RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Edumardo wrote: ↑Thu Oct 23, 2025 10:14 am Wow, spectacular work! Have you calculated how many filament spools you used? (I read the entire thread and couldn't find that information)

We want to see it rolling!

I haven't really kept track of the filament since it was printed a long time ago.

Did not realize how big it was until seeing that coke can!!!

Very impressive work so far.

tankme is in Texas, folks: that explains the size.

Herr Dr. Professor wrote: ↑Sun Oct 26, 2025 1:34 pm tankme is in Texas, folks: that explains the size.

Annnnd HDP for the win

HERMAN BIX wrote: ↑Sun Oct 26, 2025 11:54 pm

Herr Dr. Professor wrote: ↑Sun Oct 26, 2025 1:34 pm tankme is in Texas, folks: that explains the size.

Annnnd HDP for the win

And if there was a decent set of STL files of an Abrams, I would be doing it in 1/6th. I've already told Armortek they can have my first born if they make one... She got married a couple of years ago so I guess I can't make that promise anymore since I no longer retain ownership of said first born...lol As an alerternative, there is a set of 1/10th Merkava MK III STLs that are begging to be upscaled to 1/6th.

The past few days I've been doing some painting on the wheels/idlers and the turret. You can see some of the 3D printing artifacts if you look close or between the two wheels in a pair.





I've also been working on the recoil mechanism. The original design is pretty ingenious, but totally unnecessary for my needs. It was designed around being able to use a servo to operate the recoil with a quick reverse and a slow return without the use of a MFU controller board. Since I have the Open Panzer TCB to use on this build, I'm simplifying the design down to just a servo for ease of install, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Due to the upscaling issues, the servo mounts are completely oversized. I'd have to use a 1/4 scale servo to fill it, but that is overkill for the recoil.

The original shuttle in the recoil block had some very short rails on it. It worked because it got support from the rest of the overcomplication that I removed. With the rails so short, the gun tended to sea saw up and down a bit causing it to bind during the recoil stroke. Since I'm no CAD master I took the part into the Bambu slicer and went to work extending the rails. I created two copies of the original upscaled part, I then cut the rails off of the bottom of original upscaled part, I then took the copy I made of the upscaled part and centered it on the build plate. I discarded the top half of the copy I cut in two. The bottom rails where then centered on the build plate overlayed on copied upscaled original part. Once the parts were lined up, I elongated the rail section up the shuttle until the rails were as long as I could make them before interfering with the operation of the recoil. The extra rail length made everything smooth again.

You can see the two parts before and after.



It has a little over an inch of travel when the servo is attached.



I grabbed an MS996R out of the parts box and made some mounts for it to ride side saddle on the recoil block. The mounts slide under the recoil shuttle where there is a space for them to slip in. Eventually they will be permanently glued in place once all the adjustments are made.





The mounting of the gun to the elevation pivot is quite robust and is able to be disassembled for maintenance so no changes needed to take place there.

Quick test of the new servo recoil:



And here it is mounted in the turret.




Continuing in the next post...

Probably 15 years ago on Ebay I ran across these surplus turntables powered by a gearmotor. If I'd have known then what I know now, I would've bought a few more of them. As it is I have two of them. One is in my paintball combat KV-2 and the other is now going to be the rotate mechanism for this tank. I just have to retrofit it into this build.





It's a really heavy duty unit and even has a hole going all the way through it so that wires can pass through. Stay tuned for the install.

That's all for now...

It's pretty good progress! I would say 3D printed artifacts are pretty nigledgable. Also, you probably know that there is a Leopard 2A6 in 1/10 too, waiting for upscaling .

Looks good. I'd not worry too much about some of the printing effects - Soviet casting was pretty rough too!

Love the turret rotation units! I wonder if KV1's rotated at 45, 33 1/3, or the ultra rare 16 rpm?

Mike.