[Winter] Hummel (late)

[MonsieurTox]

Hey guys,

I'm super happy to join you ! I find this group build idea awesome.

So ! My project is a Hummel, some may have seen that my first project was a Hummel when I joined the board and that's true. I was not new to scratchbuilding but it was my first tank and I've learnt a lot of things since so I think it was time to build another... much better ! I found on facebook some people who posted a ton of pics of the restoration of a Nashorn. It's been a great help to improve the details on my build, of course you have to carefuly study the difference between the Nashorn and the Hummel.

I have a lot of books about the Hummel but I haven't found good profile of a late Hummel with winterwash. I've seen some blurry pics, I've seen lots of 1/35 models built with winter camo but nothing solid. If you have any ideas...

I've addressed some issues I had with the first one : stronger hull, the gun platform as a different design, it can be take appart like the original (but I simplified it so you dont have to remove the front armor plates) and I spent a lot of time on the idler, return rollers etc. I had a lot of play on these parts on my first build.

The new hull, I tried to stick to the 1:1 model to design it. The middle bulkhead had 3 holes on the original but since there's not a lot of room in the 1/16 model, I had to do one single, larger hole. But it retains the original outlines of the 3 holes. This way the battery can go through it, you can also see in the floor a recessed square, this is for the battery, every mm counts.

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You can see I'm using the I love Kit 15cm sFH 18 Howitzer which is a nice kit. It has been modified so I can the recoil and the elevation controlled servos (running on a HL TK 6.1s).
You can notice my old Hummel in the background. I will salvage it because I try to keep the cost as low as possible, and if possible, I'm planning to not buy a single thing for it (but paints of course !).

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[Ecam]

Now THAT'S a jump in! Glad to have you in the group build. Awesome work so far!

[MonsieurTox]

As I said, I spent a lot of time on the parts that had a lot of play on my first build.

I had bought Panzer IV metal idler for my first build, they have ball bearing. Unfortunatly the idler screw was a tard too small in diameter for the ball bearing. Thus some play. So I machined some parts to fix that.

Idler adjuster :

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I drew the parts I needed to mill on the lathe in my 3D software :

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This part goes into the ball bearing of the idler. It has a center hole for a M3 screw that screws into the idler adjuster.

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The idler adjuster bracket or whatever how it's called is scratchbuilt in styrene (the old one was 3D printed and was not very accurate, found some good ref pictures since ). Nuts are from Meng.

I machined an aluminium insert for it (the styrene is just cosmetic and help to get the insert square).

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The insert is press fitted. Snug fit

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[MonsieurTox]

Suspensions are from a Heng Long Panzer IV, unfortunatly they are not very great.
Suspension housings are from a Trumpeter Panzer IV, I molded and cast the parts.
I used metal wheels.
The dampers (not shown in this pic) are resin ones from Bitskrieg (for Panzer IV). You can see the cardboard jig to alignt the suspensions and the dampers .

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As for the return rollers, unfortunatly I did not take pics of the whole process
I used on the first Hummel the return rollers of a trumpeter Panzer IV (the all steel ones), I did a weak 3D printed spacer between the front and back wheel but the whole design was poor with a lot of play. However I wanted to reuse those parts with some improvements. You can see in this pic a jig to center the trumpeter wheel on my CNC ini order to machine a big hole. It's hard to explain the whole process and all what I did without showing any other pics, I just forget to take more pics as I was in a rush when I made these.

Anyway in the pics you can see the stock part, a stock part in the jig that is going to be machined and a finished part with a larger hole that will accept a new bushing.

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Now on the final drive housing covers. I used parts from a Heller StuG III kit.
But first I had to machine on the lathe some supports because the Heng Long gearbox shaft are very loose.

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I made the spacer in styrene.

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Aluminium bushing to support the loose HL shafts in place :

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I made a jig to place the final drive spacer in the correct position (odd angle), to get perfectly centered and to get the position of the conical nuts (or rivets ?).

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Spacer is glued on :

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Conical rivets/nuts (from the Heller StuG III kit) :

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And final the final drive housing covers :

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[MonsieurTox]

The inner reinforcement brackets for the side armor are made from 0.5 and 0.5mm styrene :

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The front hatches were originally 3D printed on my first Hummel, they are now made from styrene :

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They won't be movable.

That's all for now !

[MonsieurTox]

Now THAT'S a jump in! Glad to have you in the group build. Awesome work so far!

Thank you Eric !

[Ecam]

I am impressed with your fabricating/machining skills. You have certainly got my attention, I'll be tuned in to this build!

[MonsieurTox]

I am impressed with your fabricating/machining skills. You have certainly got my attention, I'll be tuned in to this build!

Thanks Eric, to be honest those machined parts are very basic, here's some pics of the first parts I ever machined in order to build a replica of the stop motion puppet of the AT-AT walkers used in the Empire Strikes Back :


No CNC, all machined by hand and it was not that very easy as this was the first time I was machining parts and I'm using not very good equipment, I have a chinese lathe and mill, they are very good for the price but can't compete with 10K+ euros tools. But once again for the price, I can't complain and they really help for the tanks !

[Ecam]

Wow!

I'm too old to understand or try to learn CNC. Great work!

[Kaczor]

Amazing skills. This group build brings out interesting gems