Hello,
After watching a few good looking HL Panzer III, i decided to take a few hours to upgrade my old Ausf L that i will paint and finish at the same time as the Ausf M.
I opened the HL ausf L. It's bizarre to inspect your own work from a previous decade. It has a good gearbox. When i originally replaced the BB barrel by a more accurate one, i did not know at the time how to do a recoil with flash, and the HL electronics were not supporting it. The barrel and elevation were fixed in place, and the BB unit was emptied as a holder for the barrel.
So this tank could only drive around and turn the turret, that's it.
I threw away in the garbage all the RX-18 stuff and will have to get a couple more TK 7.1 for plug and play on my tanks. I decided to give it servo recoil, flash and coax MG in addition to other cosmetic details, but it shall remain a HL panzer III.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 1.JPG (2.46 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
Found an intact HL BB unit in the junkyard to transform into a recoil unit, i have many.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 2.JPG (2.58 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
Then emptied but i keep the slider.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 3.JPG (2.07 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
The bottom section is cut away.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 4.JPG (1.53 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
I think the aluminum barrel was from Tank-modellbau of Germany. After taking measurements with the home made recoil unit, the root is determined to be too long and is cut. A brass tube is used as a connector with the recoil unit slider.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 5.JPG (1.75 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
The metal barrel support tube that was inserted into the plastic barrel support is still good and the barrel slides well. All a need is to make sure nothing in the recoil unit will create any friction with the barrel.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 6.JPG (1.76 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
After re-assembly of the barrel with the slider inside the recoil unit, it is mounted on the turret like it used to be. A regular micro servo is installed on the side for recoil with a push rod.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 7.JPG (1.55 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
An elevation servo is installed at the back, with a push rod to the back of the recoil unit, providing much better elevation than the old HL motorized elevation unit. A yellow LED with fibre optic is installed for the coax machine gun and also inside the L60 for gun flash. I could install a gun smoke but not on this one.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 8.JPG (1.86 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
Everything is tested and working fine.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 9.JPG (2.82 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
Here we go, a HL with L60 main gun servo recoil, flash, sound, servo elevation, with coax MG flash and sound, in maybe 4 hours of work, at the cost of 2 micro servos and push rods. Works better than anything you can purchase.
- 1/16 PzKpfw III Ausf M - Trumpeter/Heller kit with Taigen hull integration - Build
- 10.JPG (1.97 MiB) Viewed 117579 times
continuing on following post