Armortek

Got the chance to spend some good time on the project today, about 3 hours in total. I installed the bolts on a few more wheels and then spent the rest of the time working on the torsion bar rails. I got all 8 bushings installed on one side. When you're doing this, be fairly quick about it. That LocTite 638 sets hard in about 20 seconds or so. I've got one bushing that is oh so slightly proud of the rail. I think a good sanding will take care of it if it proves necessary but watch out for that when you start this task.

I then fit every one of the torsion bar fixed ends to the sockets for them in the support rail. That way, it will not matter which end goes where, beyond the need to keep track of the size difference. I got 6 of the 8 of those sockets done, leaving 2 to do tomorrow along with the other support rail, which hasn't been touched yet. That's hard work, requiring a good deal of filing and sanding. Go slowly as you don't want to remove too much material and have the fixed end flopping about in the socket. Once I get the other side done and then mask them and clean them up, they can go into primer along with the lower hull plate and then be assembled together.

I also received the track cotter pins from ArmorTek today, 1x12 pins instead of 1.6. Much better!

Hi Dave . Don't be to concerned about priming your hull parts yet ! You need to test fit all hull together plus the main deck and bulkhead make any adjustment were needed , when happy pull the hull apart one last time . Then wet and dry sand all the hull plates Armortek now supply S.S steel bolts which is much better then the older kits which had black steel bolts in the past . I also don't use the steel nuts I just buy a box of 3mm S.S nyloc nuts so no more dissimilar metal plus no need to use loctite I only prime the outside of the hull once all the fake welds are completed and some detail below added . In the photo below I'm not far off priming I will only prime from the panniers down ready for running gear after that I will add all the fine detail parts above then prime the rest of the upper hull to blend it all together . Dale

Thanks Dale. I won't be doing the outsides at all yet. I do like the idea, however, of having some protection on mated surfaces, such as where the torsion bar rails sit on the lower hull plate. I had originally decided to just assemble and paint where the metals were the same, but the more I considered it, the more I liked the idea of having those hidden surfaces have some protection. I'm probably overthinking it though

The plan right now is to put one coat of primer on the inside of the lower hull and the two torsion bar rails, then bolt those all together. Once the hull is assembled the way I want it, that whole assembly will be primed, outside and inside once again. I've not decided yet whether I'm going to use an inside color coat, but I am leaning in the direction of doing so.

As I've been working on this today, I think I'm coming around to the "assemble it first" way of proceeding. After priming one of the torsion bar rails, I discovered some small adjustments will be needed to actually get it installed onto the lower hull plate. It's good I hadn't painted the hull plate yet. So, thanks Dale for the good tip. I will build and adjust first before worrying about any paint.

Lower hull mock-up went together pretty well. Needed to slightly enlarge a couple holes but that was it.

Mock-up continues with fitting of the pannier floors and sides. I got one of the pannier floors primed today, hopefully the other tomorrow. Fit so far is pretty good, though I'm not yet happy with the alignment angles at the upper corner of the rear hull plate. At this point, nothing has been premanently secured. In addition to needing to fit-check the rest of the major pieces of the hull, I'm waiting on some hardware to come in. I've ordered some lock washers and some nylon lock nuts to evaluate whether I want to use those instead of the plain M3 nuts the kit calls for. Seems to me that one or both of those would make for more secure attachments.

Love to see updates on another Tiger 1 build.
When I did mine I basically temporarily assembled all the Hull components so that I could see if the hull roof plates fitted without any problems.

viewtopic.php?p=59573#p59573
See last photo in post.

Once I was satisfied that there were no major problems I disassembled everything and started again from scratch painting as I go along.

Vince

Thanks Vince. Building to check fit is what I’m doing, I just chose to prep and prime before doing so. Once everything’s together to my satisfaction, I’ll fully assemble with Loctite, etc. and use one final coat of primer overall before color. That will cover any defects I introduce into the primer during fitting. I liked the idea of parts having some paint protection from the start. It’s probably overkill though

Mock-up of the hull is complete. I had to file just a bit of material off the two front corners of the turret deck to get it to drop in between the panniers, but that was it. It does require some clamping when assembling also but lines up well once secured. I also finished what felt like a nice milestone - all 48 wheels now have their cosmetic bolt detail installed. Whew, 864 screws in just about that many minutes!

Next marathon task is the track assembly now that the correct cotter pins have arrived. I'm planning to do a few each day until done to avoid the boredom

Build log spreadsheet currently shows 36.25 hours.

I started mocking-up the engine deck assembly today. That's a fair amount of work as the various grates require a good deal of filing to get them to fit into the deck plate. I've also discovered what look like 2 defective parts that I have reached out to support about. On the two small hatches on either side, where the rear grates are hinged, I have these pieces. As you can see, there is some sort of indent formed beneath the latch retaining hooks. Neither piece is the same, with one being only partially cut. Both have what looks like some sort of tool scar across them.
Looking at some previous builds here on the forum, and in the assembly drawings, those plates should be flat in that area, so this seems incorrectly made. We'll see what support has to say when the work week rolls around.

I also noted a small error in the assembly guide. For the CE0669 Engine hatch, the guide calls for M3x6 Hex bolts, but they are actually tapped for M2.5. M3's simply do not fit.

The third engine deck plate also has the same defect under the retention hook. I'm no CNC expert but that starts to look like a programming error to me. Still waiting to hear from ArmorTek on this one so I'm putting the engine deck painting and construction on hold. I'll probably start doing some track work interleaved with other things as that's going to get boring in a hurry

Dave. the parts in question are cast and the features you are referring to are artifacts from the casting process. The parts are not defective.

You can either sand the areas down or use a bit of filler.

Kian

We'll have to agree to disagree there. Looking at the other build threads, I haven't seen any engine deck parts with that flaw in them. To me, that says defect. I get that they are cast and are rough by design, which is historically correct, but that scar and indented surface is clearly some sort of flaw in the molds.

Trying to sand that out would take a significant amount of difficult sanding, remove a good deal of material and smooth the parts far too much I think, making the fix very visible. Building it up and then sanding flat is certainly preferable but likely to cause the same problem. I can retexture it in some way, I suppose, but now I have a piece that's likely to have a noticeably different texture to the other cast pieces.

My parts are the same

That's quite a hole..... I have not unboxed my T1 yet, but suspect that this is a systemic issue. I would have certainly rejected these castings back to the foundry for that level of imperfection, first thought is that it looks like a core piece issue where a core for the latch hook is moving? But obviously I have not seen how the pattern and cores are put together for this part, so that's a bit of a speculative assessment.

C.