My WIP on a Tiger I Tank!

[DdeWaard]

Hello everybody,

For some time now I've been searhing thingiverse and all of google to find a cool looking, printable yet high quality tank.
The ones already out there on thingiverse were too low detailed/not on scale or too high detailed, completely unprintable, straight from the Sketchup warehouse weighing 15Mb's orso.
Also, I LOVE the German WW2 Tiger I tank, so i decided to model my own, with 3D printing in my head and only the information the allmighty Google can give me.
I've read all about it on wikipedia, including the technical aspects and after doing some research, i've found this site: http://tiger1.info/vehicle.html which has supplied me with a ton of info.
Next to that, i use pics from the internet of actual tanks and scale models.
its going to be a model only, probably somewhere in the range of 1/48 or 1/32 with very high quality parts such as the tracks, wheels, suspension, hull and turret. of course, this makes it a large build with many parts, but easy to print!

So here are some pics, note its a WIP, almost got the turret done
I hope you guys will like it as much as I do.

Here you see my wrk in progress, the turret already assembled.

And here you see its various components so far

its components are very high quality such as the commanders hatch and the square hatch on the back of the pictures and it's all quite realistic for something that is going to be printed on an FDM machine.

It may not seem much yet, but I'm very happy for a few hours of work.
I hope to get it done in a few days/weeks, tepends of how busy i am

I hope you guys might like a big Tiger Tank sitting on your desk

[DanHall]

Nice job, looking really good.

[Jimustanguitar]

You'll have to scale it up big enough for a cat to ride in it

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSBKZPNsK74[/youtube]


Looks amazing though, very detailed! I love the practical and historical prints!

[Captain Starfish]

lol that took a turn to the unexpected!

Looking forward to seeing the rest of it unfold.

[DdeWaard]

You'll have to scale it up big enough for a cat to ride in it

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSBKZPNsK74[/youtube]


Looks amazing though, very detailed! I love the practical and historical prints!

How about I model the Maus tank next and make room for a cat?
Then it'll be a cat and Maus game

[drunkenmugsy]

Having wasted way to much time playing World of Tanks and using this http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Tank:PzVI I would print one of these for my desk! Love the detail.

[DdeWaard]

Alright, so, after a long time I finally got back to work on the tiger, I just never get the time to just sit down and work on this thing.
The research takes a longtime, all the measurements, pictures, scematics. it takes a long time to make all those things into a model.
Espeially the mantlet (thick frontal armor plate bolted to the gun axle) took a long time to make, no matter how easy it looks, from low pixeled google pics its pretty hard.

Now, about a week later, I have only been able to almost complete the turret, all that remain are a small ventilation cap on the roof, a hatch on the right rear side of the turret and a pistol slit on the left rear side.
I hope to be able to finish and start printing the turret by tuesday, I have already printed the storage bin on the rear of the turret and the commanders cupola, just for tests.
So here are some pics:

so this is the work so far, I love how it looks. the turret is almost finished.

and this is the diameter of the barrel, pretty thin huh? I am going to make the barrel in sections like this, so it prints easier. all you'll have to do is drop a droplet of glue in between the parts and the gun is made.

I hope you guys like my work so far, if anybody wishes to print te turret before the main body will be done, i'll gladly upload the files.

Take care,

DdeWaard

[teoman]

Instead of glue, melt some filament in acetone and you have your glue. And as a bonus it is exactly the same color as your parts.

[McSlappy]

Looking awesome! Beware of Sketchup's tendency to flip faces willy-nilly.

[DdeWaard]

Looking awesome! Beware of Sketchup's tendency to flip faces willy-nilly.

Oh you don't know how much I've been battling sketchup the past few years!
No matter how much I try to close all triangles on the mesh for printing, its hard to make complex pieces watertight... NetFabb for the win!
Its a pain in the A$$ sometimes but to me its the best pogram to model in for this kind of work, its so easy to make models from pictures.

[geneb]

Try DesignSpark Mechanical. It's free and the workflow is very similar to Sketchup.

g.

[DdeWaard]

Hello again,

Here's my update on the Tiger tank, finally.
I haven't had much time for this project, still got my life
I've been making a few testprints to perfect the turret, I think it looks awesome and that it's pretty high quality for 3d printing.
Only last week I've been able to start working on the hull after the damn turret was done.
So here are some pics of the tank as far as I got it today:

All that's left for the hull itself are some track links on the downwards sloped piece of armor on the front, some air intake vents and an engine hatch on the hull behind the turret and the 2 exhaust cilinders on the back.
Then comes the long and painfull process of making the wheels, sprockets, suspension and tracks. (yay) And then I hope to be done drawing and I can print it and throw it on Thingiverse.

Most of the info I get from the internet are from 2 websites: tiger1.info and panzerbasics.com. These websites contain photo's and technical drawings that use original dimensions and dimensions measured from tigers in museums.

In the end, the tank be about 26cm long with the gun forwards

I hope you like it,

Take care,

DdeWaard

[Eaglezsoar]

DdeWaard, a very good job!