Oli's Build and Question thread

[Oli Dainton]

Hello all,

Some progress on my build..

First of all a dry fit of basic hull parts..

With more time spent indoors I moved onto tracks:

Accessories, primed and base coated.

MG ball socket thickness increased.

[Oli Dainton]

Then I moved onto the suspension arms, pinned at both ends then primed.

Back to hull and other parts - etch primer

Managed to source a couple of spare escape hatches from Armortek to add extra detail to hull.

Dremelled and wire brushed to remove the milling marks and try to reproduce a cast texture

[Oli Dainton]

Fitting torsion bars

Next up will be the idler mount and setting suspension arm angles.
Loving every minute so far!

[Vince Cutajar]

Hi Oli
Thanks for the update as I love seeing other people's progress. I pick up useful tips from them.
Quick question. What's that grey colour you used on the spade and axe?

Vince

[Oli Dainton]

What's that grey colour you used on the spade and axe?

Hi Vince, the grey colour is the base dark grey that I use for all my metal work, before adding chipping, scuffed edges etc..
Think it was just Tamiya Dark Grey.

It looks very cartoonish at the moment, will end up getting mostly covered with whatever camo, weathering and scratches I end up applying.
Same goes for wood. This was all applied over a grey primer.

[Vince Cutajar]

Thanks Oli for the info.

Vince

[Oli Dainton]

Does anyone have any advice regarding option packs..?

I am planning on getting the motion, sound and smoke packs, but am not sure how these fit into a part built model..
I am at the stage where have suspension fitted, but not any upper structure yet.

Should I stop construction at this point until packs arrive or can they be fitted at any point without undoing previous work in lower hull?

[Adrian Harris]

Looks like you already have the motor mounts, which are the one bit which used to require the removal of the final drive housings.

The front and rear sections of the upper hull mount to the L brackets along the sides, so can be built up as sub-assemblies, then fixed in place once the interior is complete.

There's not a lot of room inside a Panzer III, so I would look through some of the previous build threads to see how people have shoe-horned it all in

Adrian.

[Pete Nash]

Oli

I*f I were you, get the motion packs now,

You can build your Panzer III wityh all the bits but will have to remove the superstructure back down to the open hull to install the two drive motors.
I also found it better to remove CL0108 and CL0131 (Lower Deck which are bolted together) so i could bolt the Drive motors to their Mounts CL0132. (Image 4). The problem looks as if it is going to be just as difficult to bolt the lower deck back down because access is restricted by the motors
NOTE: Both CL0132 have three holes for the mounting bolts. it is IMPORTANT that one hole is at the TOP. Image 1 shows them with four holes, it is wrong.

[Oli Dainton]

Thanks Pete, will look out for that.

[Oli Dainton]

Feels like a stupid question but can’t see how the two side of the road wheels are attached..

60BF53A1-7475-492B-9504-28669A9F73F5.jpeg (503.7 KiB) Viewed 6534 times

Or are they intended to be able to rotate independently?

Also, some tricks for getting all the inserts in place? every single one has been a tight fit and brute force probably damages the wheel..

Have you all been sanding internal diameter of wheel for these?

[Oli Dainton]

OK seems like some dremelling and a hammer did the trick. Also made a rudimentary jig to get a flat face on the torsion bar ends. I had tried using the grub and countersink screw at end of each bar but it just wouldn’t hold with strong torque.

Apologies for image rotation from mobile.

[Vince Cutajar]

Hi Oli

For the torsion bars on my Tiger I used cap head and hex head screws instead of the grub screws.

Regarding the rubber wheels, I read somewhere that people were putting the rubber wheels in hot water so that it would be easier to slip them on the wheels. I have not tried this method as my Tiger does not have rubber wheels.

Vince

[Oli Dainton]

Hi Vince, thanks for the reply. The issue was with the small tubes mounted at every other hole on the wheel face. These needed to be hammered in after I enlargerd the holes slightly with dremel.

I did see cap heads used in tiger builds but with the Panzer the threaded holes for this purpose are on the underside of the hull so would protrude externally.

Did you just rely in friction for these fittings to grip end of torsion bar or create a flattened portion on torsion bar end fitting?

[Vince Cutajar]

I just relied on friction.

Vince