Hi everyone,
I’m brand new to the forum and I have what might be a silly question. I am getting ready to start building Tamiya’s 1/35 Sturmtiger.
The kit looks really great but there is one thing I noticed. The barrel (which has a huge bore) has no rifling. Is it supposed to be a smoothbore or is it supposed to have lands and grooves in it. If it does, is there an aftermarket barrel for it, or does someone know how to put them in there? Bear in mind
I am what you would consider a novice and not real familiar with alot of the techniques used by more experienced modelers. Any help would be greatly appriciated.
Thanks[bow]
First off KODA, Welcome to the Dark Side! Sturmtigers initially had 9 groove rifling. This was later changed to 4 times as many, 36 groove rifling. This had nothing to do with improving the stabilization of the projectile, it was to ease the work of the loaders when aligning the lugs into the rifling. Most aftermarket photo-etch detail sets come with a rifling insert which is rolled up and inserted into the barrel. I found this difficult to do since the brass didn’t want to roll up very easily. Perhaps annealing it with a torch would have rendered it more malleable. Instead, I copied the part on a piece of sheet lead, rolled it up and pushed it into the barrel, this worked perfectly and was already in a nice gun metal color.
Welcome Koda to the forums. The barrel should be rifled. Someone makes and aftermarket pe, but I’m not sure of the name. Someone should chime in and answer your question. You can go to an online like www.greatmodels.com and do a search under sturmtiger.
AH HA!! my thing. Koda, I did the PE rifling treatment to my Tamiya sturmtiger a few weeks ago. I used the Aber PE set. I did aneal the brass to make it a bit easier to roll. You have to sand down the inside of the barrel to make it fit but it isn’t much. A few minutes with a drum sander make quick work of it. I pre-rolled the sheet of rifling then inserted it into the gun tube WITH NO GLUE! I found that a Sharpie marker is the perfect diameter to cram into the barrel to seat the brass. Now mine didn’t line up perfectly at the ends so I left a bit hanging out then trimmed it flush (CAREFULLY) with a motor tool and files. When its all done I added a few drops of THIN superglue to the ends of the barrel where the edge of the brass is and it glues it tight. I was very much dreading the process but it turned out to be easier than I though. Give it a whirl. It makes all the difference in that emty tube.
Good luck and welcome to the forums…
Welcome KODA,
The Aber rifling is the way to go, I tried the Eduard set which is steel instead of brass. I torched the barrel lining until it glowed red, and still couldn’t get it to anneal enough to roll properly to set in the barrel. Aber is much easier, and it absolutely improves the look of the model. Good Luck.
Funny, my Eduard set was brass, I know they make both steel and brass PE, but I haven’t seen the same set made out of both materials. The brass was hard enough to roll, I’m sure the steel was even more fun!
Welcome to the forums KODA! As you can see, there are lots of knolwedgeable folks here with great advice on just about anything. Good luck on your ST!
I may have gotten an old Eduard set Peri, I know Eduard reworked most of their sets a year or two ago, and I picked up my set at a bargain price in a swap meet. Probably an example of you get what you pay for. [banghead]
Thanks for the help one and all. I suppose my next online stop will be to Home-Town
hobbies for an Aber PE detail set. Thanks again everyone !