gawd , another Tiger 1 (late) w.i.p. yawn . . .

[Nic.H]

Hi Blimp, I like the intake mod...like a lot!

Nic

[majordisastor]

Nice mod, clean and well done with scope for further expansion.....Text book stuff - well done

Andy

[blimp]

Onto the roundy bits then .

• . . . In the begining the decision to do a late version was made easier by the fact that although the H/L plastic wheels are capable of coping with this sort of chopping and changing , i just didn't like the tyre / rim detail . Too vauge , and i couldn't bother with filling the things , machining new profiles , etc.

Besides , the steel ones add a brutal , functional air . A kind of travelling blockhouse on wheels sort of thing , and , a suitable set had magically appeared on Fleabay ! a fifty squid bid - and they became mine

• 

' Tamtoys Metallketten ' "Tiger ace Michael Wittmann "

• . . . * made in china .
  • 
  . . . Note the 'made in china' bit - aftermarket , cheap , a brand i'd never heard of . the penny is slow to drop sometimes , isn't it dear readers . . . .

I avidly opened the box .

• . . and a horrible , metallic , oily , SMELL almost knocked me off my feet . No joke , I quickly opened the windows as well .

". . . It must be some kind of preservative." i thought , yes , that must be it . A good degrease will cure that . - Wrong again , it's the material they are made of ! - god help the poor beggars that have to actually make these things . . .

• A coat of primer was applied as soon as i got the oppurtunity , it helped thankfully , - but i still take care not to scratch them .

• . . . it wasn't the only nasty suprise either , trying them on axles 5 out of 16 of them wobbled badly - due to poor finnishing , i had to true /skim / re drill 4 of them at work , bushing them with 3mm i/dia tube . the 5th one was so bad it needed a 5mm plug to get right .

Back to the bench , and test fit time . Now they didn't scrape together . Didn't line up with the sprockets either ! - the hubs were 2mm too long ! . . . another dinner break lost ( whilst i was at it i drilled the outer hubs deeper , the axles prevent the wheels going all the way on otherwise .Then small spacers of dead biro were made to go under the heads to take up the slack .

• Yipee . they now fit , O.K. a bit tight on the track shoe horns , but they do fit . Honest .

. . . Shame the bolt heads are are in the wrong place . . . . . wait , what ? . . ! ! ! ! . . . . sob . . . babble . .

[blimp]

A new day , Ahh , the weekend is here , the sun is shining , last nights post brought the whole expierience back , but the nightmares will stop , so i'm told . Us H/L owners are made of sterner stuff y'know .

• The pills help .

After that little debacle i'd had enough of the chassis for the time being and turned my gaze to other less taxing tasks .

• 4 , The turret .

Taking measurements from the turret i made a couple of guages out of old styrene sheet , you don't have to do the big one - i made it purely to illustrate the areas that i'll be addressing .

• . . . the turret is 144mm diameter , which is pretty good scale wise , so nothing drastic is required there .( I made the ring a millimeter undersisze so that a dark line showed all around the edge as a visual guide when sanding back later )

. . . . This is the important one .

• 

Setting my Olfa disc cutter to the gear ring dia. i scribed / cut through the plastic doing the rearmost crescent piece first , cutting through from inside / outside alternately will give a nice clean edge . Then the gun ring was done the same way using the original centre mark . Ending up like this . Then it is just a matter of gluing the gear ring into the back hole , followed by the crescent bit at the front . . .

• 

• . . . . Simples

. . . this is the test disc again , showing the turret is now properly centred - the front / lower of the turret can be left alone if you are doing an early tiger , but later versions like mine , have a different 'chin' arrangement , so . . . . .

• 

. . . the cutter was set to the turret o/dia. and the offending area removed . . . .

• 

. . . this was then filled with 2mm (.080") plasticard strip and filler, the 'step' at the back was tackled at the same time .

. . .if you made it this far give yourself a pat on the back .

• 'coz the gun ring in the hulls next . . .

[tankman]

Slow down PLEASE my brain is hurting lol. Nice job on the turret though, it's one of those job's I need to do when I get round to doing my old H/L. Those bloody Asaitam steel wheels are pretty crap from the off though. Thanks for sharing
Alan

[blimp]

Slow down ? trust me , continents move faster

Well , O.K. then , as it's sunday . . .

• Pt 4b . the hull ring .

