I'm going to straight up admit it. I suck at everything I attempt to do. I haven't built a r/c tank before. I haven't even built a static model since I was 8 - and that one was an unpainted F-14 mostly held together with glue and a large amount of scotch tape. Now why am I stressing this point so much? Because the kit was so damned easy to build even though AFV Model reccommends it for experienced builders. It also took a good chunk less than the 10 hours they said it'd take to build.
This is going to be an image heavy thread - I believe 54 for the build, 16 for the instructions and 3 of the complete tank. They will be presented as thumbnails, click them for a large image. The text will be the actual German text of the instructions followed by their(rather bad) translations, a parts picture before sub-assembly, what I actually did and a picture or the completed sub-assembly. It will not all be in one post, each post will probably encompass a page or two of the instructions. You may notice things in the background that are done before they are built here. Thats because I built some things out of order to make things easier one me - mainly bulk things like the roadwheels, rubber rims, swingarms, etc. The thread will be presented in the order of the instructions.
The slabs the hull components are cut from are 2mm styrene. most of the parts are reinforcemnet parts. Its incredibly strong when you're finished. Everything else is metal except the resin hubs and the rubber liners for the roadwheels. And the tracks. The tracks and standard plastic Tamiya Leopard 2A6 tracks.
So lets get the show on the road:
Page One:
Bauabschnitt Polystyrolwanne
"Section polystyrene tub"
Engraten der bohrungen 10 mm
"Close rates of the drillings 10 mm"
It means to enlarge the holes to 10mm because they're a fraction of a millimeter too small or something. Me being laid off and almost broke found this to be completely unneccesary. Poor men find better ways.
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von außen Eindrücken der Bronzelager
"from the outside impressions of the bronze camps"
Now we take...I guess the "bronze camps" and push them into the holes from the outside. I just put a tiny bit of grease around inside the holes and pushed them in, careful not to push hard enough to break the side.
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bündig drücken - Seitenteil nach Oben
"concisely press - side part upward"
Ummm....We already did that in the last step Herr-Chef...
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Seitenverstärkung mit Kleber versehen
"Side reinforcement with adhesive provide"
Take the side panels and the reinforcement panels and glue them together.
Again being careful not to press the "bronze camps" through the holes in the reinforcement panels too hard. For parts like this and joints, I use a 2 part 1:1 5 minute epoxy.
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And that's it for Page One. Tune in next time for Page Two, featuring:
Struts!
Reinforcements!
More epoxy Resin!
Not to be featured in the next episode:
A Hull!
"Anyone care to guess which idiot among us forgot to take pictures of the next few(albeit almost identical) steps? Who was it?"
"Ooh! Ooh! I know! I know! Pick me!"
