Scratch build SDKFZ 251 / 23 Ausf D Recce vehicle in 1:11 s

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Moving swiftly on,
added the led for my MG42 flash, its a super bright SMD 0.5mm x1mm wired to 0.1mm lacquered copper wire.
The tiny dot inside the black MG muzzel is the led.
You drop it you loose it.
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[Will01Capri]

Looooking gooooood
I need to get me some of those smd's, they could come in proper handy

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Hi Mr Will,
Thx for your interest, they do fit into some tiny spaces, they pack quite a punch too despite their size.
Short clip of the MG 42 flash working.

phpBB [video]

Regards.
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Hi,
Back to the wheels of the Halftrack, turned up some wheel centers for the 6 outer wheels, they just had an open hole where the wheel Allen bolt fits to the suspension arm.
Now here is a bit of an issue as the internal diameter of the "bolt hole " in the wheel is tapered getting smaller the further down you go making any cap fitting difficult, so i popped each wheel into the lathe and bored out a concentric hole about 3mm deep, this will allow my turned caps to fit in and hopefully stay put.
A couple of pics.
Just need to work something out for the 2 sprocket hubs and 6 inner road wheels.
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More stuff on the halftrack done.
Turned up some Aluminium center caps for the sprocket hubs, just need the 8 nuts adding to the flange when i get some to finish.
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For those still following along
More done.
Turned my attention to the inner wheels, i used the standard wheel attachment screws / bolts to fit everything together to see if it all worked which it does very well, however the standard bolts are too long by about 4mm, (see pic) the screw end of the bolt is 2.89mm wide with a type of self tapping thread to go into the plastic suspension arm, these are not available to buy or realistically make shorter so i used some 3mm x 35mm cap / machine screws i had in stock and tapped out the hole in the suspension arm 3mm so they would screw into it correctly, the original bolts were held in place when the shoulder of the bolt tightened up against the suspension arm.
The hole in the wheel is 4mm diameter so i bushed up the hole with some 4mm brass tube by 3mm internal diameter which allows the new bolt to pass through, i made this bush slightly longer than the wheel and its axle to allow the bolt to tighten up against this brass bush and the suspension arm locking it in place as per the standard original fitment, there is enough clearance when tightened to allow the wheel to spin freely on the brass bush, and now the 4mm over length of the original bolt is removed, now i can sort an axle cap.

Hopefully some pics will show it better
Regards
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Hi,
Yet more ramblings from me..
Fitted some Axle caps for rhe idler wheels, the idler wheels are held on with collets so i obtained some king tiger idler axle caps with the 8 bolt locating lugs, at 1/16 scale they are just about right for a 1/11 scale halftrack and with the Allen screw removed from the collet slip over the collet outer diameter, i then measured where the allen screw would be when inside the cap and drilled it out so as to allow the allen screw to be inserted from outside the cap.
I glued the collet into the axle cap and alligned up the holes and fitted the allen screw, i removed the small boss on the idler wheel to allow the cap to fit up against the wheel.
The axle shaft needed shortening by about 5mm as it was only roughly measured long when i was trying everything out to see it would work.
The axle caps were then fitted to the shaft and allen screw tightened passing through the axle cap, as the cap is now attached to the axle rather than the wheel i could turn the cap / axle so the allen screw hole faced down towards the ground concealing it.
I also used some road wheel axle caps that were made to fit over the 3mm Allen bolts previously mentioned in the previous post, looks much more scale like now i think.
Some pics of my ramblings.
Looking at the inner road wheels i think i might trim down the wheel boss and make the bolts shorter then i can trim down the caps so they are not as long as i think they stick out too far from the road wheel.
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Hi,
With regard to my last post, i have altered the inner road wheels to allow for a smaller length axle cap.
I removed some material off the wheel boss, turned down the shoulders of the wheel bolts and removed some material from the axle caps length, this moved the wheels closer to the hull so i had to extend the wheels axle where it bolts onto the suspension arm to get the inner road wheels back to the correct spacing to fit inside the tracks for correct alignment.
I then managed to remove 5mm from the length of the Axle caps which i think has greatly improved the apperance.
A pic of the now finalised caps.
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Finally managed to get around to making the last padlock and retaining chain for the side lockers, they were VERY tedious and fiddly to make due to their size, but now all 6 are done.
Just got to add the key cover
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Oops forgot one.
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