• . . . With the turret now sorted out , the next logical thing to do is the hull deck , i did the usual plastic disc trick (tacked in place) don't forget to faintly mark a line along the centre of the hull roof - THIS IS IMPORTANT. The turret needs to be 72mm forward of the engine hatch line , plus a smidgin for clearence - i added another 1mm - too much as i found out , the CORRECT distance is 13mm back from where H/L has it .

. . Then it's the usual malarky of cutting it out , cresent bit first , ring , swop , glue . This is where the centre line mark you made will help the canted , raised rim go back true , if you're keeping it 'stock' that is . Otherwise you can dress it down and make it the same height all around or just get rid of it , the real tank had a 10mm gap all round , that's .6mm or .025" ish in real money - (the slight angle is actually part of H/L's little Airsoft clearence tweak )

• • . . . * BUT * . . .

. . . I deviated at this stage and made some changes , didn't i .

• . . . . . back soon with all the gory details . . . * Her ladyship wants to drag me off somewhere , no doubt it'll involve my wallet .

TTFN . Blimp.

[blimp]

. . . . Allrighty then , where was i ? ah yes , my little mod . . .

• 

. . . how i fixed the famous H/L turret wobble ! . . .

As most Tiggy owners know , the fit of the turret is less than erm , perfect shall we say . . . the hole in the hull is not one of H/L's best moulded parts , oversized , tapered and not actually round . combined with the strange turret gear 'step' and a deck that's as solid as a trampoline and the turret happily wobbles like a jelly .

• To fix it i carried out the previous steps , but enlarged the hole to 96mm diameter . then removed the top and bottom raised portions entirely .

Wait , this will only make things worse , right ? - not if you have one of these -

• 

. . A metal ring piece such as this , which inexplicably followed me home from work the other day and just so happens to be 96mm o/d x 92.3mm i/d (a slip on fit for the gear ring) x 9mm deep ( the distance from the turret floor to the top of the gear) . . .

• 

. . . in it goes . . .

• 

. . . into a nice new generously thick walled laminated plasticard ring / bearing glued onto the underside of the hull - .6mm (turret gap)+ 2mm (hull thickness) + 6.35mm deep = 8.95mm . Well i never , how lucky was that eh ?

• . . it still requires a polish and a section removing to clear the repositioned turret motor and i've just bought some brass section tube , to be extra cross beams to stiffen the deck as well . A .6mm / .025" disc turret gap spacer , or I might even make a roller bearing for it , i'll see how it behaves first .

. . . Oh , and BTW - you didn't notice that other mod inside the turret did you - right ?

• Nighty night .

[Jeff V]

Beautiful work.
best wishes,
jeff

[majordisastor]

Good conversion that will sort out any short comings with the turret rotatio for sure!!

If you think the Heng Long deck is a litlle floppy - try a Tamiya deck - I have eaten Lasagne sheets with greater structural integrity ...................

Andy

[blimp]

I have the day off Yay! so heres a quick update -

• So on with erm , lessee , Pt 4c ?

. . . O.K. - The cross beams (9/32" x 3/16" oblong section brass tube) are in , i'll add some extra 'U' shped support brackets at the ends later - along with the gearbox on new mounting posts . . .

• 

. . . the back of the ring had to be relieved for the rear beam , or it interfered with the H/L speaker the gear teeth just clear it - i could have put the beam in at a slight angle but it looks odd like that , anyway it does go .

. . . and the cutaway for the turret motor would have been easier to do first as well , but i didn't want to risk distorting the ring . Ho hum . . . .

• 

. . . - as a precaution , i'll put some self adhesive servo pads (the ones that R/C flyboys use) under the gearbox as well , just to make sure the beggar doesn't shift .

. . . I also experimented with a crude roller race , from a disc of .5mm (.020") plasticard , with rollers made of brass micro tube

• 

. . . it only takes a slight prod with a little finger to make the turret spin now ! - i havn't even trued or cleaned the surfaces yet either - I may be onto something here

• - The black marks on the ring are 'witnesses' of some little tight spots , a gentle sanding and polish will cure that . I won't be using any grease here , it attracts dirt , a rub with a bit of candle/bees wax will act as lube , it'll stop the ring oxidizing as well . . . clever eh ?

. . . I'm off to throw some paint about now . . Muhaha . . . .