Sturmi - A Finnish Stug

[HERMAN BIX]

https://saturnismus.wordpress.com/resou ... ousel-1083

Just stumbled over this.Hope its of use

[rochesb]

Under UK DVLA rules I think a 3 tone ambush paint job would have to be classified as 'multi'

The only colours they allow are:
Beige, Blue, Maroon, Red, Bronze, Cream, Multi, Silver, Brown, Green, Orange, Turquoise, Black, Gold, Purple, White, Grey, Pink and Yellow.

[Soeren]

It is all there beige, brown and green. UK conform multi car colors it seems.

[Maccrage]

They have it listed as multi here too. Camouflage is not an option.

[Estnische]

Next thing is to get this baby up and rolling. Once again, Stug builders have plenty of options including heavy duty rolling gear with early or late hubcaps and return rollers. The first batch of Finnish Stugs were more involved in the fighting and they were early Gs, so I am going to ‘early’ with this build.

And so the first problem is encountered. When I ordered the Mato wheels, I didn’t read the fine print. They are meant for the Heng Long chassis, and come pre-assembled with cast swing arms instead of stub axles.

I checked with the usual Stug Life dealers, and no-one sells the axles separately. Once again I fished around my box of spares and other bits bought in haste and worked out I needed something like the rear idler axle (1) and I would need five for each side. I did have 16 of these old Tiger axles (2) to work with. With some 5mm brass tube being the right size to fit the Mato bearings, I cut it into lengths to bush the Tiger axles and trimmed them to fit the Taigen swing arms (3).

But to fit inside the swing arms, I had to turn them down to 3.5mm. This was a bit tricky as I don’t have a lathe, but I held them in a hand-held drill and ground them with a Dremel. They are a bit rough, but with some hand finishing they now fit nicely.

Now it needs some weight to sit evenly on the road wheels.

Next came the rear idlers, which also ride on bearings, with a brass bush over the screw-in axle. The bushes would not push into the bearings by hand, so I put the bushes in the freezer and the idlers in the oven on low temp. After 20 min a pair of pliers helped to push them in.

The left idler then screwed into the track tensioner nicely.

But the right one looked like it came off a cart from Westeross. The cast swing arm wouldn’t engage properly with the brass spigot of the adjuster.

A closer look showed it had some casting flashes that interfered with the fit. Once they were filed off it then sat much better.

[43rdRecceReg]

I think it's a value for money upgrade. This rolling chassis is probably the best the Taigen have produced so far, with some very nice details, and overall solid feel. I have one myself for some distant future project...

[c.rainford73]

Keep up the great work it's one I'll continue to watch closely

[Estnische]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, 5.1 gearboxes came as part of the chassis deal, so they were to go straight in. But as with my Tiger metal hull, once again there were problems lining up the gearboxes on the mounting plate.

When fitted they came hard up against the insides of the hull, and the drive shafts came out skewed.

Apart from having no wiggle room, the screws to mount the suspension bump stops also contributed to the drive shaft misalignment.

As the gearbox mounting screws thread into the base plate, the only option was to elongate the three holes in the gearboxes.

As far as track choices, I checked with Andreas, the Finns didn’t use Ostketten or Winterketten, only standard Stug tracks. Go figure, considering Finland is the Land of a Thousand Lakes (and bogs). My Tiger tracks came blacked, but these are very raw at the moment, so I’ll need to get some burnishing fluid to finish them off.

An unexpected but welcome consequence of the Taigen metal hull is the correction of the idler positioning. As you can see with the upper hull resting in place, the last return roller and idler dip down slightly.

[HERMAN BIX]

Just a pop quiz Mr E, IF this hull was to have schurzen fitted, the Asiatam style of upper hull release is not ideal.
Those 2 narrow slots that you need to insert a small screwdriver and press the blade hull locks just above of the idlers are behind any form of skirt armour.
Is there an alternative method of securing the upper hull to the A.T lower that is Schurzen -friendly ?

Im doing a StuG build for a mate using the same lower and the skirt armour is going to be a real problem for hull release.

[Estnische]

The short answer is 'Aye'.

The long answer is almost bloody beyond description. I found a wonderful series of Stug build videos by a Polish or Czech fellow. One showed a rear lock activated through a shaft attached to the spare road wheel mount you find on a standard HL Stug. Turn the wheel by 90 deg and the pin or tab through the end of the shaft releases from the bracket attached to the lower hull.

Edit: Ah! I found it. It doesn't show the locking mechanism but you get the idea.

phpBB [video]