Side aerial mount and fun and games ...
This is my mount for the long range aerial radio mount.
I have seen pictures of this recessed – and mounted on top of the hull.
I decided to mount Ebbeys aerial mount on top of the deck – more common on King Tigers and Panthers though . I have also seen this fixture fitted to other models in the same way.
Construction of this part was dead simple - a piece of copper water pipe, an off cut sprue and finished off with the tammy aerial base.
Fresh back from our Weston club meet and I had my Ally tiger barrel and turret track mounts arrive in the post !!
I placed Paul Septons resin cast later coupla and everything was looking good …….however..
Houston – we have a problem…….
Correcting a few issues . Yep as you can see my positioning might have been slightly off – but I can appreciate why I saw more Bexxxxxx with recessed mounts.
Correcting a few issues .
Yep as you can see my positioning might have been slightly off – but I can appreciate why I saw more Bexxxxxx with recessed mounts.
Nothing else for it but drill out and recess the whole mount- easier said than done as directly beneath the fitting is the aluminium lower hull side strenghing bar.
A bit of drilling and cutting later and all done -
Now other problems revealed themselves . My turret rotation was very stiff, perfect if I wanted to create the effect of a hand cranked turret – but I would be a sitting duck on the battle field.
I had quite a few issues to fix here – The added tarpauling tie downs were catching the lower edge of the turret – so they had to be removed. – I will put them back later after the turret is fixed in its final position.
My added Heng Long turret fixing was still stiff and dragged the upper deck.
I decided to drill some holes through the turret floor,
Add some bb’s to use as bearings…the washers hold the bb’s in place and stop them fouling the rotation.
Better , the bearings version 2 ,x x size hole have raised the turret off the deck to reduce drag. I also appeared to have modelled at this point the backside of a Dalek !! However the action was still catching part way round.
There must have been some warp present in the Heng Long deck – the Tamiya upper deck has all the structural strength of damp lasagne – and just formed itself to the Heng Long deck.
So a bit of beefing up needed here....
The added ally strips help to stop the deck from flexing, and might help in keeping any wiring out of the way.
The brass square section fits neatly under the Heng Long rotation motor.
Reworked Turret rotation and mounts ...
I have now replaced my plastic BB bullets with metal 6mm bearings/BB bullets to give a smoother action...
One unexpected problem came up during all this faffing about was the rapid deteriation of the orginal Heng Long turret screw mounts - the ones that hold the toothed lower turret ring in position.
The screws kept working lose and needed thicker screws to secure them - making the mounts even more fragile.
So.......Time for some serious mounts to be fitted -
As you can see above I redrilled down through the original mounts, then cut away the old plastic posts .
I could then fit these heavier mounts - secured top and bottom - and decent screws.
Here is a view inside the turret showing the new posts fitted through the turret floor.
This is a comparison to show how more substantial the new posts are ..
One benefit is a far more stable turret weight distribution.....
Andy
