RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Hi all,

Been working on one of my earlier collection, a Matorro/Heng Feng KT. Bought it pre HL KT, so it was the only game in town. Crappy version of HL electronics, WSNish gearbox so basically a shell. Upgraded it to RX-18/ Brass gearbox and then Clark but the chassis is just too weak. So my latest project has been trying to fit it to the excellent Torro KT chassis. Have to keep the back plate, but overall I am quite happy with the fit and now the Matorro KT finally comes to life !
MichaelC

Good Evening,
Those new lower hulls with complete suspensions are a boon to any tanker wanting to upgrade the performance of his HL or Matorro tank. Great job on getting your King Tiger up and really running.
regards,
Painless

Great work mate.... I have had one of those torro kt hulls and they are a nice bit of kit.....
Great looking kt by the way......

Cheers Ken

Thanks guys....... Painless, I am planning on upgrading all my lower hulls. Next on the radar is the Panther lower hull for my JagdPanther. They are really good stuff. The question now is what the hell do you do with the old ones........

Michael,
Pay it forward and make them available for little to no cost (shipping) for tankers who need an original hull for their builds or keep them for future build to sell projects like Fynsdad. There will always be a use for good plastic. ;o)
regards,
Painless

Michael I would take Painlesses advice, we all know that at least once in the ownership of a Tank it will get (say it softly) dropped, and after the first bout of bad language the realisation that you no longer have the old KT body to help in the repair will evoke even more bad language. so if only for some dacorum keep the old bodies. and in an era of being urged to be "Green" you are to be applauded in the recycling of your Tanks! nice paint job by the way. shaun

MichaelC wrote:Thanks guys....... Painless, I am planning on upgrading all my lower hulls. Next on the radar is the Panther lower hull for my JagdPanther. They are really good stuff. The question now is what the hell do you do with the old ones........

Ebay!

I looked at the metal hulls also and they're the way to go of course. I decided if I wanted to go that way I might as well get the Tami ya for almost 10 times the cost...I consider it another challenge to re engineer the plastic hull I added a top brace of alum bar...since as assembled the whole structure is a box, which is inherently rigid when made with strength in mind..., unless you want to add a whole bunch of weight I don't think it takes very much to make it stronger or at least strong enough.

I'm just a new to this but one thing I'll say, is that our model tanks are quite similar to the real item in one aspect, your r/c tank build is a trade off of weight, strength and mobility. Add more weight that lowers speed and battery life, and increases heat! From the motors and the control box. Thus requiring a fan (even more weight)
Also more weight, like steel wheels and tracks, that requires adding even more weight, in the form of the steel hull, steel suspension arms, and hull bracing to handle that. This is obvious but the more weight you add the more you will then NEED to add...is how I see the design parameters of our r/c tanks

Marc you make a good point but we do have an advantage over the original operators of full scale Tanks, we can if we choose, super detail them and add all the weight in the world ending up with a shelf Queen, but if you intend your Tank to work for a living then the trade off in weight for reliability is as you say exactly the same problem that Tank designers have always had, the British seemingly unable before the Centurian to ever get it right although the Germans were very close to disaster with the KT, the overall weight vis a vie the transmission putting too many of them in the workshop at a time when they needed all the heavy Tanks they could get hold of. shaun

jarndice wrote:Michael I would take Painlesses advice, we all know that at least once in the ownership of a Tank it will get (say it softly) dropped, and after the first bout of bad language the realisation that you no longer have the old KT body to help in the repair will evoke even more bad language. so if only for some dacorum keep the old bodies. and in an era of being urged to be "Green" you are to be applauded in the recycling of your Tanks! nice paint job by the way. shaun

Shaun, I have to fess up....... Believe it or not this is the paint job it came with, along with the molded zim. I have to say that it is the most impressive of all my tanks out of the box. These days they would call this custom paint job and charge you an arm and a leg. I think Matarro spent all their money on the paint job and the molded zims and forgot about the electronics and the mechanical stuff.

Marc, the Torro metal hull (and the Taigen lower hulls) are more than just the metal tub. They came with torsion bar suspension like the real deal, metal road wheels on bearings, idlers with tensioners, plastic plate for mounting all the hardware and integrated on/off switches and upper hull locking mechanism. Compared to the HLs out of the box it is a completely different level of tanks. The additional weight is usually offset with the better suspension and also upgraded gears (the one I got from WDM is suppose to be 5:1 but I think it is more like 4:1) so literally you go from a toy plastic tank to an almost all metal, weighted beast. The only thing that is missing in my mind is drive shaft support with bushes.

MicahelC

Hey MIKE C... first off nice conversion... second... I agree with everyone about recycling your hulls...believe it or not HL has some of the best and most user friendly plastic...it's very durable ...thicker than most other brands... and bonds easier that plasticard ...I re use the plastic all the time... I think every one of my tanks have some mod that I used plastic cut from junkers ...examples of my use

my mod for the low bussel turret

cheek armor for the same turret
and on my current build

my rear bulkhead... the lower part of the Sherman hull needed to be rounded... so I used a left over piece from cutting the transmission cover to do it... also the exhaust box... completely made of scrap hull plastic ....the two panels on either side which connect the upper skirts to the lower are also scrap plastic
the best aspect of using the stock plastic is... the thickness is usually perfect for most applications..so you don't need to shop to get the correct plasticard

So you just never know Mike C... all you have to do is use the tool the man up stairs gave you

ALPHA