Panzer IVs- spot the difference

[43rdRecceReg]

Lol, I have real problems with the german. Im living in Austria but im spanish.

Yep, the asiatam lower hull is a bit longer than the heng long one, but still your problem is the alignement. The upper hull is not over the front part like you are installing it. Is BEHIND that, for being able to use the metal plate to attach both parts together. I measured my upper and lower hull and It is exactly as yours.

So as I told you, maybe when you install the metal plate (the one with the two screws) in the upper hull, then you will see with your own eyes why you can align it.

Look the images in this thread and you might understand it:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=17771

Hmmm..let me state this as clearly as possible, Rad. I have measured (repeatedly !) the Asiatam metal hull and -from stem to stern- it is slightly more than 1cm longer than the Taigen/HL equivalent. Never mind that plate and screws, nothing short of
a Deus ex Machina (Divine intervention..) will ever make give this irritating assembly have the same appearance and proportions as the Taigen plastic one. You can add to it, tart it up, smear it in 'zimmerit'; but..underneath it will still
be too long for the Taigen top. Fact. Not even Penn and Teller could disguise this problem ... Either the hull has to be shortened; or the HL upper hull lengthened a reciprocal amount. A third option is to use it for target practice with a sledge hammer... But this unit was not cheap, and so i shall have to bite the figurative bullet and modify it.. This is what the germans chose to do on the rc-ketten link. With the mention of your being Spanish..incidentally, for some reason I keep getting an impression of Manuel in 'Fawlty Towers' in mind, being confronted by an exasperated Basil Fawlty. Quite why, I don't know... Now where did i leave my hacksaw, I wonder?

[43rdRecceReg]

One final set of visual clues to the Asiatam anomaly, before I set out sawing the thing up. Richard asks whether Taigen/HL have the correct dimensions, or Asiatam. Well, I wonder what Tamiya- the Rolls Royce of model tank manufacturers-
decided on. Getting accurate figures for the actual length of the PZ 4 hull is not in itself straightforward; and then it's 1/16th of that. A cursory look on line shows figures ranging from 17.7ft (5.39mts) to 19.5ft (5.92)..and maybe that's at the root of the problem. I see Axel has the Tamiya hull for the PZ IV ausf in stock...and I'm sorely tempted to buy that for comparison purposes. http://www.axels-modellbau-shop.de/kata ... 5465...wow what a lengthy URL!
During that would seem a dreadful extravagance to the canny Scot; but I would see it as the basis of a long term project, when I've consigned the Asiatam horror to the smelter..... maybe.
Once again then, this is what the rear of the Asiatam hybrid should look like when correctly positioned. This also what the posterior of the real thing looks like too.. note the exhausts and rear flanges in correct alignment:

All parts correctly aligned

and from another angle:

The perfect posterior..

Now if you compare them with the pictures at the start of the thread, where the front glacis plates of the two were in perfect alignment, you'll see the difference...There was a yawning gap at the back. But look what happens to the front
when the back plates are in their correct relative positions:

....Worth a thousand words

Any attempt to find a median position, where the gap is evenly distributed between from and rear, is going to look...well, wrong. Really wrong. This is what the Germans found on rc-ketten. What's really astonishing, is..with the exception
of the german modellers I referred to..how nobody has noticed this before. Could it be a batch issue, I wonder? Whatever the reasons, lads, this is going to be a labour of..hate Now, is it hacksaw or club hammer?
Well...och well, since I shall be painfully out of pocket..it's going to be the hacksaw. Much as I'm now firmly hooked by the hobby..as with many self-confessed addicts here, I can still see how some tank upgrades, and even tanks are not really worth the high price they command.

[Tiggr]

You could always sell the Asiatam metal hull and use the proceeds to buy another dimensionally correct one.
Presumably Asiatam's hull is not to scale.

[silversurfer1947]

Scaling down from some dimensions I found, the hull length should be 370 mm.

[Rad_Schuhart]

After the new photos, I must say it looks like there is something going wrong with your asiatam hull. It seems you were right. Thats very strange...

