First off. I am a complete newbie to model building and RC tanks in general! I haven't touched a model kit in around 40 years or so.
So I thought it eminently sensible to jump straight in at the deep end. I bought a Torro/Taigen 1/16 scale Tiger 1 (Early) kit from Tankzone in the UK. This was the "Pro" Torro kit with lots of metal parts and included a radio, smoke gen, speaker, motherboard, all cables etc.... I wanted to get the whole lot right up front. The price was decent and it was delivered in 2 days.
Opening it up, all the boxes are marked Taigen, so I guess the Torro and Taigen are both the same thing:
The first thing that struck me was how well packaged everything was. Multiple boxes of parts, all clearly labelled to correspond to the instructions. The instruction book is full colour and pretty comprehensive - although I would prefer an electronic version on line to be able to zoom into some of the details a bit more.After a couple of days pondering and reading, I finally got started today and built up some of the lower hull. There's quite a lot of small screws, nuts and bolts and thread locker will be your friend. Luckily, I own Harley Davidson motorcycles, so have plenty of blue Loctite to hand!
The first step of the instruction manual tells you to build the track tension adjusters - but they came already assembled. Maybe that's because most people don't own c-clip pliers?
Next up, installing the "axle guides"? I don't know what to call these, but I guess that's what they do.
16 of these in total, so 32 small screws, all threadlocked. I used a head magnifier to make this easier. I also installed the adjustment posts for the track tensioners.
Now the.....umm..."torsion bar mounts" perhaps? I guess that's what they are:
Then I screwed the metal "tub" to the plastic external hull and assembled the track torsion adjusters.
And that's it for tonight. I'll post more as I continue in case anyone is interested, but it will probably be a bit stop-start due to other stuff in life.
So far, I am quite impressed with the kit. It all seems to line up well and is well made. The manufacturer has also helpfully included some spare parts - so if you need 16 of an item, there tends to be 17 in the bag....
