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Re: Hugill big cat rescue/rehabilitation

Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2024 1:16 pm
by tomhugill
Guido Henn wrote: โ†‘Wed Jan 24, 2024 8:46 am

I love rebuilding a Tamiya, saving it from someone thatโ€™s built it badly.
Whenever I see gray Jagdpanther or Kingtiger, I know that the specialist staff was involved :crazy:

Mrs.Hugill please keep us up to date :thumbup:
This is my experience too of buying them used!

Re: Hugill big cat rescue/rehabilitation

Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2024 10:14 pm
by Panzermechaniker
Judging by the shape of the rest of the Jagdpanther I have to think those twisted torsion bars were by the original builder not knowing what they were doing on the install. The first couple of bars you install as a newb are frustrating as the instructions are practically useless until you learn to do some prep work and of course the slight knock in with a screwdriver handle on the swing arm. Nice to see you bringing it up to what it should have been in the first place

Re: Hugill big cat rescue/rehabilitation

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:13 am
by HERMAN BIX
I'm quietly confident he's got this eh !!!
Mr H has rescued that many Cats he almost a registered animal shelter :haha: :haha:

Re: Hugill big cat rescue/rehabilitation

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2024 9:14 am
by tomhugill
Panzermechaniker wrote: โ†‘Wed Jan 31, 2024 10:14 pm Judging by the shape of the rest of the Jagdpanther I have to think those twisted torsion bars were by the original builder not knowing what they were doing on the install. The first couple of bars you install as a newb are frustrating as the instructions are practically useless until you learn to do some prep work and of course the slight knock in with a screwdriver handle on the swing arm. Nice to see you bringing it up to what it should have been in the first place
Ha you're spot on there! Needed to refit torsion bars on a tamiya tiger chassis and even with the manual it took me a good 15 minutes to get the process right ๐Ÿ˜…

Re: Hugill big cat rescue/rehabilitation

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2024 4:25 pm
by Panzermechaniker
The first Tamiya I built was a Tiger 1 (actually it's just being rebuilt and refinished now) I remember when I got to the inserting the suspension arms and torsion bars part I went to some video builds on YT. I remember one of them was like 5 minutes of installing the tires and then like most just conveniently skipped over the torsion bar bit. :( One thing I figured out was to slightly clean out the holes for the arms in the stays. Some of them are drilled too small by a tiny amount which makes the arm hard to get through. Another frustrating thing I found with both my KV1 and my Jagdpanther build was since some of these Ebay sourced kits might be NIB from Japan they have been sitting around for quite a few years and I snapped one side of the slotted end of the weak metal on three arms between the 2 kits just from the initial twist on the torsion bar. I was lucky at the time because I could just order new arms and would get an extra set of torsion bars with the order from AAF. Now with AAF gone I'm not sure where you would source the arms anymore. It's quite funny how fast you can install the torsion bar/arms after you have done a half dozen kits with them considering the head scratching the first time :D

Re: Hugill big cat rescue/rehabilitation

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2024 7:16 pm
by Meter rat
Look forward to these being made good.

Likewise, Panzermechaniker, following our conversation, I look forward to yours being completed.