As others have mentioned over the last few pages it seems that a few oddities is par for the course...and all part of the fun. I love the ingenuity but slightly worried that any 'fixes' required are beyond my limited skill set.
You are further down the build than me, and it seems to me more capable of 'surprises'.... so I follow this thread eagerly
Hi Dave . When I built my Tiger 1's I remember every now an then I would have to run a chainsaw round file through the track link holes to just to free up a little , some times you can pick up another link and it will be fine . The track link moulds from Armortek would be the same as all the older kits just a difference colour . Dale
Yeah, I have been cleaning up some holes on the links. Some of the links are clearly drilled way off center and are unrecoverable to my eye. Those will go as the spares. The main problem is the bent track pins. I have probably a dozen now that are badly bowed, to the point that you cannot roll them on a flat surface. If push comes to shove, I'll try straightening them manually but I'm hopeful I have enough left to finish the second track. Given the quantity of these that have to be made, I think it's fair to expect a certain percentage to be bad. I'm running at about 5 percent now, which seems reasonable to me.
I'm worried about skill level too Neil. I am not a metal worker by any stretch of the imagination, so too much fabrication or correction will be a big problem for me. I'd love to do some of the detailing I see on build threads here, but that's not in the cards for me. I don't have the skill, training nor the tools for it, so I'm picking my battles very cautiously. If there are detail parts I can buy, I will do so, like Mark's cast brass bump stops - what a huge improvement over the kit type. So I keep my eye out for things like that which I can use.
I really have to decide on color soon, as assembling the wheels will require the paired wheels to be painted ahead of time, as the inside faces would be unreachable and I don't want to leave them in primer.
Just checking if its bent pins or tracks that are slightly off center causing the tracks to bind?
while i had no bent pins,i did have quite a few tracks which were drilled slightly off center causing the tracks to bind
i spend a bit of time gently filling the tight links to get them silky smooth,it paid off as when fully assembled i had no issues with the tracks running perfectly
i removed all the off center tracks and will use these for the spare tracks on the turret
i had also painted my tracks with acid etch primer,the red oxy primer,then a red brown mix of acrylic,i didn't like the look,and read on this forum that that look is for a tank that's been in a museum for years,so a quick shot of German gray as a dust coat and i think i nailed it with the red brown just showing through in places
Thanks Donald. I'm doing much the same thing. I assemble the links after checking the pins for straightness, then check that they move freely and fully in both directions before I put in the split pins. If it binds just a little, I will cleanup the holes with a small round file and that usually takes care of it. If it doesn't, it goes into the spares pile for now.
I think I am going to just give the tracks a light dusting of a dark gray, just to take some of the shiny look off them, then allow it to just wear in under use. I am not going to bother with weathering the tracks, at least I don't think I will as of this point in time.
First road wheel stack assembled. I'll have to do a little paint touch-up along the wheel rims but I'll do that via brush on this one. On the next one, I will mask the tire area a little more thinly, so some paint gets over the edge of the wheel and rim. That should eliminate the need for touch-ups.
First pair of suspension arms assembled. Only changes here were ordering some shorter grub screws and doing some filing on the protruding screw threads to confirm them a little closer to the suspension arms. The new grub screws sit just slightly proud of the suspension arm, and to my eye looks much nicer than the overly tall stock ones. I'm not going to fill and paint over them as I suspect there may be the occasional need to tighten them.
With a 4 year old visiting for the holidays, not a lot of build time got into the log, but I have been puttering with small stuff and some painting. I am nearly done with the engine deck, which will then get one final coat of primer.
I'm on hold for the last of the engine grates, waiting for new cutting wheels and bits to come in for the Dremel tool. I have to revisit the large grates as I want to open up the cuts a little more on those, like I did on the smaller lower grate. Looks better I think. I'm not sure about the holding latch on the middle hatch; it seems way too short but all 3 provided parts are the same size. In order for it to drop into the latched position, the large hatch has to go well past vertical, so it essentially does nothing. Maybe on the real vehicle it was intended to support the small hatch with the filler caps? I also don't understand the purpose of the two pivoting arms on the sides of the large hatch. The way they mount, they can't support the large hatch while it's open. Anyone know what those were for on the actual tank?
I think they are for when the engine hatch is open up just enough to let the engine run cooler they just pivot around and sit back down on them self ...
