1/6 British M5a1 Stuart Vi

[Swamprat33]

Hi all, Been chatting to painless about the 21st Century M5a1 Stuart and so decided it was about time i started a new build thread for mine as my Armortek Panther is very nearly complete.
Apologies for word heavy first post.

Anyway, i bought mine from a chap in the UK and it had already been converted and as such was a great buy.
I ran it for a couple of weeks and intended to leave it alone so i had something to play with while i overhauled the Panther.

Anyway, it soon dawned on me that the Panther had to be worked on in the cold garage but i could pick the Stuart up and carry into the warm utility room to work on.
So i started to clean it up and in places it was a real mess where stowage had been glued on.

As i said it has already been modified, the main part of this was with the electrics.
The motors had been replaced with Graupner speed 600.
It has two Electronize speed controllers.
A Benidini TBS5 sound card with 40w amp.
12v smoke unit with fan.
This has two 12v 7amp batteries and a 6v battery to power the sound unit.
It has working front & rear lights.
It also has servo movable flashing led hull mg.

Not wanting to offend the previous owner, as the tank worked fine, but the wiring was a total mess. There was also a layer of oil and grease in and around the gearboxes that would have kept my local McDonalds in business for a month.

I had a go at tidying the wiring, and then put it all to one side while i worked on the Armortek Panther.

I have seen a couple of Stuart builds where fully detailed interiors have been added and while these look great, i dont want to spend quite so long on mine.
I have decided that i will do a semi-detailed interior where practical & possible and would like to detail the turret and interior that is visible through hatches.

I have created a list of requirements for this build:
British Stuart Vi (M5a1).
Remove all USA features that are not needed on the British variants.
Re-use all required electrical & electronic items.
Replace the servo-cam operated switches with Turnigy Receiver controlled switches to control lights etc.
Add fuse protection to electrics.
Strip out lower hull to remove original compartments & bulkheads.
Add in new engine compartment bulkhead and strengthen hull.
The engine compartment will house the batteries, smoke unit & speaker.
Add semi-Detailed Turret interior.
Add semi-Detailed lower Hull interior.
Add gun elevation & possible recoil too.
Improve external detail.
Try to keep the overhaul to a reasonable3-4 month time frame.

Right then, down to business.
I took the bull by the horns last weekend and ripped out all the electrics, then the tracks and running gear so i now have the bare lower hull.
I then chopped out the inner compartments and bulkheads then added a new 2mm plastic card floor.
I will then add 2mm card to the hull sides and then bond & bolt or rivet alluminium angle down both sides of the inner hull at floor level, which will run front to back.
This should leave me with a pretty solid lower hull shell that i can then start to add the internal engine compartment bulkhead.

I will post some more updates soon with some pix.

Cheers

Tim

[PainlessWolf]

Tim,
You are way ahead of me in the electrics game but you've given me some great ideas already. I already knew that I was going to have buy a real radio to run everything that we take for granted with our 1/16 2.4Ghz rigs and boards. Following along!
regards,
Painless

[Swamprat33]

Hi all, here is another quick post with a few pix.

All of the original internal bulkheads are now cut out and in the bin.
I have glued in the new plasticard floor (2 x 2mm) on top of the original floor that was cleaned up and levelled.
The floor is now very rigid.

I have just glued in the 2mm side panels for the rear half of the hull. The front half will be done tomorrow night.
I've already used 4 sheets of 2mm plasticard!

This really is just a big Heng Long. I've done this to the lower hulls of everyone of my HL tanks so far.

Photo of the basic engine bay with the 2 batteries and speaker included in their aprox positions.
The Engine bulkhead will go right in front of these.

View looking towards the engine bay through the turret ring.
As you can see, this really opens things up nicely.

IMG_1684s.jpg (84.24 KiB) Viewed 6189 times

I just hope that i can get the balance of the tank right with all this weight at the back.
I may need to add some ballast up front.

More updates soon.

Cheers

Tim

[sassgrunt]

Tim, as far as developing something to turn the turret, you might want to consider using K'nex gears and motors. Here is an example for a listing of their largest gear. http://www.ebay.com/itm/KNex-KNEX-YELLO ... SwxCxT9nfN The teeth are large and easy to work with, and the battery-powered motor units are cheap and robust. I used one of these gears (along with their motor) for a Juckenberg Maus resin kit. I needed slightly smaller diameter gear for a 1/16 resin M4 turret, and was able to cut out all the inner spokes from the gear, soak the outer (geared) ring in hot water, and re-bend it to a smaller diameter (after I chopped a section out). I see no reason why you couldn't take two of them, and using the same technique; spread them open so that two of them would make a gear ring large enough for the 1/6 Stuart. -Mike

[Swamprat33]

Hi Mike, that could well be the answer.

I am going to concentrate on rebuilding the lower hull and get the major structural work done before i get back onto the turret.
I had considered using a toothed drive belt (car fan belt) for the drive, but dont know if that would work.

Cheers
Tim

[Swamprat33]

hi all, been busy on other projects recently, but found another few hours on the Stuart yesterday, and made some progress on thefighting compartment.

I hope to get this all completed today and then onto the bins on the side sponsons.

Hope to get some more pix up soon.

Tim

[PainlessWolf]

Good morning, SwampRat,
This is good to see! The blizzard we had yesterday kept me from cleaning out my tank room and getting new house stuff into storage but we will do it this coming Sat. Then, I will be back in business and working on the Stuart again. Time lost from tanking due to the move, only a month or so. Your Stuart is really coming along!
regards,
Painless

[Swamprat33]

Hi all, i completed the basic construction of the storage bins on each side Sponson last night. I Still have to add clasps and hinges but am pleased with how it is looking so far.
I am planning on making the cover to the transmission tunnel tonight, but now sure as yet how i am going to secure this.
I am wanting to run cables through this tunnel, so may need to remove it from time to time.

One issue is that once ive opened up the turret i will lose the current method of traverse so im looking at alternatives. Also, after the added detail in the fighting compartment, i am now struggling to think how to get the traverse working from the turret ring.
I am now thinking of adding a turret basket as per the original and then add the gear ring to the base of the turret basket wirh the drive motor attached to the floor out of sight and underneath the basket. Not sure if it will work but will try a Heng Long setup initially as i have all the spare bits already.

I did a dry fit of the motors & batteries and all other electrics last night and all can be tucked out of sight , BUT, i am concerned that there will be a lot of weight at the back of the tank in the engine bay with 2x 7a batteries, smoker, 40w amp & Benedini, speaker plus the 2 Electronize speed controllers.
I will have to re-visit this soon before i get much nearer to completion.

Tim

[971wright]

Hi I was looking at a Mark 1 T34 on sunday , the traverse system on that tank may work for you, it had three vee shaped pulleys on the bottom of the turret, one was driven buy a servo one free and one was sprung loaded so you could remove the turret they simple turn around the hull turret ring. sorry don't have any photos but it may give you an idea .

regards pete

[Swamprat33]

Cheers for that Pete. Iam also looking to see if i can adapt the original traverse unit to work somehow.
Anyway, i actually cut the base out of the turret this evening, so no going back now.
This first shot has the lower half of the turret in place so you get an idea of the fighting compartment.

I think ive got aprox 12cms below the base of the turret for the turret basket which should be enough room. I should be able to to fit a 4" or 5" dia gear ring to the base and hopefully drive the traverse.

The final shot tonight looking towards the front showing the Graupner 600 motors & where the Driver & co-driver will sit.

Still lots to do for the major construction, then i can get onto adding detail.
Cheers
Tim