simulate the wiring conduit for the headlights and glued in place. A few other detail pieces, such as the tie-downs for the conduit, were added from the Aber set.

Next, I added the Schumo tow cable holders. The 4 front and 4 middle cable holders were located in the stock positions. The rear 4 cable holders were a little more difficult to locate, as their locations tended to vary, depending on the build date. As I didn’t have clear pictures showing their location on Tiger 332, I consulted a couple of other references for help; Germany’s Tiger Tanks DW to Tiger I and The Modeler’s Guide to The Tiger Tank gave some good info here. After I got everything epoxied in place, I added weld bead to all the cable holders and called it good… When I was going through my spares box, I found some pieces left over from my King Tiger build; the catches for the rear-most engine grates and added them in place of the kit parts. With these in place, I added the Aber engine screens. The next aftermarket pieces I added were the Schumo s-mine launchers. These are totally absent in the stock kit, but were definitely present on Tiger 332. Once the launchers were in place I added some small pieces of wire to simulate the electrical cables.
One thing I did not add (even though I was planning to) was the various Aber tool clamps. After repeated attempts to build these things, only to have them look really ugly or go pinging off behind the desk (where big furry spider lives), I had enough and just used the kit parts. I also used the kit fire extinguisher, as it seemed to have some pretty decent detail (far better than the one on the King Tiger).

The next additions were the driver’s and radio operator’s hatches. The hatches were modified using parts from the “K” spur from Tamiya’s static Tiger kit (#36203) that I was finally able to get, courtesy of the LHS. There’s lots of nice detail on this spur and its vastly easier to build than using Aber’s detail set for these hatches.

I attempted to add some detail to the left side of the hull by adding the various Aber cable fittings and tie downs to the left side of the hull. I found the Aber cable clamps very tedious to construct (much like the tool clamps)… so much so, that after finishing the first one, I decided to scratchbuild the rest from styrene. The styrene ones won’t function like the Aber parts and were completed (outer pieces and wing nuts) once the final paint was applied. All of these pieces were attached using 5 minute epoxy and had weld beads applied.

Moving to the front of the hull, I added the upper portions of the spare track rack. The upper and lower rack can be seen in photos of the front of Tiger 332. The upper rack was made of three 0.020 brass strips, cut to size (scaled from the pictures). I cut slots into the hull (going completely through) with a x-acto knife for the “uprights” that are protruding from the hull. The strips were inserted into the grooves, tabbed over inside the hull and epoxied in place. As always, weld bead was added where needed. The cross piece was bolted in place (yup… that’s a real tiny nut and bolt) on one “upright” and held in place on the other “upright” with a piece of wire (so I can pivot the cross bar to install the spare track… The wire was replaced later with a matching nut and bolt, after the final paint has been applied.

Moving to the back of the hull, I tackled the task of adding damage to the feifel air cleaners and the exhaust shields. The right hand feifel air cleaner was easy to do; I left it stock, as I had no clear pictures showing damage. The left feifel air cleaner was a little tougher. First, I assembled it per the kit instructions, except for adding the top. I cut away about 2/3 of the top half, down to the horizontal rib and replaced this portion with sheet aluminum from a soda can. I used the top piece from the kit as a template to cut out a new piece from a sacrificial soda can and assembled the pieces with CA, fairing in the edges with putty. To make the bullet hole, I drilled a small starter hole and gently expanded it to the desired size and shape using an x-acto knife and a dental pick. To create the dents, I used a hi-tech method… I whacked the filter with a screwdriver! Lastly, I detailed the feifel air cleaners with some itty bitty Aber nuts, bolts and chains.

On to the exhaust shields... Using the kit parts as templates, I cut more sheet aluminum to make up the exhaust shield. I then cut the kit parts away, leaving only the mounting brackets and enough to provide some internal support. My inspiration for this modification was (here). I cut and rolled the aluminum to shape (including the raised bead along the top and bottom. Bullet holes were added in the same way as the feifel air cleaner. The dents were made by pressing on the shields with the shaft of a dental pick until I got the desired amount of crunch.

I added metal mudflaps that I got from Tankzone. The real Tiger 332 had only the left side mudflap visible in the pictures I have, but these were such nice pieces that I hated to waste one. So I used both.. (well, they were both there at one time, weren’t they??) I also added the Schumo S-mine launchers at the corners of the hull. These are also some very nice pieces that add some nice detail to the hull.

