RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Some positive news – my wife got me an airbrush for my birthday, and while its still early days I’ve been using it to great effect on my 1/35 and Warhammer models. Won’t help the Panther but my Tiger will likely benefit.

The exhaust smoker is still unavailable for another 4 to 5 weeks, so in the meantime my Panther exhaust remains inactive. I have ordered the barrel flash and smoke system along with a slip ring and they should arrive in a week or so. I’m not sure if the Heng Long slip ring is compatible with the Taigen turret ring (it is surprisingly hard to find this information), but the convenience of being able to connect/disconnect the upper hull and turret electronics via a single connection means its going into the tank regardless.

While I don’t have any places or opponents to IR battle now or for the foreseeable future, I figured as I’m shoving a load of extra bits into the turret that I’ll add the capability on the off chance the situation changes.



I’ve acquired an infra red emitter bulb, the HL IR apple and a commander figure. The bulb will replace the bulb currently installed into the gunner sight. I suspect this might be an IR bulb already but I have no idea if the bulbs are compatible (I know the battle systems aren’t) so for the sake of £1.70 I’m not leaving it to chance.



The opening that originally housed the cutoff switch for the BB gun is just the right size for the apple to plug into, so that’s where the plug will be going, and I’ll attach a magnet to the inside of the hull roof for it to attach to. The opening to load BBs will be used to refill the barrel smoker.

Lastly is a commander figure, and I’ve opted for British Commonwealth. Looking mildly fed up with everything while he drinks a mug of a tea, I felt he was rather relatable.



He’s designed for Allied armour that didn’t have that great big rail on top of the cupola, so I had to raise him a bit. 25mm Warhammer bases are the perfect size to fit snugly inside the cupola, so I glued two together and stuck him on the top.



I also had to raise his arms up more than the model was designed for, so I’ll need to fill in the gaps appropriately. Overall I’m quite happy with how he’s turned out, and I’m looking forward to painting him.

Certainly different mate
and like what you have done with it as well

That's becoming a popular Allied BootyTank and great fun! Where do you get the commander with the "cuppa"? I'd get a kick out of him if he's affordable and available in the U.S. (virtually the same "if" nowadays).

Cheers.

Herr Dr. Professor wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 4:26 pm That's becoming a popular Allied BootyTank and great fun! Where do you get the commander with the "cuppa"? I'd get a kick out of him if he's affordable and available in the U.S. (virtually the same "if" nowadays).

I am totally going to start nicknaming it the Bootypanzer from now on, short for Britisches Beutepanzer V.

https://www.forgebeartanks.com/store/p1 ... igure.html This is where I got it from, I don't know who makes it I'm afraid as there is no information on the packaging.

I'm not surprised that captured Panthers are becoming so popular. It's a fantastic model that runs well and has loads of room for additions and modifications, plus there's a historical basis with the British using Cuckoo and Deserter at the very least, and the Soviets fielding whole squads of Panthers pressed into service.

Oh, no! I am completely knuckleheaded! That tank commander with the "cuppa" is one of Selkirk's. I probably already have one stashed away. Good grief.

Herr Dr. Professor wrote: ↑Wed Sep 03, 2025 2:38 am Oh, no! I am completely knuckleheaded! That tank commander with the "cuppa" is one of Selkirk's. I probably already have one stashed away. Good grief.

Put it down to a senior moment now where did i put my glasses ohh im wearing them

LordLudikrous: which airbrush? Please tell us more. And ask questions as you please. Me..? I started using a "single action" airbrush 55 years ago. A few years ago, I bought a good "double action" airbrush, but all I seemed to be able to do is use one of the two actions at a time. So about six months ago, I went back to a Pasche H: it's great.

It’s a Sparmax Max 4 dual action along with a Timbertech ABPST08 compressor. Fairly straightforward but its my first ever airbrush. I’ve gotten the hang of using it for single colour base coating fairly quickly, but camouflage patterns are surprisingly challenging. The compressor was a good choice though, its max volume is a relatively quiet 50 decibels, plus it has a 3 litre tank so it only fires up when it needs to.

