GuP mods for HL King Tiger: Erika's tank (new pics and vid)

[tankgirlfuzzy]

Well, I didn't really need a full history of "the General's" time on the board, but I'll take it and move on. What I was referring to was "putting your pants back on." That confuses me.

I'm glad people are taking the chance to reminisce about a long departed member on this thread, but I'd like to move on.

Anyway, did someone say 1/6?!! Max, you must not have googled my handle! (BTW, love the Hetzer!!)

(Okay, I only have one tank, and space, time and funds prohibit getting another, but still...)













BTW that Stuart was my first ever RC related project and customized vehicle, so the weathering was a bit crude. The Schwimmer was an RC custom of the $40 toy, thus the somewhat off proportions. The figures are all totally customized, rebuilt, sometimes full scratch builds of parts big and small (that Eowyn leatherwork is totally handmade). Don't do too much with 1/6 anymore, but the collection still graces my cabinets.

[Max-U52]

Love the figures, and the schwimmwagen is awesome. Got any video of that? Is it truly amphibious? I'm just about to embark on a rather ambitious little project, as soon as the 1/6 dragon schwimmwagen kit I just bought arrives I'll have all three of the dragon kits, the stock type 82, the DAK kubel with the balloon tires, and the schwimmwagen and I want to build them one right after the other, starting with the type 82 and finishing with the schwimmwagen. I'd love to know how you did the drive-train in your schwimmwagen. Do you have any photos, or maybe a link to a build thread? I'll be doing video of the entire project once I get rollin'.

As for figures, I like to lurk around ebay waiting for someone to put up a good piece with a low opening bid and sometimes I get lucky. Not long ago I got Rommel in DAK garb, brand new in the box, for $15. I've got about two dozen choice dragon figures that are NIB tucked away, and some of them I got very good deals on, like less than half what they usually go for. I've got the nurse with stretcher, the German flamethrower guy, the propaganda guy with his cameras, etc, etc. Here's a photo of some of my guys, and if you look real close you'll see a lot of cool 1/6 stuff. Bobby and Michael are in the 540K, but you can't see them, then I have the set of both with all the accessories still NIB, too. The white truck on the right I bought for the frame and axles for the 1/4 ton willys, but I like the truck so much I'm going to get the frames and stuff separately for that project, and I have two of those kits stashed away. That might turn out to be a build-two-sell-one kinda deal.



The Hetzer is my only 1/6 scale tank, but one day I'd really, really like to have an Armortek PIII or PIV. Size is a real consideration once you get up as big as a Tiger One. I can barely get the Hetzer in and out of the house because of the door arrangement, so unless my next house is set up better I think a PIII or PIV is about as big as I'd want to get.

[tankgirlfuzzy]

Nice collection Max! I see you are not the only one who likes the Germans! At least I have some Allied troops but they are definitely in the minority!

Check out http://www.sixtharmygroup.com/portal/vi ... highlight= and http://www.sixtharmygroup.com/forums/sh ... hp?t=10319 The first is the build thread the second is the paint. This was my first true RC project, so I was learning everything from zero. Didn't know servo from ESC at the time. It's what got me into warbird flying too because of all the trips to the hobby store.

Unfortunately the Schwimmwagen doesn't schwimm! I was too much a newbie to figure something that complicated on my first try. Just getting it to run was a win. I was real lucky because the guts of the Traxxas Bandit fit perfectly inside, once I correced the internal proportions a bit. Not sure that will work with the Dragon, though, since those are different proportions. The Dragon kit didn't even exist when I started the project--in fact, they came out with the fully built/painted model for $300+ only a few months after I started it, and the kit version came years later. I wasn't going to wait or spend that kind of money on an experiment, so i plowed ahead with the 21st Century Schwimmwagen.

[tankgirlfuzzy]

Oh yeah, here's some old vid on crappy camera from a while ago. I turned off the training mode for the second half and you can see it really scoot. First half is more scale speed.

phpBB [video]

[Max-U52]

Good video. She really does run great. Hey, in the photos you posted earlier, is that Sean Connery?

I want to go all out on my schwimmwagen, that's why I'm doing it last, to kinda cut my teeth on the first two. I want it to swim, the driver's head and the steering wheel to turn with the front tires, and some kind of servo system for raising and lowering the prop, as well as the usual sound and lights. Like I said, an ambitious little project.

My pitiful allied contingent is right there in that photo (except for Ike, who's tucked away NIB), three Harleys with riders and two foot-soldiers, but I just got a message on ebay about a large lot of dragon figures about to be listed and I saw some interesting U.S. guys in the photos, one from the 4th and one from he 30th infantry, and a commo officer. I'll see what the opening bid is, and if it's low enough I'll bid and hope to get lucky.

[tankgirlfuzzy]

Lol, if that pic didn't make you go "Ah, Marko Ramius from Hunt for Red October," then I've failed! Total custom job, sourcing all the parts and uniform bits, repaint, handmade medals. Such a simple figure but one of the hardest. Not perfect as the jacket was partially fudged on the pockets. I guess the headsculpt wasn't perfect, but a perfect Connery didn't really exist at the time.

Good luck on the Schwimmwagen, sounds ambitious. At least the Dragon kit is basically accurate with decent details so you don't have to scratch build everything, unless you want to.

