RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

ok. takecare and remember....

Just have one question on your reply......why?

dgsselkirk wrote:Hey Guys,

Have to go away for a couple of weeks and then will get right at finishing up the KT so I can get to work on Panther!

you said you were going away for a couple weeks.....I just assumed jail......

HA! Could end up there, going to Vegas for a trade show....

Hi Guys

Back from Vegas. Lots of fun! Here are a couple of things I did this week. I scratch built some brackets for the cleaning rods with ridges to hold them but after looking at close ups of Bovington I got rid of the ridges. Mounted then with 2 part epoxy to make sure they stay on. Will make the closing latches later. I intend to mount the heavy tow rope on one side but have the other side stretched out.
And the other thing I did was get rid of the weld lines around the cupola. Doh! Shouldn't have been there... thanks for pointing that out. I wasn't happy with the way it looked anyway. Did some detail work on the periscopes. Painted them in with black fine detail on the inside. This is great to create the optical illusion of depth. These pics are close in but when you look at it naked eye ball from like a foot away it looks really good. Also I think this is the first shot with the loaders pistol port. you can also see on the right the start of the mapping out for stencil markings. Stay tuned, looking to wrap up the exterior in the next 6 weeks with one week off for a wedding in Jamaica!

One of the issues I had when I did the zim with the hot tool was that it caused the front leading edges of the upper hull to warp. In the attached pictures you can see the gap. It is not that prominent when it is screwed down but it is there, so I needed some way to cover this. So because my KT will be a ficticous I decided to mount some spare track on the front. Imagine the crew stopped in a local village, had them weld on some mounts! LOL! Scratch built with some brass sheet then drilled holes and used 1mm screws and nuts through the hull and will add weld beads shortly. This will let me show some cool weathering on the tracks too. It's not a pretty solution but it will work for now!

Wow Dean, that is a huge gap ! Is it on both the upper and the lower hull ? Did you get warpping on the side as well ? I am surprised at the amount of wrapping. I would think that since you are applying the zim everywhere, whatever wrapping or shirkage would even each other out.

Did you consider a filler strip mounted on eitehr the upper or the lower hull (depended on where you can get a straight edge).

Hi Michael,

No, interestingly enough the sides, back, were no issue. It was because the fronts were tapered together and therefore thinner that the issue arose. When you screw it down it actually still closes tight on the outsides were the screws are it is in the middle that is the problem. I guess I could have done the strip thing but at this point looking to wrap up the exterior quickly and I really don't want to mess around with this too much. Worried I could make it worse! LOL! Both top and bottom suffered from the warpping. I was planning on front mounting track anyway believe it or not. I have seen a couple of pics of the porsche with field spare track mounting in different spots. I am thinking of putting them on top of the turret too, it will kinda balance off the asthetics of the look.

Great looking build Dean, well done dude...

Derek