Oh boy another big cat I had never built before. This time a Jagdtiger tank destroyer. It’s a beast of a vehicle. Another eBay purchase for not much more than pennies. The kit seemed pretty old as the box was beaten up and the decals died a while back, but the box art still looks pretty good. Opening up the kit I just love the smell of 1980’s childhood I get from fading paper instructions and old cardboard.

I do read a lot of criticism on the net about these old Esci kits, but I love them. This one is another old gem. It’s a relatively straight forward and easy build as the tank has no turret and is made up up a big piece of lower hull and a big piece of upper hull. One massive barrel of a gun. It comes with a commander figure who I declined to include, plus a couple of hatch torsos who were also relegated to the spares box. All the detail is nice and chunky. Towing cable and extra track add some interest to the solid sides of the tank. One of the pictures in the instructions showed some battle damage on one side of the fender, so I hacked off the front fender on the left side.

The only thing that’s a real struggle with these Esci kits are the tracks. They are this horrible stiff vinyl type stuff that doesn’t want to go where you want it to go. Whatever you do, do not attach the side fenders until after you have the tracks finished. I used a lot of super glue and some clamps and wedges, and a lot of patience to get the tracks to glue and stay. I found that gluing and weighting or clamping or wedging them a small section at a time was the only way to do it. I managed to get the tracks to wrap around the front sprocket and then sag only by wedging some card firmly under the upper hull while the super glue was drying. So tracks aside the construction was problem free!

Paint job was a three colour camouflage I pinched from the internet somewhere. Chipping and mud and dust and rust all added later. The decals are from my spares box as the originals were yellow and crispy. Overall a great little old kit that still scrubs up nicely, if you can put up with the tracks from hell……….

My photos are limited to the churchyard right now as everything is packed away ready for some renovations in our house!