RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I say it's the tank I never knew I wanted because I was browsing Ebay and a Clark TK-80 board popped up for $175 with free shipping. Was listed as brand new, but I wasn't sure if it was a programable version or not. I took a chance it was programable, but alas it wasn't. Now I have a nice board and no tank to use it in. No biggie as I thought I could put it in a Russian SU-76i build I've been wanting to do. That's when an all metal Mato PZ III popped up for sale on FB. I mentioned it to Kenny over at DAK and he vouched for the guy so I bought it for $360 shipped. That explains how it came to be in my possession even though I had no real desire for a PZ III. As it happens it is my first German tank build.

When it came it was all in pieces, but I knew that from the listing. The motors, sprockets, tracks, headlights, and idlers had never been mounted on it. It came with a bent barrel, but a replacement was also in the box. The servo recoil and elevation was preinstalled, but there were no instructions on anything else. I pulled a Taigen rotation unit, volume control, and speaker out of the spares box mounting them in the tank. I had the Hooben power switch from my ZTZ-99A build laying around so it got a new XT60 connector and it got thrown in the PZIII. I wanted enough room to mount my "go to" Li-Ion 2S2P battery packs and surprisingly there is a lot of room in this little tank. It came with some strange brackets which I decided were used to mount the upper to the lower. The only problem was there were no holes to mount the bracket so I drilled some right above the mounts for the idlers and I was in business. I printed myself an apple base I found on Thingiverse, fabricated an apple cable, cut a rectangle hole below the commander's hatch (in the metal which was a PITA BTW), drilled a bigger hole for the emitter tube in the mantlet, installed an IR LED, and the battle system was fully functional. I had some pre-wired SMD LEDs I dropped into the front headlights and used some Testors clear plastic glue to make some lenses for the open slits. Over two evenings all of the other electronics got wired up and tested. This is probably the fastest build minus paint I've ever done.

I may do some more detail work on it in the future. I haven't quite decided. German tanks seem to have a lot of detail stuff - much more than Russian tanks. For the time being I think it's going to stay unpainted while I decide. I'll take it out to the battlefield and run it. I wanna see what this little rat rod can do.



Inside shot:

Looks good. Definitely better than HL straight out of the box. Does it has track tensioner?

Actually it does. Has a metal hex bolt that turns in the back and it adjusts the tension. Kinda hard to see in this pic:



Apple mount:



Headlights On:



Headlights off. It's hard to get a good pic of the lenses:



Pulled the on/off switch up to the rear hatch. Single thumbscrew holds the upper on.

Tankme: You got that Mato tank the right way: inexpensive and in pieces, first because Mato tanks are too expensive for the quality and production problems and second because they'll end up in pieces anyway. Now you have solved a whole heap of problems ahead of time by installing your own electronics and mechanicals. I am optimistic about what you will be able to do with this Panzer III; I am interested to see how it goes for you; and I am happy you got a great deal. Keep us informed and have fun!

Nice tank, with some work it will turn out fantastic

So I'm sitting here doing research into how I'm going to paint this thing. From my research the tanks were painted in panzer gray and then covered in panzer yellow. I kinda like some of the ones with panzer green camo on top of the yellow. Where my issue lies is finding the proper markings for this puppy. It is an Ausf. L and from my research they were used in just about every front during the war. I found one DAK decal set, a Russia front, and a Wschondni set for the Ausf L from Peddinghaus. I've seen a pic of a PZ III with the Wschondni markings sporting what looked to be yellow and gray camo pattern so I think that's the one I'm going with. Need to find some better pics of that tank though because it may also have some green mixed in there.

I know it's my tank and I should do what I want, but I kinda like my tanks to at least attempt to be historically correct...

You can order paint masks (stencils) from Rad_Schuhart. They always looks better than decals

Rad does make some nice masks.

What I did on the KV-1E was ordered decals and then decided I didn't want decals. I ended up scanning the decals in and making my own masks. I took some double sided tape, put it behind the scanned copy, and then cut it out with a really sharp hobby knife. I removed the paper backing of the double sided tape and applied it to the tank. That method works well for larger numbers and markings, but I wouldn't try it on small markings.

Rad made for me set for Afrika Korps Panzer IV with AK palm tree. Worth every penny

I finally got tired of the metal hull and started painting this little guy. I started out trying to mimic the actual camo on the vehicle the decals will represent, but then it just looked like a Cheetah with green spots. This is what the reference photo looked like:



I didn't care for it so I started connecting the dots and this is what I ended up with:









I do still need to paint the lower plate and the rear plate, but that was how far I got on it last night before I had to go to bed. It's not correct for the surviving vehicle, but I kinda like it so it's going to stay. The running gear will remain yellow. Once the painting is done, it will need to be decaled up, sealed, tracks blued, and tracks reinstalled before she's ready to hit the field again.

That's all for now...