On the right side of the hull, Tiger 332 had an interesting field modification (as did many in sPzAbt.503); 5 brackets which were made to hold an unditching beam or log. These were fairly simple to construct, the mount consisting of short length of aluminum tubing, which were glued to the hull with 5 minute epoxy (with weld beads added) and the brackets themselves, which were made from brass rod cut and bent to shape. The dimensions of the mounts and brackets were scaled from photographs.

The kit fenders were replaced with the Aber fender set. These were fairly straightforward to construct. I epoxied the braces in place on the undersides; if I had to do it again, I think I would have soldered them. Dents and bends were added to match what was seen in various photos of the real Tiger 332. The hole in one fender was created in the same way the holes in the exhaust shields were made; the only difference is the one in the fender is larger.

Tracks and Road Wheels
I ditched the stock tracks in favor of Impact tracks for my Tiger. These things are beautifully made, nice detail and no flash to clean up. At the same time, I also got a few extra links to use on the rack on the front of the Tiger. I decided to blacken the tracks the same way I did on my King Tiger, using Birchwood-Casey Aluminum Black.

I started by scrubbing both tracks and the spare links in hot soapy water with a toothbrush and then rinsed them off. I poured some of the Aluminum Black in a bowl and added a couple of drops of hand soap to it and brushed it on liberally onto the tracks and spare links (I did try this on one of the spare links first to make sure there were no problems – there weren’t). It took about 5-10 minutes to do each track. In total, I used about 2/3 of the bottle to do everything. When I finished applying the Aluminum Black, I rinsed each track in hot water and let them dry. As you can see in the pictures, they came out great; a very dark grey finish ( they look lighter in the first picture because I used the camera flash – in natural light, they look more like the second picture, with a slight brownish cast to them. I probably won’t do any further weathering on them, I’ll just let ‘em get dirty with use.

One thing I didn’t like about the Impact tracks was that inserting the pin to connect them was a royal pain. I bent a couple of pins while putting the spare links together and finally gave up and used a couple of pins from the stock tracks CA’d into place.

The kit road wheels were built with no modifications. I had given some consideration to replacing the bushings with bearings, but after a brief search, was unable to locate any appropriately sized bearings, so I used the kit supplied bushings.

Turret Construction
The first step in building the turret was construction of the gun. The major issue here was the modifications to the mantlet to match the configuration of Tiger 332, as well as to add the battle damage seen in photos of the actual tank. To accomplish this, the first step was to remove the extra thickness molded on the machine gun side of the mantlet, as Tiger 332 did not have the extra armor in this area. I used a sanding drum chucked in my cordless screwdriver to remove the offending plastic and bring it down to the same thickness as the surrounding area. I find that a dremel turns too fast for tasks like this and creates too much heat for the styrene to handle; a cordless screwdriver slows things down and keeps things cooler. A little 320 grit sandpaper and a sanding block completed the task. The battle damage to the mantlet and gun sleeve was done in the same manner as the battle damage done previously to the hull; using various hand tools, such as scrapers, knife blades, picks, etc. to carve away the impact sites to match the photos of the real tank.

I purchased an aluminum gun tube from Stellamodels at the time I purchased the kit and assembled the gun recoil mechanism using this barrel per the kit instructions (the gun tube was a perfect fit). I replaced the kit muzzle brake with a Schumo metal muzzle brake. As was my experience with the King Tiger, these muzzle brakes are difficult to fit on the aluminum gun tube, requiring a fair bit of filing and test fitting for it to fit correctly. When that was done, I added the locking ring from the kit to the inside of the muzzle brake. The aluminum gun tube and muzzle brake add a fair bit of weight; I needed to add a counterweight to the turret to balance things out.

Continuing my build with the construction of the turret, I pretty much followed the kit instructions during this phase of the construction, with no surprises. I contemplated replacing the kit escape hatch with a metal one, but on closer examination, these are the type used on late Tigers and were not appropriate for my model of Tiger 332.

One area where I did deviate from the kit construction was the installation of the turret roof. As I planned to add weld beads around the edge, I needed to have a tighter fit than could be provided by the snap in construction of the turret, but I wanted the roof to be removable for maintenance. My solution here was the same as for the hull: magnets! I bonded three 6 mm rare earth block magnets to the side of the turret, and three pieces of steel shim stock to the turret roof. I chose the locations by noting where there was some play in the turret- roof joint. The result: a much tighter, more secure fit of the turret roof, and the roof was still removable.

