Detailing the Matorro 1/16 King Tiger

GooglyDoogly · Post by **GooglyDoogly** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:32 am

Since I'm gonna repaint this kitty anyway, why not detail it as well?

Replaced the loader's hatch with a spare Tamiya part, since the King Tiger arrived to me with a broken hatch. Added little details on the loader's hatch, including replacing the molded handle with metal ones.

Added little details, weld seams, and texturing on the commander's cupola.

Added the sighting device, and I moved the crane holes to show an earlier-produced turret.

Opened up the ends of the rear hatch hinge covers, just like the real thing.

Replaced the overly simplified poison gas detector mounts with more accurate metal cast pieces.

Added an additional gas detector mount on the the mantlet, which was missing on the Matorro and tamiya King Tiger.

Drilled a hole for the co-axial machine gun.

Replaced the chunky stock plastic track hangers with detailed metal pieces. My KT was missing one of the track hangers, and promptly emailed Mato Toys about it. They promised to send me one, but so far, nada. So I decided to replace them all with metal pieces.

And replaced the stock barrel. It was oversized due to the BB-gun feature, and a *tad* short.

Yoxford · Post by **Yoxford** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:32 am

GD,

Don’t forget to tell about fixing that nasty bulge on the bow and the empty gaps on the front lower edges of the turret!

P.S. Great work as usual!

ostketten · Post by **ostketten** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:40 pm

Off to a good start there googly, great work as usual. I filled the gaps in the lower turret corners, and added the Schumo photo etched grilles today, but I'm holding off on the lower hull bulge until I decide if I'm gonna eventually upgrade the gearbox. Post some more pics as you go along, I'll have my notebook ready...

GooglyDoogly · Post by **GooglyDoogly** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:04 am

Thanks! The holes on the front of the turret was an easy fix. I simply crammed a lump of milliput in the holes, wait for around 30 minutes for the putty to harden slightly, then I used a sharp exacto knife to carve out the excess putty.

As for the bulge on the lower front hull, I originally was going to cut off the bulge, put a piece of plastruct from the inside, then simply add milliput to fill the hole and do the zimmerit. But...

The suspension of the Matorro KT was bothering the heck out of me. They're too low! It looked odd, especially next to other tanks. It looked like a King Tiger that had suspension failure due to fire. I looked at it and no simple mod can fix it, because you need to cut and raise each suspension arms at least half an inch to make it look proper.

So I cheated.

I ripped apart my Tamiya King Tiger. I never liked the zimmerit decal that Tamiya provided with the kit because it looked so fake.

But I always wanted a zimmerited King Tiger, so I decided to mate the Matorro upper and rear hull and turret to the Tamiya chassis. I stripped the paint off my Tamiya and re-applied the zimmerit in the lower front glacis with putty.

Here's more progress pics. These are the spare track links from...Schumo...I think. Notice the the pin are enclosed, giving a touch of added realism.

Added extra details around the driver and radio operator's hatches. And I also used the periscopes on the Wecohe PE set.

I replaced the Bosch headlight with metal ones from Schumo, and added details to it with Wecohe PE parts.

Replaced this part with Tamiya kit part, and re-applied zimmerit with putty.

Rear hull details, With working C towhook holders, metal armored pots, and chains for the crank holder. One of the exhaust broke while I was working on that area.

GooglyDoogly · Post by **GooglyDoogly** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:06 am

Spent the weekend working on this tank, and I got so into it, I forgot to take pics.

Base coat of dunkelgelb finished.

Various tool clamps (all working), tow cable holders (with working hinges), etc.

Engine deck details.

Muzzle break with locking nut.

Rear hull detail.

Now, I'm just deciding how the three-tone camo should look like. I know I want to do a s.pz.abt. 503 King Tiger around Budapest. A Kurt Knispel King Tiger would be awesome, but there isn't any picture of it, and noone even knows which King Tiger he had.

pickelhaube · Post by **pickelhaube** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:56 am

This is nice

Yoxford · Post by **Yoxford** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:10 am

GD It is great to see your accuracy of customization !

Very well done! Have you decided on a camo pattern yet?

Knispel was one of the best, next to Carius in my book…. possibly 195 kills… sad he never got the Knight's Cross, prob. because he was not SS like Wittmann….could you base a pattern on other 503rd Tigers? as most individual companies tended to have a uniform pattern with each other

GooglyDoogly · Post by **GooglyDoogly** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 3:53 pm

Yoxford wrote:GD It is great to see your accuracy of customization !

Very well done! Have you decided on a camo pattern yet?

Knispel was one of the best, next to Carius in my book…. possibly 195 kills… sad he never got the Knight's Cross, prob. because he was not SS like Wittmann….could you base a pattern on other 503rd Tigers? as most individual companies tended to have a uniform pattern with each other

Yep, if there should be example of a fine German soldier during WWII, it shouldn't be Wittmann, who was an ardent Nazi, but instead, a soldier who fought for his country, not an ideology. Kurt Knispel is that kind of person.

The only thing I didn't like about Otto Carius is he seemed to be a borderline Nazi, full of himself, and his utter contempt at the capabilities of the U.S. armed forces. I kinda laughed when he wrote about his "mistreatment" by U.S. soldiers. I couldn't help but think, "Hey, if he didn't like it, he could have always surrendered to the Russians."

And yes, I kinda just made up a camo pattern, but based it on other 503rd King Tigers in Hungary in late 1944. From what I gather, the camo pattern on every vehicle differ greatly, and the only similarity between each of them are they are all three-tone camo, and they camo was either done in broad irregular stripes pattern, or simple big irregular spots.

All I could find out about Knispel's King Tiger is it's a 1st kop. vehicle...and that's it.

GooglyDoogly · Post by **GooglyDoogly** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:52 pm

Here's some progress pics. I aibrushed a very thin coat of buff color mixed with dark yellow, to lighten and blend the camo colors to the base color.

Here's some of the tools, painted and weathered. They'll look much better once I spray them with dull coat sealer. The tool clamps are from the Impact set. While the Impact tool clamps are not as detailed as the Wecohe tool clamps, they are much much MUCH easier to work with.

Here are more of the tools and metal tow cable from Schumo. The tow cable holders have working hinges as well. It took a while for me to bend the tow cables into a more realistic shape.

Out of all the tool clamps, this is the only one that doesn't work...because I accidentally glued it.

The C-hooks and C-hook holders.

The hull machine gun.

All I need to do now is to do the wooden jack block (I think that's what it's called), and the fire extinguisher. I also need to add a little bit more chipping and weathering in some areas, and paint over the chipped areas of the zimmerit with more yellow/gray color to hide more of the red oxide primer.

Skauser · Post by **Skauser** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:09 pm

Sir , that is one beautiful piece of kit you have . I wish I had half of your talent.