RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Billpe, ALPHA, I agree 100% with your comments, when it comes to opacity the bamboo curtain takes on the role of 6 metres of thick lead bomb shelter shielding with it's commercial activities, I revert to the days of the Soviet Union ( oh how I miss them) when no matter what commercial activity, it was owned by the state, and one day we shall all be shocked to discover that the Chinese interpretation of communism is identical to that of the Soviet Union and everything is owned by the state after all. shaun

Everything in China needs state permission. I've had several dealings over the years with businesses trying to work in China and you need direct approval from central Government and work with a local Chinese partner as the front. It's a complete pain in the arse, it's as bad as working with Russia now, except in Russia, it's gangsters you do business with.

ever wonder why this question keeps cropping up?

Here is a thing I have noticed, ALL Heng Long made parts have a marking either on the bottom of the lower hull outside or a model number bottom lower hull inside, it is usually the tank model number ie 3818 etc.
I highly doubt you would make a new mold to run a relativly low volume like 5 to 10,000 pieces.
The source mold certainly did come from HL though

Good Morning,
I have seen the Heng Long dragon on other makes than HL so it only makes sense to say that their molds are used by other companies. The fact that (early ) Taigen parts are advertised as working on HL tanks says it all. Torro\Taigen\Asiatam are now all in bed together with the new influx of metal parts for Taigen coming directly from their relationship with Asiatam. This is why that some of the new Taigen stock is different than HL and will not swap directly over anymore. Investment led to new molds being made and so on and so on. As was pointed out above, these companies are slowly creeping away from the Parent Beast which was HL and coming out with new stock and new vehicles. Mato is another similar story as well. They still sell HL tanks on their websites and parts but their Sherman came first and was completely different from the HL Sherman. Note, however, that they soon came out with metal tracks and sprockets which would work on their rival's M4A3 and development of their M4A1 came to a standstill aside from dropping a 2.4GHZ set into it. Mato has gone in the all metal tank direction beginning with their Tiger 1 as Billpe said. This is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how much work is required to modify them. I am awaiting their new tank destroyers with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation. Lastly, HL wasn't fooling anyone years ago. Their Tiger 1 was changed just enough to avoid patent lawsuits from Tamiya and to this day, if you want an out of the box tank to run til' it breaks, it is great. You have to give them credit also for making changes to make it more suitable for being a base to build a great Tiger 1 from. Ditto for their Sherman ( tho' those hollow backed wheels and tracks are an obvious cost cutting measure. ) When I was a kid, I wished down to my toes for stuff like this to be available and now that it is, I am enjoying the 'Pick What You Want' state of the Hobby and thank Japan and China for helping in large part to make it possible.
regards,
Painless

Asiatam is a different kettle of fish. I never really understood much about them because many of their mechanical parts don't seem to fit HL. For example, there Panther sprockets don't fit HL gear axles. I know Asiatam now has a different owner though but I've avoided them generally due to mismatches.

Painless, the Mato metal Tiger looks like allot of grinding to sort out but the Panzer III and the newer metal tanks actually look pretty good. The benefit of all metal - to me anyway - is being able to directly solder PE onto them making it super tough. The thought of what that weight might do to gear boxes isn't nice though!

Billpe,
There is a fellow on here _slowly_ working his way through one of those early Mato all metal Tigers and yes, the amount of grinding he is having to do is intense. He has already replaced the metal upper hull once because of the difficulties involved in removing the fenders. He did show a site that he uses to get incredibly well made and scaled parts for his tank. It's all in Chinese so I can't make it out or the prices but there is a lot of amazing stuff out there that we're not seeing here in the West. Asiatam still has some quality parts and add ons out there but it seems ( to me ) that more problems are being encountered with their inventory after they hooked up with Taigen. I hope that is sorted out soon as I still like Taigen's offerings as a good mid priced base to build other tanks from. I'm using a lot of Tamiya spares to upgrade my old Heng Long tanks so that right there speaks volumes. ;o)
regards,
Painless

http://shop62514600.taobao.com/category ... Tiger+1#bd

Yeah, I saw the thread. Some of those parts he's using are Aeromate which can be bought through some other sites as well. The actual Aeromate Tiger 1 Kit is 2500 USD!

Asiatam and Taigen change their parts specifically because they don't want to be interchangeable to Heng long. Its a marketing gimmick which kind of forces you to buy their parts if you buy any of the whole unit or in fact any pieces like for instance a metal lower, You need buy ALL the lower parts to get a runner out of it..
this is why every manufacturer makes a different vacuum cleaner bag.

billpe wrote:Asiatam is a different kettle of fish. I never really understood much about them because many of their mechanical parts don't seem to fit HL. For example, there Panther sprockets don't fit HL gear axles. I know Asiatam now has a different owner though but I've avoided them generally due to mismatches.

Painless, the Mato metal Tiger looks like allot of grinding to sort out but the Panzer III and the newer metal tanks actually look pretty good. The benefit of all metal - to me anyway - is being able to directly solder PE onto them making it super tough. The thought of what that weight might do to gear boxes isn't nice though!

Oh no more expense, vacuum cleaner bags for my Tanks, anyone know where I can find them and where do they fit? shaun