Next, I tackled building the commander’s cupola. Again the build was by the book, only I replaced some of the kit parts with some Schumo detail parts). I filled the drain ports and redrilled them, eliminating the elongated appearance some of them had from the molding process. I added a couple of pieces of aluminum tubing on either side of the hatch, (I believe these were used to mount a sun shield), and a wire to the front vision port. Of course, I added more weld bead.

I then mounted the completed cupola to the turret roof and added a bunch of weld bead to the turret. In order to prevent the weld bead from sticking to the turret walls and thereby preventing the removal of the roof when needed, I used the saran wrap trick once again.

I mounted the kit smoke dischargers onto the Schumo mounting plates. I had thought about using the smoke dischargers I bought for my Panzer III, but they just didn’t look quite right, so I stuck with the stock ones. I launched into putting all the detail from the Aber basic photoetch set onto the smoke dischargers… what a pain. Lots of fiddly bits that were happy to launch themselves into the carpet, but with some perseverance (and a magnifier) I got them built. Beer definitely helps when building these!! Finally, I glued them onto the roof using epoxy and added weld bead around the edges (used the saran wrap trick on the lower mounts, so the roof remains removable).

I decided that the turret stowage box was a good place to add a counterweight, so I mixed up a bunch of steel shot with some 15 minute epoxy and packed the box about 1/3-1/2 full. Once this had cured, I added the Aber latches onto the stowage boxes. The Aber set also includes a template for the rivet locations, so I added a bunch of real brass rivets (I think they were 0.5 mm) that I got from Scalehardware.com. I added a little “distress” to the corners of the stowage box to give it that lived in look. The stowage box was glued onto the turret with epoxy and some weld bead added to the mounts. The finishing touch in the turret construction was to add some detail pieces to the muzzle brake from the Aber set.

Electronics
I used the stock electronics provided with the kit, with a few alterations. First, I chose to use a single 4200 mah battery, mostly because the Schumo reduction gears took up enough space that adding a second battery was problematic, but also to save a bit of weight. Second, I added a 5.5 mm charging jack in the right sponson (accessible through the radio operator’s hatch) and an isolation switch in the left sponson (accessible through the driver’s hatch). Both the jack and the switch were bought at the local Radio Shack and were mounted in small boxes made from sheet styrene.

Painting
The completed hull, turret and running gear were primed with a coat of Tamiya surface primer, followed by a coat of Testors Model Master Acryl Antifouling Red, thinned about 30-50% with Tamiya acrylic thinner. For all my painting, I used a Badger Anthem 155 airbrush, hooked to a compressor. Generally I use pressures of 10-20 psi for painting, depending on the particular painting I am doing.

One of the tougher things to grapple with while doing this build was deciding on the paint scheme. My original inclination was to paint this beast in the dark panzer grey (as per Tamiya’s painting instructions). This conflicted with the knowledge that Tiger 332 was a March ’43 build, by which time the changeover to dunkelgelb would have occurred at the factory. The available photographs likewise seemed contradictory, some seemingly showing a panzer grey finish, others showing what appears to be dunkelgelb. I ran across this post on Missing-Lynx, which to me, made a very strong case for a dunkelgelb scheme, with olivgrun stripes. With this in mind, I reviewed the pictures yet again (for only the 40,000th time), and settled on a dunkelgelb/olivgrun scheme.

For the base coat, I used Tamiya’s XF-60 dark yellow, thinned about 30% with Tamiya’s thinner. For the olivegrun stripes, I used Tamiya’s XF-65 field grey (it’s actually a green color that’s probably a reasonable approximation of olivgrun) thinned down by about 70-80%. The pattern I chose was mostly from the pictures in Der Panzerkampfwagen Tiger an Der Front Bildband und tiger Fibel im Bild; once I realized I was looking at a 2 tone scheme, I was able to guesstimate a pattern. One word of caution in painting the deck; (unlike me) don’t forget to mask off the little bb’s that the turret rides on, otherwise you’ll likely be removing them to clean them... And watching them fly across the room… And cussing up a storm… And breaking out the flashlights and magnets to find them... And celebrating success with a frosty adult beverage! The olivgrun stripes came out a bit darker than I wanted; the weathering was able to fix that.

