Tiger Time Again

After I'd finished off my Afrika Korps Tiger 1, I thought it might be handy to have some running gear for the later production vehicles, with the corrugated steel wheels. So I made some in 1:100 scale.

 The later production turrets changed a bit too, with a new low-profile commander's cupola like that used on the Panther and Tiger II. I don't know precisely when they first appeared, but I have seen a photograph of a Tiger with this turret in Tunisia, dated 1943. Anyway, I thought I'd better make one of those too. In fact, I made three, since I like to add crew figures where possible, as I think they add life and a sense of scale to the model.

I wouldn't be surprised if this cupola and those for the Panther and King Tiger all came off the same production line. Maybe not though; the Germans did seem to quite keen on bespoke re-engineering of elements for new vehicles.

 

And of course the hull of the beast changed as well, since the Feifel air cleaning system disappeared. So I had to make a new body as well. And now I have a whole new late-production Tiger 1 to print and paint and send into the Normandy bocage.

Test printing on my elderly Mars Pro confirms that everything prints and assembles as expected, which is always a relief.

The STLs for this model can be purchased at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/mojobob_hoochyman_tiger_1_late_production_, all proceeds going to fund my modelling/3d printing/roleplaying/wargaming hobbies.

 2025-04-26

I've added some separate track armour modules. They can be printed separately and be glued in place, or else they can be added in the slicer and be printed in place.

Challenger (finished)

 

Here's the WWII British Challenger 17-pounder gun tank in 1:100 scale that I posted a WiP for earlier.

I tried a new (to me) three-layer method of painting mud and filth, with which I'm fairly happy. I first painted a couple of layers of loose, sloppy, thinned blotches of VMC Earth all over the running gear, and on the hull where I wanted mud splashes, before washing the whole model with Citadel Agrax Earthshade. Then, over the top of that, I sponged speckles of VMC German Camo Beige. I also sponged it, very very lightly, on other places on the hull and turret.

Churchill 3" Gun Carrier – repaint

 This is my 1:100 scale 3d-printed Churchill 3" Gun Carrier (model design by M. Bergman) which I've repainted in SCC2 and SCC14.

I airbrushed on the SCC14 "foliage" disruptive pattern, so the edges are really a lot softer than they should be. Also, I tried out a new technique for adding dust and dirt with which I'm not really all that happy, but overall it will do.

Rear view

Port view
— the lights make the 3d printer ringing a lot more prominent
than it appears in real life.

Char 2C (1:100)

The Char 2C (also known as FCM 2C) was a French super-heavy tank of the Interwar period, and went into service in 1921. I don't believe any of them ever saw action; those that were in service in 1940 when Germany invaded were either abandoned, or were destroyed by aerial bombing while still on the rail-cars waiting to take them to the front.

As such, this is yet another model that is of pretty limited use on the wargames table, but as usual I don't see that as a particular impediment to designing one for 3d printing.

I originally found a model of it on Thingiverse, but the geometry of that model was so bad that I found myself spending more effort on trying to fix it than I would have spent in designing a model of my own. So that's what I did. It's primarily based on drawings in one of George Bradford's books, plus various photographs I found on the internet. This is one of those vehicles that existed in a variety of configurations, so I make no guarantees as to absolute accuracy. However, it does look like what it's meant to be, which is a good start for a wargaming model.

This model is designed at 1:100 scale for 15mm gaming, and it's in several pieces for ease of printing — this image has been assembled digitally. As of writing, I have the last pieces on the printer and, all going well, I should be able to put it together tomorrow morning.

Next Day....

Here's the first test print (0.08mm layers, eSun PLA+), all assembled.

Unfortunately I got some pretty bad under-extrusion on the turrets, and they'll have to be reprinted, but it's done its job to let me know what works and what needs to be addressed.

The main thing (apart from the missing lifting lugs) is that, to ease assembly, it really needs some locating sockets that I can put bits of filament in to make sure the pieces go together in exactly the right place. This was done all by eye, which works, but isn't ideal.

There's a lot of printing in this — all together, for all the components, it took me about 23 hours. The track runs alone took 15 or 16; I split them each in half fore and aft and printed them standing up. I tried a config in Cura where I printed them each in one piece lying down flat on the print bed, and that timed out at about 9.5 hours (probably more like 11, knowing Cura's estimates). However, I find I get better, cleaner surface detail on vertical than horizontal surfaces.