RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

So my Aber aerials arrived today. They are a very nice three piece set up and the aerial is tapered. I have a question, has anyone attached a spring or other device to the base so that the aerial will lay down or flex as the gun barrel passes or is it one or the other, a 320* rotation or a partial rotation to the right? Sacrifice some rotation for some added realism I guess. I don't battle on a competitive scale, just with family and friends, so I am going to choose the latter.

Joe

This is when a Panzer 4 has the advantage over the Tiger 1, it folds down into a trough. shaun

jarndice wrote:This is when a Panzer 4 has the advantage over the Tiger 1, it folds down into a trough. shaun

Yes Shaun, thank you for recommending this aerial. I really like that it has a taper.

Joe

I had a friend use a spring that came from a pen. So as it could bend

CHIEFSONN wrote:I had a friend use a spring that came from a pen. So as it could bend

Thanks CHIEFSONN, I ended up using a spring from a VS Tank pro antenna.

Joe

Hi. I'm not familiar with the Aber aerials, but maybe my experience of putting antenna on my RC tank would help.

I used soft springs which came from my suspension fork when this was serviced. It was in the shape of a ring and I just cut it to size. I reckon you can find similar springs out there. I then used guitar wire for the antenna, gluing it to the top of the spring only into the first two/three coils. I then glued the entire thing to the tank.





The spring is rigid enough to withstand the weight of the antennae yet soft enough to bend. Just make sure the guitar string isn't fully inside the entire length of the spring otherwise it'll be more rigid. The result is that the antenna can be bent from the base ensuring the guitar string maintains its shape despite bending and is soft enough not to be an obstruction for anything like the gun barrel.









HTH

Styrene rod, forget the size (shits' small), sanding a taper is pretty easy, flex's very nice, I made one (so far) for my Pz4 (Taigen) as it didn't have an aerial -just a base....on tigers the flex may have memory* (stay bent) because your deflecting at where it's thick (near base) vs on my Pz4 its higher/thinner. Might try ca or another type glue brush on the surface of the rod to change the "spring rate" effect...styrene stuff is cheap worth a go.

Tip:found sanding in one direction, fat to thin (filing action), *it's how I know of it's spring dynamics!

update, the styrene work-hardens and fails! Remembering my 1/35 tank model days in the 70's, i used heat on the spruce out of my assy pack (HL KT axle covers) that was "rubbery"and streched it over the tourch, cut where it looked best. Smelly process but worked perfect, it's no wonder my memmory is what it is: glue, lead paint and melting plastic fumes throughout those formative years!