Some of you might remember that several years ago I was given a tired old Tamiya KT with parts missing, sub-par paintjob, bad seams and light damage. This is what it looked like back then:
Some of you might even remember a several year old thread where I started work on rebuilding and revitalizing the old girl ...
Well, over the years I've slowly done more work on it. Just a little bit at a time, limited mostly by a nearly non-existant budget.
I used a minimum of budget, spending money only on what I thought was absolutely necessary, much of which was external. New tow shackles, engine vent grills, new (working) headlight and new exhausts.
I managed to score a Heng Long Jagdpanther upper hull and scavenged the aluminium barrel and elevation drive for the KT, scratchbuilding a sturdy new barrel mount using a small piece of old aluminium pipe. Cut to length, drill holes in the piece of pipe, use M4 screws and nuts to fix it in place and fit the hollowed out Tamiya mantlet and HL barrel. Fabricate a spacer from plasticard and mount the elevation drive.
I opted for the cheaper zinc gearboxes for this build to limit costs, and repurposed an old Heng Long commander figure I had lying around. It's just a straight copy of the original Tamiya figure anyways.
Finally, new drive sprockets to fit the new gearboxes, some detailing, weathering and a wash or two.
Spent so far: 120 euros on parts, 30 on S&H and 10 on paints.
Still to add:
- Dirt / dust / mud
- Electronics suite
- Cabling
- Battery
To get it running I'm looking at the new Heng Long dual sound 2.4ghz electronics suite that they recently released. That's going to be the single biggest investment. Should be worth it though.
*Posted in 'other builds' because even though it's using a Tamiya KT as base, I'm scavenging and repurposing parts from everywhere and there's more than a few Heng Long parts used.
