Heng Long M1A2 TUSK2 Abrams Metal Hull Build

[tankme]

So after seeing Tom and his TUSK build it got me motivated to sand all of those stupid armored tiles on my Armoured Models TUSK2 kit. I also realized I hadn't really made a post for my Abrams before. The way this build is going it will never be finished. I think I bought the tank in 2015 from Taigen and have been slowly upgrading and scratch building stuff. It's not up to a "Barry standard", but good enough for me.

She's getting closer to completion, but still a lot of work to do. Had to remove the smoke dischargers and smoke canister storage boxes as they both need to be relocated higher on the turret due to the TUSK armor being installed. Most of the light gray parts are from the Trumpeter Abrams parts sprues. I also made the Trumpeter commander's hatch operable since it's molded in a closed position. Currently it's sitting an a Heng Long metal chassis. Gear boxes are the RS-550 type that are used in the DKLM RC Leopard, but using 540 motors since the 550 motors were too long to fit in the Abrams.

Pics of the hull:





Pics of the overall tank so far:

[HERMAN BIX]

Holy molly that’s a busy looking tank !!
So much going on.

Remember Mr C has an advantage of alien eye size and lifespan so us normal folks can’t compete!

[BarryC]

Very nice Sir!

Barry

[tomhugill]

So after seeing Tom and his TUSK build it got me motivated to sand all of those stupid armored tiles on my Armoured Models TUSK2 kit. I also realized I hadn't really made a post for my Abrams before. The way this build is going it will never be finished. I think I bought the tank in 2015 from Taigen and have been slowly upgrading and scratch building stuff. It's not up to a "Barry standard", but good enough for me.

She's getting closer to completion, but still a lot of work to do. Had to remove the smoke dischargers and smoke canister storage boxes as they both need to be relocated higher on the turret due to the TUSK armor being installed. Most of the light gray parts are from the Trumpeter Abrams parts sprues. I also made the Trumpeter commander's hatch operable since it's molded in a closed position. Currently it's sitting an a Heng Long metal chassis. Gear boxes are the RS-550 type that are used in the DKLM RC Leopard, but using 540 motors since the 550 motors were too long to fit in the Abrams.

Pics of the hull:





Pics of the overall tank so far:

I like this a lot! The chassis looks really solid. This is the build I should have really done rather than getting the SEP v3 from dklm.

Hats off I really look forward to seeing what else you have up for sleeve with this.

[tankme]

So I don't even remember the last time I seriously worked on this tank. I actually started stripping it down to build it when I bought it in like 2015. It was back when Taigen got the first shipments of Heng Long Abrams. That's how long this thing has been in pieces. Earlier this month I said, damnit...I'm gonna finish that POS. I ordered myself a TK80 and in the last few days I actually got some work done toward getting it rolling on it's own again.

Since the last time I worked on the turret was pre-magnetizing everything, I had to magnetize the turret. That's one of Andy's nice barrels from Special Ops Models that I'm looking to adapt to the recoil system.



Then I ripped the Clark 3D printed recoil out of it that had previously installed and dropped this nice metal unit in it's place. It's the same one I put in my ZTZ-99 build and it worked great in that. I had to make small shelf to mount the elevation servo to. The added weight of the unit helps balance out those heavy modern guns.




After that I wired up the RS-540 motors and directly soldered them onto the TK80 board. The speaker and Clark board are on standoffs to clear the torsion bar suspension. Battery and speaker mounted up front to counter balance the heavy metal gearboxes.



I think I have a few turret details to finish off once the electronics are sorted and then it's off to paint. Let's see how long that takes...

[BarryC]

Looking great!

Barry

[tankme]

After only 9 long years, it finally drove on its own again. I finished up the wiring tonight. I took the time to solder the power connections on the board and used a beefy power switch rated for like 20A since I'm using the 540 motors. Track tension was good, power was good, speed was decent (although a little slower than I thought it would be), and the Clark TK80 was pumping out some massive sound from that Visaton speaker. I got the faster, modern tank rotation motor installed and wired up. Battery is a 26650 Li-Ion pack I'm testing to see if it can handle the power hunger of those big motors. If this keeps up I may actually finish this tank this year.

Teaser of the final layout:

[BarryC]

Nice, clean setup Derek.

Barry

[HERMAN BIX]

Yeah thats a slick set up.

[tankme]

Gonna try and restart this project. I really want to get this beast out on the field to play this summer. I dusted it off and started with throwing some Model Masters sand on it. I stock piled some before they were completely sold out.



Then I found the tray for the new electronics in the basket and attached it in two parts so that I could still remove the top of the turret using the magnets I had previously installed. I had also cut the rear of the turret short so that the basket would be always attached to the turret, but yet I could still remove the top. The tray came from the Trumpeter Abrams kit. I did have to shorten it slightly to fit the Heng Long the right way. I'm guessing the Trumpeter folks just screwed up and made it too long by like 5mm.



As you can see, the turret top still easily removable.



There will be more updates to come as I finish flushing out some of the last details on the turret before I throw some paint on it. I've got one of Andy's Special Ops barrels to install and the remainder of the TUSK armor around the hatches.

That's all for now...