[HERMAN BIX]

This might sound like Im on the crack pipe with the A/C on and the windows up, but could the Asiatam lower be the right length for a Hummel ??
Ten-mil is a bit discrepancy that I find hard to understand(yet its true) that a manufacturer could get so wrong.
The actual reasons will be lost to us end-users, but this is a big miss.

Got to say, why is it that the model PzIV of all tanks seems to be the most annoying yet be one of the most popular versions of AFV to want to build

[silversurfer1947]

Again, based on dimensions I have found, the hull length of a Hummel scales down to 387 mm, so it would seem to be closer.

[jarndice]

Herman, when this problem first came to light I thought along the same lines,
Which makes my purchase of a Heng Long PZ4 Body and Turret from Alwyn Turner very ironic because he had bought the complete PZ4 from another builder but he had no need of the body/turret because he only wanted the Hull to build a "NASHORN" on it.
Shaun.

[43rdRecceReg]

This might sound like Im on the crack pipe with the A/C on and the windows up, but could the Asiatam lower be the right length for a Hummel ??
Ten-mil is a bit discrepancy that I find hard to understand(yet its true) that a manufacturer could get so wrong.
The actual reasons will be lost to us end-users, but this is a big miss.

Got to say, why is it that the model PzIV of all tanks seems to be the most annoying yet be one of the most popular versions of AFV to want to build

Pass the Pipe, Herman, I could do with a toke ..Maybe Herr Tam Dang..the Asiatam boss, had been indulging in the same when the specs went off to the manufacturer. but 'Dang' nabbit.. it's so frustrating. At first I wondered whether all models of the PZ IV- the real one I mean- had actually been the same length...and thus models would have to reflect this....so maybe....Nah, Nah, no excuses: it's just a crock. Forum members on rc-ketten had observed a 1cm difference in hulls bought last year; so it appears to be an historic problem. I just wonder whether Tam got his specs (not the ones perched on his nose..) from a Tamiya model? That might explain the disparity. Shudda gone tae Specsavers, the noo...
Despite the frustration and disappointment, I quite like some of the detailing on parts of the hull, even if some evil spirit delights in making it difficult fitting the parts together...
One woeful inaccuracy I've noticed: the floor pan of a grown-up Panzer IV (and the Taigen reflects this) is bevelled upwards front and rear (below the glacis joint at the front and below the rear tow bar.), whereas the Asiatam is flat from the front bevel all the way to the tow bar. When you look at a real Panzer, or even the Taigen/HL one you can see the upward slope/ bevel through the idler...
Och well, live and learn, eh? It's just that i'd prefer to learn in a way that doesn't haemorrhage hard to come by moolah!!
On the plus side, the Taigen is a fun drive, even though the low-slung s**t suspension snags on things. Then there's that awful, ubiquitous, one sound suits all set of 'sound effects'.. Maybe a Beier sound module would sort that, as the handling side of things is generally ok with Taigen/ HL MFUs and TXs..

[43rdRecceReg]

Success!.. A fresh taut hacksaw blade, a mortice gauge set to 8mm as a scriber, a file, and a sunny day were all it took to get the Asiatam hull to sit under the HL upper hull. Previously, the Upper hull had looked as though it was 'wearing daddies shoes..'so outsize was the asiatam lower. Any future developments will now appear on my build thread, after this protracted glitch and hold up...All in all, giving the asiatam a snip at the rear seems to be the best solution. Thus, in all, after the 8mm cut- and some filing for fine adjustment, I took in the region
of 9mm off the back end.

The outsize Asiatam culprit

The offending posterior parts..

Waiting nervously for the snip..

The 8mm bits I removed..

Gone, but not forgotten!

At last: the perfect posterior! Now the Upper and lower hulls are in line at the flange that links them

Post-operative Panzer posterior

and the front looks as it should, but now I have to devise a means to hold the sections together tightly: probably a combination of a mechanical link (hooks of some sort), and mini-magnets..

Front properly lined up

That's all for now folks, until some other disaster looms