The mufflers were painted with a flat dark grey enamel base; while this paint was still wet, I sprinkled some baking soda on to create some texture. The mufflers were then treated with Rustall and the tops were sooted up using Tamiya’s weathering master to give a nice rusty, sooty look to them.

Weathering and Final Assembly
To weather the Tiger, I used some of the techniques found in Mig Productions book, F.A.Q. to do the weathering, along with a bunch of their weathering products. One important thing that I did was to try out every step on a test panel to make sure I was satisfied with the result, before applying it to the tank.

The very first step was to apply some paint chips. To do this, I used Testors Model Master Acryl Antifouling Red (the same as what I used for primer) thinned slightly with Tamiya Thinner. This was selectively applied to various edges, grab handles, near battle damage and on hatches. I tried not to go overboard with the chipping; a lot of times I see it overdone for my tastes. It was at this step that I finished painting the various tools mounted on the deck.

Starting off, I applied a filter to the Tiger; I used 5 applications of Mig’s brown filter. This added a nice brownish cast to the dunkelgelb and the exposed primer and lessened the contrast with the olivgrun slightly. I then applied a pin wash using Mig’s Dark Wash. This was applied to various crevices, weld beads and other details that looked like they needed some contrast.

Next, I applied a coat of Future to provide a glossy base for the application of the decals. Speaking of decals, I used the ones that came with the kit. I did have one issue with them; they were amazingly unresponsive to the use of decal setting solutions. I had to apply (and keep reapplying) Micro-sol to them for 20 minutes or more to get them to snuggle down satisfactorily. Eventually, I got the decals on and sealed them in with a coat of Testor’s Dullcoat. Before applying the Dullcoat, I gave some of the chipped areas, grab handles and battle damage a metallic sheen using a soft graphite pencil.

Once the Dullcoat was dry, I added the spare tracks and the jack block. The spare tracks were finished the same way as the rest of the tracks, using the Aluminum Black, followed by the application of 2 coats of Rustall. The jack block is real wood; I used a piece of basswood cut to size, with details added from the Aber set. I stained the wood using a brown sharpie, which I then evened out by wiping with a cloth and a little alcohol.

The next step was the application of a dust coat. This was where I really hoped to tone down the difference between the dunkelgelb and olivgrun. To do this, I mixed up a mixture of Tamiya’s Buff, Medium Grey and White, until I got a nice dusty looking color and thinned it down about 10:1 with Tamiya thinner. This was lightly airbrushed all over, with emphasis on the lower hull, where you would expect it to be dustier. This gave a nice dusty appearance and succeeded in muting the difference between the dunkelgelb and olivgrun.

Next, I applied various Mig pigments to simulate rain streaks, tracked on dirt, etc. I mixed some of Mig’s Russian Earth, Light Dust, Dry Mud and Europe Dust pigments to get a mixture that had just the right amount of subtlety. I also used the Light Rust pigment on and around the various bits of battle damage.

I then added the track cable to the left hand side. The cable was made from a suitable length of galvanized picture hanging wire on to which the ends from the kit cable were grafted (I tried to make my own, but wasn’t satisfied with the results, so I used bits from the kit). The cable got a wash with the dark wash before mounting.

I decided to add some mud to the Tiger – after all, some of Tiger 332’s most famous pictures are of it stuck in the mud. I mixed up a number of test batches of mud using the recipe in Mig’s F.A.Q. I made some changes to the recipe (Mig pigments, acrylic binder, replacing the plaster with talcum powder of Rustall Dust, depending on the texture I wanted), varying the choice of pigments until I got a color I was happy with. I applied the mud to the lower hull, running gear and fenders by stippling it on with an old paint brush.

The last pieces I added were the gun cleaning rods (which I made from 1/8 inch dowels), Schumo tow shackles and tow cables. I weathered the tow cables by first spraying them with Tamiya grey primer, followed by the application of a dark wash and 1 coat of Rustall. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the color of the mud when I took the tank out in the bright sun, so I applied some of my dust color mix over the mud. I haven’t done any further weathering to the tracks; they’ll get that with use.

This concludes my build of Tiger 332… now it’s time to go off and hunt down some Sherman's in the back yard!   More>>