John's Late Tiger 1

[Paul Morris]

Hi John.

Tanks looking good now mate, great job with the missing bit on your turret.
I could not help but notice you have quite a collection of space marines there...Blood angels Space wolves and possibly Dark angels I used to be well into that and last year I considered selling them but they seem to go for nothing!.
Sorry not intending to hijack your post, just a common interest.
Cheers Paul

[John Fitzsimons]

Thanks Paul. I will pm you about the other stuff.

[Christoffer Ahlfors]

Looking very good indeed!

I particularly like your work with the mud flaps. Very inspiring!

Cheers,
/Chris

[John Fitzsimons]

Thanks Chris.

It's a nice day here so decided to do some work outside. I have lowered the deck but now need to lowed the height of the rear armour plate. Also, I will lower the square head bolts.













I used a 5.5 mm drill bit to bore out the holes for the square head bolts. Thanks again to Steve Norris for your help with advice on lowering the deck. I'm glad now that I went ahead with this modification. Looks so much better.

[John Fitzsimons]

I have started assembling suspension. A little work to do here with the threads. I know I need to make a jig for the suspension angle.
I have 4 x 22 amh batteries and note that some have set the rear wheels at slightly higher angles.

I was wondering if anybody has feedback or advice on the subject.

I am currently fitting pins in the suspension arms just to make sure they stay in place.

[Steve Norris]

Hi John.
Glad you achieved the end result you wanted with the lowered rear deck, It does look a lot better.
When i did my suspension i set all swing arm angles to 35 Degrees if i remember correctly, I also relocated my batteries (2 x 22 ah) further forward so they were under the turret.
2 reasons for doing this.
1. With the batteries centrally placed the CofG is also central and therefore the tank does not tend to "sit down" at the rear.
2. I wanted to install a engine and bay, therfore the batteries had to move.
If you decide to relocate your batteries please bear in mind that you will have to check for clearance with the turret rotation motor and adjust how the gun elevation motor mounts as this will hit the batteries if installed as intended.
Hope this is of help
Steve

[yves mouton]

hello John,

beware if you gonna use the blankfire that the batteries donth come in the turret hole, thats why i put my batteries flat in the tank, one batterie flat under the maybach engine and the second batterie almoast against the other batterie,
so the second batterie comes a little under the turret hole but there
is enough room for the blankfire.
regards Yves

[John Fitzsimons]

Hi Steve and Yves for the input.

Steve, I like your idea but am a bit scared of revising the motor mounts. Do'nt trust myself that much. What size batteries did you fit?

Yves, I like your idea also, especially as you also got around the problem of mounting the Maybach engine. Your batteries look about the same size as mine. Are they 22amh? What running time do you get.

My aim was to fit 4 x 22amh using 2 at a time (with 2 as backup). I found a site in spain selling the Maybach for €100 but it turns out they have none to sell. I will get one someday but might install as display only when batteries are out.

[yves mouton]

Hello john,

My maybach engine comes from steel dragons, but there is also a german company that sells the engine ( peddinghaus decals )
my batteries are from panasonic 12V 22Ah, i donth know how long the tank drives with these batteries, because i must find out how to connect al the electronics and my transmitter set up
regards Yves

[John Fitzsimons]

Thanks Yves for the link to peddinghaus. I used them for decals before but did'nt know they had the engines. They have the HL 210 rather than the HL 230 but looks similar to me.
Did you Paint your suspension bars? I was thinking if the bars are twisting the Paint would come off.
I will be Looking for help with the electrics myself also at some point.

[yves mouton]

Hi John,

If i can help somebody i will help,
yes i have painted my torsion bars, just with primer. I think that the paint dont come off the bars. I think that the bars just give a little twist so the paint will hold i think.

regards Yves

[John Fitzsimons]

Suspension fitted. Started on painting the underside also. This thing uses a lot of paint.









All suspension bars set at 35 degrees. I will try to balance out the batteries.

[John Fitzsimons]

Here is an update on progress. It is starting to look like a tank now.











I will tone down the whells further later.
Are the centre wheels camo or just dark yellow.

[Phil Woollard]

Looking Good John

[John Fitzsimons]

Thanks Phil, I have toned down the wheels a bit. They look better in natural light. they will tone down a bit during weathering.