Fabricating the Exhaust Shields

The exhaust shields for my Tiger were the first installed, and field-fabricated by repair crews. That being said, they were thin, and certainly designed for utility instead of cosmetic value. Keep in mind, they probably didn't have an elaborate bending brake, and cut the shapes with a torch. As you fabricate yours, keep this in mind. On the 1/35th scale parts I have seen that are of this type of shield, they have a very delicate louver cut and bended, which I doubt the field crews would have done.


What you need are a sharp pair of scissors, knife with sharp #11 blades, needle files, and one thing that really helped me was a pair of drafting dividers. I used the dividers to scale out the size this shield should be, and transfer the dimensions to a pattern. Being the nice guy that I am, my sketch of the part is above the text.

I used 0.010" brass sheet for the part. Follow the sketch, and with scissors, cut the overall size. Then, cut the side slots where the shield fits over the 3-bolt exhaust cover on each side. Round the corners where I have indicated using a needle file. To cut the vent slots, I marked the location on the sheet with a pencil, and then used a diamond cut-off wheel in my Dremel at a slow speed. Brace the part, and also your hand that is holding the Dremel. Take your time, and it should be straight. Cutting the slots will leave some burrs around the hole; you can clean these with a sharp #11 blade. Use a flat needle file to smooth out everything. Lastly, align the fold line on something that has a nice, straight edge, and slowly bend. The bend should be slightly less than 90-degrees. The shield is wider where it mounts to the rear hull.

To mount this on the Tiger, I glue a very narrow strip of 0.010" plastic, about 1/8" wide x 1/2" long, going up vertically from the middle of the 3-bolt exhaust mount on each side. This is a little bit of my imaginative engineering. Namely; the real field crews had to have something other than the hull-rear to weld this sheet shield to. Hey-it looks right to me. Then, using superglue, glue the shield in place. You may need to trim slightly to get a good fit-then try it again. Also, since these shields were sheet metal, they were beaten up easily. Now is a good time to take a plier and bend them a little, if so desired. Hint: If you have a slight fit problem, this can help/cover it up. If you do it right, it should look correct; like the photo at the top of the post.

To finish up in the rear, I reinstalled the jack, after cleaning it up. The crank for the starter (C32) is pretty weak, and was broken, so it was replaced with brass rod that was bent to shape. I removed the mounts for the crank from the plastic piece, and drilled these out with a pin vise to accept the new brass crank. I also saved the square socket from the end of the plastic crank and attached it to the brass replacement. Watch out for the starter plate (D2). On later Tigers, Tamiya has this correct in a straight up-and-down mount. But on the very early Tigers, this was a diagonal mount, so I reinstalled the starter plate diagonally. With this, I was done on the rear.

Exhaust, Part 2

So I finally received the plastic bits (rod, tube, angle, etc.) that I needed. If you check the Plastruct website, individual pieces can be ordered, but be careful. The minimum order is $25, so it takes A LOT, unless you have another project looming that you need material for.

I removed the installed mufflers, (Parts D1 and D15). This was a headache. Tube glue and huge locating holes. I filled and sanded the holes in the rear hull, and then repaired where needed on part D15. To correct the muffler, I removed part D17, the raised deflector, as it wasn't on this version. After I cut the legs for this, I simply cleaned the recess in the top of the muffler, and filled it using rod, cut into a disc, about 1.5 mm thick. I wanted this to be flat across the top of the muffler. Then, I took a thin slice of 0.16" rod, and glued it in the center of the muffler-this will be the exhaust flapper. The flapper looks a little concave in the drawings that I have, so I took 320-grit, and rounded it a little on the edges.

For the flapper hinge, I took a very sharp #11 blade, and cut a notch in the flapper that I had just made, starting at the center of the flapper, and going to the edge. The hinge should be in the middle of the exhaust rear, and I am just trying to simulate a hinge. A small section of plastic rod cut to length, serves as the pin.

There are five bolts that need represented, and in the real Tiger, these were a recessed screw. Yeah; I'm not doing that. Instead, I am going with a raised bolt-head, which will give about the same visual effect. To do this, I cut 5 pieces of very small rod, about 1" long. Here's a tip: Make sure that the ends of your cut are dead flat and square, using a very sharp blade. This will make the next step easier.

To get the bolt pattern, I dabbed a little liquid glue on one end of the 1" piece of rod, and using tweezers, attached it to the area of the muffler between the outer diameter and the flapper. I glued the first piece directly opposite the hinge pin, and then one on each side of the hinge pin. The last two pieces were affixed in-between these. Once the glue is dry-and I mean really dry-I used a very sharp side-cutter, and cut these off to where they are just barely above the surface of the top of the exhaust.

One thing that I need to point out, too. My exhausts are knowingly too tall, but it was done for the ease of construction. Here's why. The rod inserted in the existing exhaust made my life easier, but in reality, the outer walls of the exhaust should have been trimmed down 1.5 mm to where the molded top was. My method, like I said, made my life easier, but if you do the math, if this were a real Tiger, my correction would be 4" taller than it should. I'm not about to fuss over that, though.

So now that the mufflers are reinstalled, it is time to make those louvered exhaust shields. Time to find an empty aluminum can....