VK 16.02 Leopard

[Edumardo]

Looks great.

More news!

For now I have glued three wheel axle brackets to see if they will hold in place with the glue I have used (revell contacta profesional, the blue one):

I assume te glue works ok?

Ups, I forgot to say in my previos post, but yes, the glue works, at least for now. I have assembled/disassembled all wheels several times and everything is in their place.

[HERMAN BIX]

You know there were 'Pocket Battleships".................how about "Pocket-Panthers" ??

[43rdRecceReg]

You know there were 'Pocket Battleships".................how about "Pocket-Panthers" ??

, that's getting a bit close to 'Pocket billiards', HB.
But, yes, this truncated Panther is shaping up very impressively, indeed. I wonder, looking at the comparison of the two hulls whether it would just be possible to jig-saw the hull sides out of the existing HL Panther Hull, using a template?

[jee]

Looks great.

More news!

For now I have glued three wheel axle brackets to see if they will hold in place with the glue I have used (revell contacta profesional, the blue one):

I assume te glue works ok?

Ups, I forgot to say in my previos post, but yes, the glue works, at least for now. I have assembled/disassembled all wheels several times and everything is in their place.

thanks, sometimes a bit difficult to find the corrrect stuff here in Russia, but this is available

[Edumardo]

You know there were 'Pocket Battleships".................how about "Pocket-Panthers" ??

this leopard is more german style, light reconnaissance tank weighing maybe fifteen tons more than their allied counterparts, sure!

, that's getting a bit close to 'Pocket billiards', HB.
But, yes, this truncated Panther is shaping up very impressively, indeed. I wonder, looking at the comparison of the two hulls whether it would just be possible to jig-saw the hull sides out of the existing HL Panther Hull, using a template?

Leopard hull is more like a Panther D or A than a G, i.e. the paniers are parallel to the floor, but it would be possible to jigsaw and do it like the buddy on the first page of this topic. Furthermore, my chassis is narrower than the Panther. Check this pics (achtung, spoilers!):

The good news is that STL files will share with the community so you can 3dprint it yourself, but there is a long way to do that.

thanks, sometimes a bit difficult to find the corrrect stuff here in Russia, but this is available

[Edumardo]

I left the construction on the redesign of the arm that holds the idler wheel. Well, it is now fixed in place but I had to improvise along the way. With the redesign I think I have totally succeeded, now the piece is more robust. I 3d printed with 0.1 layer height and 100% fill:

img-2013.jpg (82.34 KiB) Viewed 1409 times

Once the holes were reworked with the drill, my first option was to glue it to the side and from inside the hull use a screw to give it more support but it has not held and has come off, so we have gone to plan B: metric screws 3 and 4 and nuts to hold the piece, with a small flat styrene plate to give more strength to the whole. The good thing about this option is that it is not necessary to glue the piece and in case of breakage I will be able to change it easily:

[Herr Dr. Professor]

I had missed the blobby picture before. I am sure that was a frustrating and expensive goof, but I do see just a touch of humor in it. I make such mistakes on much simpler modeling processes. I do wonder, however, what the heavy pipe is, leading from the chassis on a curve to the axle shaft. Is it a brace? It looks like a sewage plumbing elbow from 75 years ago. I suspect I am missing something obvious, but my curiosity is never tempered by embarrassment.

[Edumardo]

It looks like a sewage plumbing elbow from 75 years ago. I suspect I am missing something obvious, but my curiosity is never tempered by embarrassment.

I didn't know the exact shape of the idler wheel arm either until I modeled in 3D. As the leopard is a descendant of Panther/Jagdpanther, I used the same design for the arm. I'm sure these images will help to put my design in context (pics from Panzer Tracts and http://www.toadmanstankpictures.com/panther.htm):

idlerArm1.jpg (24.41 KiB) Viewed 1400 times

idlerArm2.jpg (70.35 KiB) Viewed 1400 times

idlerArm3.jpg (51.73 KiB) Viewed 1400 times

My model and the reinforcement for RC:

idlerArm4.jpg (61.99 KiB) Viewed 1400 times

[Edumardo]

We had left the tank with the idler wheel supports ready, but with the left side of the hull unglued to have comfortable access and to test the right engine layout.

After a lot of measuring, centering, re-measuring and centering, I fabricated the right motor shims to put it at the right height (in the following photo you can see them marked with an A). Stacking styrene rectangles of 2 and 1 mm we give the desired height (9 mm). The shim closest to the lower front we finished it in bevel, because the screw falls practically in the front-belly junction and would not have where to hold:

Once this was done, I glued the left side and all the arm supports on the same side, and built some shims for the left motor in the same way as for the other motor. As I mentioned in a previous post, the space between motors is very tight, so I had to mount first the gearboxes without motor, and then the motors themselves. Aspect of the hull without tracks and without motors, both sides finished:

If you look closely, there is a "filling" in the form of styrene strip of 3 mm between the inner wall of the hull and each motor, to give solidity to the whole and stick to the measures.
And why stick to that particular measure of 3 mm? as I said before, the position of the motors and suspension is copied from Heng Long panther and in this the shaft protrudes exactly 27 mm. Therefore the motor is positioned so that the axle protrudes those 27 mm, aligning the drive wheel with the rest of the wheels and the tensioner. If you take a long shaft gearbox, you will see that the axle protrudes exactly 33 mm, which taken to my design is: 3mm filling + 3mm styrene thickness + 27 mm shaft.

Detail of the transmission cover, fastened with m3 screw. The nut fits perfectly between the engine and the side of the hull, without interfering with the "filler" strip:

What inclination did I give to the cover? Well, a lot of looking at visual references (panzer tracts panther/jagdpanther). It also serves to hide the axle bearing support, previously glued to the hull. As the piece has two rods in addition to the screw, I drilled the appropriate holes to fit:

[Edumardo]

As the cover protruded a little in front, I added this small curved piece with three m1 nuts inspired by the panther/jagdpanter. That's the thing about designing on a tank that never existed, I can take some licenses, but always based on similar designs for similar problems:

And finally the comparison between my tracks (67 links) and panther's (89 if I remember correctly):