[tankgirlfuzzy]

Hi all,

So after taking a break for most of January (always a busy time) I finally made some progress, even before the stay at home order in my local area in the past few weeks. Now I have loads of time, which is good because I have two other tanks to work on and another one coming.

I turned my attention to the rear plate details. The stock HL exhausts were absolutely horrible, huge seam gaps with halves not even lining up, and had to be replaced. I luckily found a spare Tamiya set for sale relatively cheap, but even those needed work as the wedge shaped grenade guards molded into the openings are pretty crude.



I just did some careful hollowing out of the opening with an appropriate drill bit, and then glued in some thin styrene rod to simulate the grenade guard. Also some seam cleanup and straightened out the flange area, as I decided to keep the lower part of the stock exhaust and just mate these on. I don't use a smoker so didn't care about hollowness all the way through. I cut off the "hinge" thing on the right side armored cover. The stock set is closer in shape to the series KT than the Tamiya one, which also saved me some work in having to cut the whole thing off!




The jack block and brackets are scratch made from balsa, plastic and leftover PE "sprues." I didn't try to go for ultra accuracy with hinges and wing nuts, but wanted it to be removable to make painting easier, so it just attaches on the right side with a screw. I'll add the handle part later, and also decided against trying to replicate the rivets.



Unfortunately I misjudged the size and it's a bit larger than it should be, but I can live with it. That's the problem with having to eyeball things instead of having real measurements to go by.

[tankgirlfuzzy]

Next, I tackled the curved mesh grenade guards on the rear deck. Erika's KT only has these mesh screens and none of the others, which is interesting:


I used the Aber ones, which are excellent but tricky because of the curves and bends, and definitely require soldering to put together. They are also too long and impinge the front corners of the turret (but not the rear), thus limiting traverse to just over 180 degrees. But, short of drastic alterations or a complete scratch build, I decided I could live with it. This tank won't be a battler and is mostly just for fun anyway!


The top screen for comparison is the Taigen option, which is pretty terrible (but would have fit better). The problem is those are meant to fit into the plastic brackets that come with the stock tanks, but which are not available for purchase anywhere I looked.

Instead of gluing them down, I needed them removable at least for the basecoat, and also felt a nut and bolt attachment would be much stronger. Unfortunately my hex head bolts were too big and would not fit, so I opted for tiny 1.2mm screws which are small enough to be subtle. Styrene strips cut and glued on provide the supports for the screw brackets, which also needed to be enlarged. I had wanted to put the screw brackets on the inside of the screens so they would be hidden, which is how it looks in the TV show (see screen grab above), but it was just too hard to figure out how to drill the holes just right and then attach the screws later if they wouldn't be accessible like that. So I opted for the real scale option as shown below.





It's a tight fit but the turret turns just fine until the front edge swings around and bumps into the front corner. I've thought of various solutions, none of them appealing. Sometimes good enough is good enough!

[tankgirlfuzzy]

Next up I worked on the armored ball mount for the machine gun, which showed ugly gaps where there is supposed to be form fitting armored plating, and also the ball is mounted too far forward. Here's an earlier pic with the unmodified armored ball showing how thin the plastic is, although it's hard to see clearly in shadow.

I decided not to move the ball back as it was too complicated to fabricate a new mounting bracket that would fit exactly and still move freely. But the gaps could be fixed relatively simply with some epoxy putty.

First, I want to show off my new MG-34 with the correct Panzermantel, courtesy of rctank.de. I think the tooling is actually Aber (beautifully made and accurate), but with an LED and fiber optic installed which also works well when tested.

To get it to fit I used some silicon fuel tubing to space it back properly and make it a press fit so as to be removable for painting and maintenance. I also crimped some JST connectors to the wiring to be able to remove it instead of soldering. I should have done that with the Bosch headlight LED but didn't think of that at the time so that's already soldered in. If it fails I'll replace with the connectors.

Here's the putty after it was cured, after lots of sanding and smoothing with needle files to get things straight and smooth. I deliberately angled the inside edges to give the illusion of depth so it wouldn't look so shallow. The putty was form-fitted to the ball while still curing so fit would be perfect and movement unhindered. The putty is Tamiya epoxy putty, and water was used to keep the ball from sticking while forming the concavity.





Ignore the tape on the end of the MG. The tip is a press fit and is a bit loose so will need a more secure fixative, although I'm hesitant to glue it and may just use blu tack.

I forgot to take a clear pic of the stock mounting plate but you can see a part of it in this pic. It locks the ball down and works well, though does restrict some up/down movement because of the bulk of the LED mechanism butting up against it.

[tankgirlfuzzy]

And that's pretty much it for the major mods! Of course I still have to clean up/scrape and paint all the tools and the cables, which are crude but usable. Also have to finish sanding the putty on the lower glacis. There are some other things I did which I didn't really highlight or mention, such as smoothing out the barrel, esp. at the tip next to the muzzle brake, and pretty much scraping and sanding out all the flash and seams I could find. But that's typical modeling stuff, hardly worth mentioning here.

Next step is primer coat, which will probably be a while away, as I don't have appropriate indoor space and the weather outside is typical Pac NW spring, wet and cold, not conducive to painting at all.

Erika's impatient for me to get the painting going so she can attack those pesky Ooarai upstarts!


I decided to go with metal tracks too, those plastic ones weren't cutting it.








The cables were temporarily pressed in just to give it a more complete look, but are obviously not in final form.

I'll post some updated video soon of the tank with more "appropriate" sound files.