Thank you all for your encouragements.
PainlessWolf wrote:A small metal 'U' there, press fitted over the plastic lip of the opening will provide a durable non wear surface and prevent any future issues from cropping up after assembly is complete
Good point Painless. I wanted to finalize the elevation first, and see what i end up with. But the push rod is very glossy and the plasticard quite strong, i think a lot of other items will fail before the push rod start eating into the plasticard guide. After a lot of finetuning to make it work correctly, i am hesitant to play with it again.
This post is for the completion of the howitzer, with a short video at the end.
To see the sFH 18 gunsight, mount and traversing mechanism, i had no choice but to find wartime pictures as these items cannot be found on surviving Hummels.
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
The gunsight kit parts are very accurate and finely molded but their design do not allow for gun elevation movement, which is surprising. I had to replace the main plastic shaft by a brass rod to which the bracket connecting to the gun mount can swivel. An M1.2 bolt is used for the other end connector. The gun sight itself was glued to the shaft and stays fixed.
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
View of the gun sight and traversing mechanism. Looking good.
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
View of the gun elevation hand crank mechanism. On the Hummel, it is mounted on a bracket attached to the gun mount.
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
I had some difficulty determining the size of the bracket. The size extrapolated from the Dragon kit was not a good match for the size of the Merit 1/16 crank mechanism. It might be a bit underscale. I beefed it up a bit.
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
Gun elevation is activated by a push rod connected to a large servo inside the hull, and sharing the hole of the recoil mechanism. It will be hidden behind the gun shield.
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
I had to move the connection of the rod towards the rear for a better movement. The rod just goes into the cradle by 10mm and stays quite solidly in place, but is also easily removable by just pulling it sideways. The elevation does not go as high as i wanted as it creates stress on the recoil push rod. The elevation servo is connected strait to the receiver on channel 6 and assigned the VRB knob, which allows a much more smoother elevation movement than through the TK40 control board and sticks. It also avoids the board chink que chick elevation sound that i dislike.
- RC 1/16 Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel Late Production - Build
continuing on following post.
Love it! 
