So I was in the middle of doing body work on the 1/10 Jagdtiger and I looked over to see the Bambu printer just sitting there idle. Then I remembered I had close to 30kg of PETG sitting in the closet I got on sale for $9/kg. I started looking for a set of tank STLs that I could scale up to 1/6th scale. I really wanted to do an Abrams, but I couldn't find any really excellent files setup for RC. I figured if I was going big and going to use that much filament, I needed to find the best files I could to make the best 1/6th scale tank I could. With my love of Russian armor, I settled for a classic KV-1. Even better, the files are free, highly detailed, and optimized for printing. All the bolt heads are printed separately so post processing the panels should be a breeze as they can be primed and flat sanded.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5069466
So now the printer is busy churning out 1/6th scale KV-1 parts. The engine deck shown had to be cut into 6 pieces to print on my printer, but oh boy this is going to be a project. Remember, the Jagdtiger in the background is 1/10th scale:
The biggest issues with scaling up a highly detailed tank like this is that the original designer used a lot of bearings. Bearing holes don't scale from 1/10th to 1/6th very well as in the bearings become non-standard sizes in the large scale. Rather than modifying the design, I will find bearings to fit the new openings or find/build sleeve bearings to fit the design. My girlfriend's Dad was a welder so I'm going to have him weld my tool post to the top slide of my metal lathe and then I can actually turn the adapters I need.
I feel nuts...lol
