HL Tiger 1 "Budget Build"

[whitecitadel]

This working business is seriously getting in be way of messing with tanks this week!

So this is the HL “pro” version tiger 1, which basically means it had steel gearbox, metal tracks, metal idlers/sprockets and metal road wheels - as probably you all already know. So I did swerve a lot of the plastic… but having driven it about a bit and looked at it, and driven it some more I did order the Taigen chassis!

Steel gearbox, has plastic covers which are removed here:

Steel gears

I know they are not black, but magnet sticks to them really well. Plus not ripped them up on garden test drive and don’t think cheap alloy would have lasted with all the track and wheel weight.

Wheels and tracks are metal, the road wheels have bearings which was a surprise, to me at least.

Metal tracks, sprockets and road wheels

The Taigen chassis needs axles not screws, so pack of them from eBay (£8), then you need axles for the idler wheels but no one does those alone (?) not even from the east in slow post, so bought the Taigen sprockets and idlers from forgebear with the chassis.

Edit the thread title to remover word budget now or later?

This one has 7.0 electrics and a BB torrent that recoils… as part of the BB firing. Having now spent too long reading up, given the HL has the torrent ring in the wrong place technically the Taigen may have been better but even with the Taigen chassis it’s still budget by some margin over the cheapest Taigen option I could find. Not that excited about BB, Servo recoil and muzzle flash appeal more now… but… not sure the V7.0 support recoil with servo’s - more reading needed on that.

Chassis swap pending, but was collecting some paint first to possibly spray new chassis and wheels at the same time.

Currently doing “the knowledge” on Dunkelgelb, but with no airbrush I will likely base coat in Tamiya TS-3 and the go from there with a brush… to keep the budget down

Tamiya scribe arrived in the post today, as did some milliput yesterday, so time to get started soon on attempting some welds and defining the join in those “bolted on” side mudflaps. Model saw coming tomorrow to attack those antenna holders with!

[jarndice]

Hi, The wrongly positioned Heng Long Turret is in the same WRONG position as the Taigen Turret so you would have wasted your money buying the Taigen body/Turret
It is not my wish to teach an old dog how to suck eggs but you do know that the first thing to do with the Taigen metal hull after wiping it over with acrylic thinners to degrease it is to spray/brush it all over with etching primer or the paint will not take and of course all other metal parts will similarly need etching primer applied to it prior to painting,
German armour of that period had a red oxide primer as I am sure you know.
I continue watching your efforts with interest.

[whitecitadel]

The old dog know's lots of tricks, but never assume they are the right tricks for the hoops needed to be jumped through!

I bought a can of Halfords plastic primer earlier in the week (in red) as I have had really good results with this primer on all sorts of plastics over the years not just modelling. I am not sure if its "etching" primer but over the years its always worked well for me on all sorts of plastic.

Its acrylic based, I planned to do the internal "tray" for the battery and electrics first as a test paint, as if it all goes wrong or doesn't stick its not a part that's seen and I need to try another primer before starting the lower hull.

The metal parts... I had a look last night as it happened and the big metal base sheet looks like it will come off for seperate priming, but I think I will need to remove the front metal parts at least prime seperatly from the plastic. The "gearbox" on the Taigen seems to be on a pin (not screwed) and covers the screws for the front metal parts. I found the online Tiagen kit manual that talks about gluing this piece in place. It did not want to immediatly come away - but I do ideally want to remove it because apart from paint I want to add bearings to the main axle secured to the chassis. The bearings online are for the HL chassis with a collar that pushes in, looks like the Taigen chassis needs the fitting that is screwed through the hull, or I might try to 3d print something.

I have yet to order the Tamiya rattle cans, I planned to add a tamiya primer (I think they claim plastic and metal) for the top hull where you don't want a thick primer losing some details, but the chassis I was going to hit a few times with the cheap halfords stuff.

Turret
I didn't realise the Taigen turrent was also wrong, in some photos online it looked like it was set further back. I can't think why 340 degrees rotation is not enought, but I have been looking at Ali express for slip rings and a metal geared ring for the turret! Must resist upgrades... think budget... think budget...

It does at least have the rear lifting point, which needs to be cut into the HL. That bugs me - how would my tiger be serviced in the field if it needed a new gearbox!

[whitecitadel]

So progress has started, before I started to prime the Taigen chassis I wanted to work out the bearing mounting for the driveshafts to be supported at the hull not the gearbox.

The HL manual says you can add a 12x8x3.5mm bearing, so I ordered some of them up from a well know jungle based online market.

HL manual

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Then did a quick design for a bearing carrier to hold these with some holes to drill and bolt to the Taigen chassis, mine is the silver round one as that happened to be the filament already in the 3D printer, next to it is the original HL bearing carrier that it turns out comes with the HL - so easy to add bearings to the HL chassis just buy and fit.

Sprockets and Bearing Carriers

The darker upper sprocket is HL, the shiner lower sprocket is Taigen.

I did some more measurements of both HL and Taigen chassis after I designed and printed the carrier to bolt on, and having looked at the HL and Taigen sprockets (had to but Taigen sprockets and idlers to get the idler shafts to match the Taigen chassis) they are subtly different. The Taigen has a few mm more on the back of the sprocket so I need to decide which sprockets are going to be used and make my carrier thinner either way.

Main issue at the moment that halted progress was I can’t get the metal “gearbox” off the Taigen chassis to test fit my carrier underneath. The Taigen/Torro kit manual says it’s a push fit and to glue it, I can’t seem to move either side - any tips appreciated - this is a ready assembled chassis from forgebear.

Taigen chassis

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The HL bearing carrier from the HL chassis does fit into the Taigen metal “gearbox” but it’s not a snug fit it’s a bit loose, so far sticking to plan to bolt a bearing carrier to the hull somehow. If I can get the metal gearbox part off the chassis. The HL bearing carrier is a tight fit into the HL chassis but the metal Taigen part is different as no sleeve inside it.

I also have one twisted torsion bar that needs to be sorted because the arm is not providing enough spring and will sag on that wheel I expect once fully assembled, battle damage? Plan to remove that one and try to bend back to match the others.