Tale of Three Tigers

Today I’ve been working on the exhaust and schnorkel cover . Yes just like the Tiger I the Tiger II had a schnorkel for crossing rivers . It was under a bucket shaped cover on the engine deck on some of the first produced Tiger II models . It was deleted early in the production run of  the 50 Porsche turret vehicles . The kit part is lacking some details ( a hinge and some hooks / handholds ) I can see the shape of them  but have no idea  what it is , but its missing from the kit so I’m adding it . Early Tiger II also had the Tiger I style exhausts with the sheet metal covers , then they went to the Tiger II pattern exhaust , again with sheet metal covers . Since I’m lacking T I exhausts in the parts box but have a pair of covers , I’ll go that route . The covers didn’t last long either , getting deleted after 25 – 30 vehicles built .

Tiger I with schnorkel

Tiger I type exhaust with covers , Notice bucket shaped schnorkel cover on engine deck

Tiger II type exhausts with covers

It’s coming along slowly . I’m not gluing the hull together till I get myself crew figures that I like . Still undecided on weather or not to add the side skirts and fenders , will have to look through the pictures I’ve got saved . If no side skirts I will still have to add the set of mounting brackets that are spaced along the hull side edges . Plastruct strip will work nicely , I’m not going to worry about adding the bolt heads  (.005 mm in size nfw ! )  lol