Panther G 2022 #15 Build

[Gary Rafferty]

Hi Malcolm,

Nice to see you're build coming along.
I had a couple that felt tight I managed to press them in using my bench vice, little bit of sanding and that was about it.
Maybe I was lucky with mine.

Cheers
Gary

[Brian Ostlind]

Aluminum is very grabby and slip fit parts need fettling. Don’t be afraid to let metal shavings fly!

[Malcolm.Plumb]

Well that's that minor issue sorted with all the small bushes now in place.

I have used a 12mm reamer to remove a small amount on material from the bottom sides of the holes without effecting their depth.
Then the bushes were put in my Sherline mini lathe and I used an abrasive pad to just clean the lower side edge up a little.

All bushes just dropped in fully to the correct depth.
All now loctited in place and pretty happy

[Malcolm.Plumb]

A few hours put into the build today with the continuation of the suspension parts, cleanup of the floor panel and some a test fit of the hull side panels.
Thought I'd open up and check some of the other main hull parts as well.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

More test fitting of suspension parts.
I think I will get some priming and painting done next on some of these parts so I can get them together permanently.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

Nice weather so had an early start and got the portable painting booth out to try.

I managed to get the parts I needed painting etch primed and the inside painted with RAL 9001 Cremeweiss.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

Straight in from work and out for an hours painting.

Managed to mask off the cream paint done yesterday on the inside of the floor and get some red oxide down for the underside.

Did a few torsion rods as well with primer but in the end ran out of daylight.

[Gary Rafferty]

Straight in from work and out for an hours painting.

Managed to mask off the cream paint done yesterday on the inside of the floor and get some red oxide down for the underside.

Did a few torsion rods as well with primer but in the end ran out of daylight.

Hi Malcolm,

You are really starting to get a shift on with your Panther.
Looking good like your colour choice for the inside.
I've just gone for red oxide primer.

Cheers
Gary

[Malcolm.Plumb]

A couple of hours out in the spray booth this morning.
Ready to get the floor, torsion beams and those first 16 rods together later.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

Hull floor with initial sixteen torsion bars done this evening.
A small amount of blue thread lock used on these bolts and grub screws.
Also changed out those silver M5 x 8 bolts for black ones.

Pretty pleased overall.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

The main option packs arrived today.
Very nice indeed

Time to get a 24v supply or the batteries and see if it will work with my Jeti Transmitter.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

So after quite a few hours over the past few days I have tonight managed to get the Jeti DS-16 and 9ch receiver to work with the Armortek Motion and Audio packs.

I will order the remaining option packs and don't see any problems controlling them. Telemetry to look at also but that can be done later.

A 24v 20Amp power supply has been used for the bench testing as I currently haven't decided on my drive battery set up.

Initially I had drive to both motors but could not get them to rotate in different directions when trying to turn. Experimenting with a couple of mixes finally sorted it.

As there was no information anywhere on how to set the Jeti up with an Armortek tank I am pretty pleased with my self.
It lets me use a really nice transmitter that was I was previously using flying R/C helicopters.

[Brian Ostlind]

It’s always nice to use a high end radio if you have got one already instead of shelling out for a new possibly inferior unit. I have a beautiful JR radio that I used for airplanes and it tested perfectly with my Universal carrier so I am hoping to use it for all of my Armortek builds.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

Yeah true Brian.
Really wanted to use it and if it hadn't of worked I do have a spare JR DSX9 here as well.
Glad it checked out OK for your tanks.

[Malcolm.Plumb]

A few hours spent tonight having a look at the fitting of the aftermarket torsion bar covers.

I have managed to get two sets of these from the guys on the forum and have only chosen the one specific set due to the more prominent pre-counter sunk holes.
These have still been made very slightly deeper to fit the M2.5 slot headed bolts being used.


As Ed has done with his build I have also looked at making a jig to help mark out and get the set of holes drilled.
An M4 bolt in the centre of the piece of aluminium used just fits nicely into the head of the hull side fixing screws to help with alignment.

As already mentioned elsewhere some of these covers really should point in a different direction to the others. This is not really going to be possible here due to the close proximity of the main bump stops.
Not really a problem.

I am next going to get a scrap piece of metal to try the holes in the jig out before attempting anything on the real parts.