1/16 Elefant Ludwig/Asiatam

[xrad]

Yes the kit is VERY nice!

Although I would offer a second armor plate for the cooling vent area to double the thickness...in case to model the elefant style.

[kclank]

Steenv, I was finally able to view the Elefant build you listed; thank you. For the fenders, he appears to be using embossed styrene sheets. I have something from Plastruct that looks like what he is using, called PS-153 G Diamond Plate; but it's pretty thin and flimsy. It looks good, though - maybe it could be bonded to thin aluminum or brass sheets for strength. I have used Wedico diamond plate aluminum sheets for model trucks. It is very sturdy, but the pattern does not look as good as the styrene sheets do. A link to them is here.

http://www.gardentrucking.com/products/ ... ls/471.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can also get the diamond plate directly from evergreen, the plastic sheet people. i used them for my fenders with an under layer of slightly thicker plain card stock.

[chris3]

moin

or you can finde it here, and alot of usable things too.
http://www.knupfershop.de/shop/index.ph ... p_tpl=main" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

cu christian

[xrad]

I plan to glue plastruct plate to styrene fenders. will bond nicely.

also a great source for almost EVERY evergreen/plastruct product is Tower Hobbies in US. They have at leats 15 pages of products for plastic construction.

BE SURE to uncheck all the boxes when paying or you join the tower club! tricky little Tower hobby people!

They take paypal which is nice.

[xrad]

Some more work done. The citadel is nearly perfectly aligned now with rear of third wheel hub. citadel overhang is near perfect all around. rear upper hull overhang is nearly perfect. Front add on armour is near perfect scale thickness and the lower add on plate protrudes in front of hull sides by a hair, like the original. Rough cut of extra armour plates for cooling deck.

Metal work shows ball bearing mounts and brass spacers. works great!

I love building this model more and more every day!

[Steenv]

looking good

[xrad]

Thanks Steen! appreciate the input.

Mike: i just saw your tip about the paper thin nylon washers..will haev to locate some for a trial..

So, back to the elefant. Ball bearing mounts use 7x13 ball bearing (get a stack of 10 on Ebay). The thinner threaded mount shaft is 7mm exactly and fits the bearing perfectly. Bearing then holds the 'split' together so you can at least tighten the system up and not be afraid to strip out the bore! remeber that the threaded shaft of the roadwheel mount sits just proud of the bearing, and the bearing is spaced (inward into the hull) by the brass spacer(~5mm thick). the beraing slides about .5mm on the mount shaft, but canot come off because of the washers and retaining bolt. the washers actually keep the system from falling out of the hull. The whole road wheel mount therefore slides in and out of the hull by about .5mm. This is so that the road wheel retaining screws(not shown) do not bind on the hull as the road wheel mount rotates. The bearing only really absorbes a downward load, with the roadwheel mount pivoting on the hul a little bit. A second bearing on the hull would have been great, but not look good. and I could not find a perfect fit for brass stock as it is a wierd diameter.....

did some work on the rear mounts. I don;t have any real machine tools(not so straight cuts by hacksaw!), but I did buy a micromark table saw (the strong one). It is made in Japan and has plenty of power to cut any wood or plastic for the hobby. I was able to cut the aluminum angle braces with the non-ferrous disc, but the saw was borderline laboring. It works if youtake your time, and it was spinning a big cut off disc. This works great for brass tubing and thinner metal.

Took two hours to fit the rear roadwheel mounts..sheesh. I give all credit to C. Ludwig and his pre-drilled motor mount holes. they line up absolutely perfectly with the asiatam motors!!!! . It was just a matter of slowly removing material from mount screws and the mount itself to keep motor drive gears from touching.

see this site for some cool video of the Elefant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3-kmDaWhb0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now this is not a real 'overhaul' by any stretch..more of a Maaco paintjob. Lots of fluff film footage from wwII that does not even really have anything to do with the elefant/ferdinand. BUT, the best part is the 4th or 5th episodes where you can see the drum brakes , inside the idler (which they called a drive wheel at one point), and the suspension with the road wheels off!. Even better, they tow the tank with a block between the roadwheel and track, and you can see how the torsion design really works. COOL stuff!

[Saxondog]

Watched the overhaul video very cool stuff. Wonder if they are going to restore the Panther's or Jagdpanther's at Aberdeen? They should have enough parts from the three(2-Panthers 1-Jagdpanther) to build a running tank. But even a nice cleaning like the elefant would be cool, one man's junk another man's treasure?

[xrad]

Yep. vid just really a paint job and some grease. Too bad history channel thinks all the other quick cuts and fluff is what we want to see.

Some more work on the elefant. needed to trim 4.5mm off plastic hull length(blue line on sides) to get front of upper hull to line up correctly on the side view. Still a little off but if I don;t tell you where, you probably won't know.

Next was beefing up the fron armour. Need to make it about 6mm thick. real easy with plastic!

Drill and place bolts on lower panel, each head clocked to match the aberdeen elefant. Next will be to trim the aluminum hull where the curved blue line is (so it looks like the hull in the picture of the fenderless elefant in italy).

coming along slowly but correctly.

[Saxondog]

Coming along very well,this is one of the best yet. And I agree about History Channel,they have just about become the Liberal global warming hate America club. I just stopped watching. That is the best thing about You-tube just about every episode and no commercials.

I would really like to be part of the team on a Jagdpanther/Panther restoration. Just seeing the three tanks sitting their seems a waste.

Here is the Porsche barrel I mentioned in the PM.But the information I have found says the KT gun is 71calibers,so which one is which? Cheers Saxondog

Henschel King Tiger/ Porsche King Tiger