The next bits have arrived; the slip ring and the barrel flash and smoke kit. The latter is an Open Fire branded rather than Heng Long but functions the same way with a few minor differences. The most notable is that this doesn’t make use of the trigger switch in the recoil system, so I was able to remove that and reduce the turret wiring.



What followed has been a mix of positive and negative elements. The first positive is the Heng Long slip ring is compatible with the Taigen turret ring – so anyone else who has stuffed HL electronics into a Taigen tank should get themselves a HL slip ring if they haven’t already. Unfortunately there is no servo provision on the slip ring which means any servo connections, like the recoil system in mine, will need their own wire going straight into the MFU. Unsurprisingly it doesn’t support the barrel smoker either so that’s an additional cable going direct into the MFU. Despite this it greatly simplifies the wiring and is a welcome addition.

Installing the IR emitter was a simple enough task along with adding magnets to keep the IR receiver in position on top of the turret. I need to sort out some extra plugs/wiring for the receiver so that remains unusable for the time being.

The smoker presented some obstacles which I was luckily able to overcome. I found it impossible to get the flash LED wire and the supplied smoke tube down the barrel at the same time. I don’t know if the interior diameter of Taigen barrels is slightly smaller than HL, but after a great deal of time spent trying it was a no go. I was able to resolve this by using a slightly smaller tube so they would both fit, but that meant when firing some smoke would come out the barrel entrance and into the turret. I ended up putting a stop to it by sealing up the barrel with hot glue – not the tidiest solution but it resolved the issue.



Mounting the smoker was the next challenge. As planned I drilled a hole in the BB tray to make way for the refill port, but being designed for Heng Long tanks none of the holes lined up, and it wasn’t possible to use my original plan of drilling mounting screws into the BB tray as that would render the in/out smoke ports unusable, or the positioning would make routing the tubes without kinking them impossible. I decided instead to try simply using hot glue to hold the smoker in position, which looked to be successful.

Following I installed the smoker motor using double sided foam tape to secure it, and conscious of the weight of the gun and recoil system I’ve tried to balance the weight of the turret as much as possible. The smoker system has a screw on the PCB that is used to control how much long the motor runs and I wanted to keep this accessible, so I mounted the board using double sided foam tape and a couple of Warhammer bases as spacers.



Initially, success! Except I discovered a problem the following morning. It turns out the smoker gets hot enough to soften the glue – not hot enough to melt it but enough that the smoker shifts position. Luckily the connection to the motor and the PCB stop it from moving too much, but I wanted to resolve this in case it became an issue later.

I was unable to come up with a solution to secure it to the turret roof, so decided the best way forward was to support it from underneath. The glue will soften when in use, but if it can’t move then its not a problem, and once turned off it hardens again and goes back to normal. I added some plasticard supported by green stuff to the turret floor with a couple more Warhammer bases glued together at an angle to account for the slight tilt of the smoker. When assembled the structure is further supported by magnets.





Not a pretty solution but it’s been several days now and it looks to have resolved the issue.



I’ve installed the slip ring and now the turret interior is quite a bit more crowded than it used to be.



The slip ring makes things much tidier.



The refill port is accessible from the commander’s cupola and does not interfere with the figurine.



Installation has been successful and so far has been quite a crowd pleaser. I also like how there are lingering whisps of smoke that persist after firing.



Aside from the extra wiring for the IR receiver, the only remaining interior electrical component to be added is the exhaust smoker, once they’re back in stock. Now I’ve got an airbrush and can just mask everything else off I might look at painting the inside of the hatches white. I’ve noticed Forgebear is now selling a British driver figure so that might be something to add for diorama purposes.

the flash and smoke is very effective

It is a very nice Panther