Tiger II – Friedhof.

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Can’t agree more. I visited Erich, a local hobby colleague of mine that offered himself to help me working in other model that I seem to not to be able to finish, lol. When I visited him he showed me his impressive toy collection; loads of trucks and construction vehicles, but among them he had a Tamiya King Tiger. He told me a friend of his found it in the bin (!!!) and gave it to him. Luckily, he was not into tanks and to my inmense fortune he decided to give it to me! I received it with open arms and brought it to its new home.

The paint job was atrocious and the assembly was poor with all the parts joined with superglue. It was complete, only lacking the barrel and a few track links. When I opened it I saw it had battery, a decent ESC and even an expensive Futaba receiver! Sadly, it was the early or “old clutch” version which means very limited functions like no sound, no barrel elevation, no lights, not good driving control among other issues.

Due to the parts were superglued and not melted and joined together with solvent, it was very easy to fully disassemble it and strip all the paint. I spent several months debating with myself what to do with it. First option was to paint an ambush or three tone camo like my other King Tiger, so I could start forming a platoon… and then I thought it had no sense to have the same toy twice. After some time struggling, I realized I did not want to mess with getting and fitting new parts for the needed turret functions so the idea of a dystopian Bergetiger 2 came to me. There was no Bergetiger 2 in the entire war, so I thought it could be something very original and unique.

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Painting process.

After removing all the parts and stripping the paint I decided to paint it in hull red and splash an apocalypse look to it with factory white markings here and there, and also decided to not to fit most of the tools, fenders and accessories. I also painted the turret with some war slogans because I wanted to place it in my diorama as some sort of desperate bunker… But then I saw how nice it looked all together and I fell in love with it. It looked much better than my other King Tiger, and in any case, it was much more original. I Absolutely love it. The intention of the markings was to give it a rushed out of factory look, as well as moral boost slogans. There are markings and numbers for the armor metal plates, and also for the side fenders, rear fenders, Notek and some other parts that were supposed to be placed but are lacking either for lack of time or lack for the parts itself. It also has the “G” markings of the use of glycol as fuel… (Thanks for the idea, Mr. Schwerepanzer!) But as my friend Wolfgang pointed, it can also work as a Grazer number plate, lol.

At that point the Bergetiger 2 idea vanished and I decided to keep this new King Tiger as it is. So far, it is not a runner and I am pretty sure it will never be, but it can be towed. It does not only need expensive and almost impossible to find parts for the turret, but also all the upgrades mentioned in my other build, so it will be very time consuming and pricey for achieving semi acceptable driving capabilities. But no doubt it looks badass in my diorama! It will be placed in the center of Stolzdorf next to my Tiger I, as the final last defense.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention, I painted it with Tamiya paints and varnished it with “Ammo ultra matt varnish” I must say I am having poor experiences with most of “Ammo” products. In the case of varnishes the matt is still glossy, and the ultra matt leaves a horrible white fog finish which is also very rough to the touch. Almost like the model was covered with sand, and grabs dust that can be noticed in the pictures. It partially ruined my model… This might be my mistake but I never had a similar issue with Vallejo ultra matt polyurethane varnish.

Anyway, the overall look is awesome and it is another gem in my diorama. And what the heck, it was free, so double win!

Thank you Erich, for giving me the tank. I appreciate it A LOT.
And thanks Daryl, for sending me the barrel and the spare tracks required.