1/35 Italeri Tiger 1 H1

My latest project is a 1/35 Italeri Tiger 1. I know a lot of people knock this kit but I'm not really an expert on Tiger's so accuracy is not a big issue for me. I have to give credit to Matt Grzybinski on the Armorama forum. His work on a 1/25th Tamiya Tiger was my inspiration. I don't expect to turn out anything near as good but I figured this kit would be a good base to try out some new techniques.

As I've said, I'm not a Tiger officianado but it seems to me that the Italeri kit has features more common to a Jan/Feb '43 production vehicle rather than an early version. One of of the major changes required was to add the escape where the right side pistol port is.
This was a bit of of a challenge. I cut the hatch out of plastic card and carefully sanded it to what looked to me to be reasonably circular. I then cut the hole in the turret all the while checking the fit. The hole didn't come out too clean - the edges should have been straight but they came out tapered in places and gappy. I've tried to fix this with filler. I have a bit more work to do here.

I added some details to the commander's copula with bolt heads cut off an old Tamiya KV-2 hull, some plastic strip and fine wire for the spring. The weld beads were done with stretched sprue softened with glue and textured with an old X-acto blade. The bead around the cupola is probably overdone.
The join of the turret roof needed some filling and sanding especically towards the mantlet on both sides. I went over the welds with a hot knife that I picked up at a craft store.
This angle shows some more of the details added to the copula and hatch. The inside of the hatch is not the greatest but I'm hoping it won't be too bad once the commander is in place.

GB