Converting a HL king tiger into a e50 build 6/3 update

[mustclime]

Back to the turret.....did a lot of thinking about turrets in wwII.....If you really think about it, for the most part everyone but the germans were doing cast turrets by the mid point of the war. The main reason for this was man hours needed for each turret. So It goes to reason that if the germans were going to come out with the E series tanks to simplfy production and and parts supply, something like the turret would need to be simple to make...that means imo no fancy armor plate bending like the panther , tiger or king tiger. Just roll out the rolled armor plates, lay a pattern on them and burn out the shape.

I started by adding a base to the turret....



and glueing everything to gather....



next I made every thing smoooooooth..



and add some .8mm card for the edges of the plates...



and let dry.....

[mustclime]

While everthing was drying i went to work on the rear excape hatch.....cut out the old hl kt hatch



add a back....to give it some thickness...



make another handle out of a paper clip and drill some hex stock



and nuts on the handle....



everything on the turret is dry, so I brake out the dremmel with a cutting disk and make the .8mm plastic card look like torch cut armor plate






and thats it for now.

[Andy in Cheltenham]

Still liking.

[mustclime]

Been bissy sanding and working on the turret....found these and thought I would post them,,,,because they were interesting when designing my turret...










Kinda shows a common design flaw with the german tank design....maybe i will fix that with my VK3002 DB prodject...

with any luck I will finish the last of the edging and weld lines on the turret tonight..then I can start adding some details...pics to come.

[mustclime]

Well its just been details and more details.....Istarted assing more seam work...







and got the rear hull plates up to scale thickness....don't know how I missed this on the kt...



added some primer to look for issues...







some seams for the lower hull....



and some tiger 1 rear fenders...With any luck, the hinges will work..





And I decided that I need some torch cut sides on the top f the turret...



I wold have gotten more done but it seams I need to spend more time on the new battle field....
I need t decise on how I am doing the turret hatches,,,,and finish the mantel.

later

[mustclime]

Got some more time tonght.....more detail work....

added the torch cut marks in the upper turret....



and the finel roof peace woth my new welder....



nothing like a baby hypo from stop and shop...tht the the tester glue "tubes" that fit over it like they were made for each other...

and let the welding begin....







here is the first look at the mantel...with the ir tube attached and a casting seam....still need work



I think I am going to give in.....I wanted this turret to be as easy as possible to produce...but there was no way to fit both the loader and the comander hatches on the turret without looking dumb.....so I am trying out a new hatch angement.......what do you think?



I am not really happy with the range finders...I think they are to small...

I decided to mess with the light "cable"...made out of a paper clip...







thats it for tonght...tomorrow I will be working on the club battle field.....

[slaychild]

Looking good buddy!!! Cant wait to see it finished!

[mustclime]

Thanks....wasted a couple hours trying to make the sight podson the side of the turret look right with putty....total fail....Think i need to find some beads that are the right size and sand to fit.

[sassgrunt]

Mustclime, I was running into the same problem for my Panther II. I bought fake pearls from a craft store. I don't have the package any longer, but believe they were either 10mm or 11mm in diameter - they came three to a package, if that helps. I sanded each one until they would sit on the turret side with the hole facing forwards. Then I cut off most of what stuck up above the turret top, and sanded the remainder down flush. I think that they came out a lot better than anything I could have made from scratch. -Mike

[mustclime]

I was thinking last night about the panther II that was being put togather about the same time as the e50 was being drawn up....what do you notice about the upper hull in these pics...look at the parascopes....

http://www.peachmountain.com/5star/Tank ... _Tank.aspx

They both turn.....So then I was thinking about the hull on my e50.....



And I was thinking about how to make the hull gunner's parascope turn.....and then It hit me....the hull gunner, there was no hull gunner

Later in the war, the germans saw the need for ground troops to move with the the tanks, the hull gunner was not needed, infact, a lot of work went into making a hull mg and it was a weak point in the armor, that means like the KV85,IS2 ect... the E50 would be a 4 man tank......that means no hull gunners parascope and no hull gunners hatch.......lol, I am such a moron....now I have to fix all this.....