Uwe's 88

[Iacopo Di Giampietro]

I have no words ....
Outstanding job: congratulations!

[Maarten Schutjes]

Meisterhaft Uwe!

[John Fitzsimons]

Exceptional work. Hot competition between you and Paul.

[Uwe Gerstenmayer]

Thanks a lot for all the nice comments

I don't think its a competition but lots of fun and inspiration

I've made today some functional improvement on the rotation of the Flak on the base.
Have had a turret of the 1:10 Panther in my hands and got an idea
So I made a kind of ball-bearing system to ease the rotation of the more and more heavy Flak.

Some details:
On a diameter of 88mm (cool value, isn't it) I made a slot by 4,0mm wide and 3,4mm depth with an 4,0mm radius mill cutter (and the WD40 )
Put in 3,965mm steel balls, 70 pieces of I think an Inch dimension just a bit smaller than 4,0mm

It works that good that you can rotate now with just the little finger alone


Greetings from Cologne to all watching my build

Uwe

[Tim Bowman]

Love every photo Uwe.

Afraid I'm simply repeating myself on your thread but......Fantastic work.

kind regards
Tim

[Paul Wills]

Hi Uwe,

You are miles ahead of me now , the sooner you get back to work and let me catch up the better

Große arbeiten, mein Freund, halten die Fotos kommen.

Paul.

[Uwe Gerstenmayer]

Hi Paul,

seems that your wish has been heard by my Company, so not much time left for the Flak

It's raining business-trips and assignments just now, so you'll have "some days"

Greetings and I'm really looking forward to follow your build


cheers,

Uwe

[peter karlsson]

Hi Uwe!!

im out of words absolutly superb!! your eye and acuracy for details is outstanding!

keep up the good woork!!


regards peppe.

[Uwe Gerstenmayer]

Hello Peppe,

just thought this morning again about the great time with my old colleagues at VCC in Torslanda, the Gothia Towers 23rd floor and the real great time we've had in Sweden
.....

Quite busy again but had at least the chance to "fight" over the last days a few hours with my wheels

After the first failed trials to get the tires on the rims I've been obviosly a bit
frustrated , so I got "Mr.Frusty" from my wife

"Better to smash him to the wall than the tires", she said

So I thought it's maybe helpful for someone to show what I've done to get it fixed.
Rule No 1 : No mercy to the tires, go up in smoke or fit on the rim
Rule No 2 : Forget any high paint efforts before the tires are on the rims.

I bolted my small spacer on the workbench to really fix the rims.
I took my heat gun, second position (roughly 600°C power) and rotated slowly over the tire in distance of 30mm, changed the side two times to heat it through properly for about five minutes in total...
Don't stop at one point with the heat gun

I took the best dish-towel of my wife , since the tire is pretty hot but now flexibel enough and pressed it as much as possible on the rim.
Any grease or "Flutschi" is contra-productive and will just kill your nervs !
The last centimeters I convinced the tire with an old prepared and rounded screwdriver just with brutal force cm by cm to hear the desired "plopp"

The last and final setting again by hand to get the tire properly seated on the rim

I've got all eight wheels done within less than two hours. Some rework on the first layer of the base paint is acceptable I think

Hope its helpful for another "Newbe" like me with this massive tires


Cheers,

Uwe

[Paul Wills]

Hi Uwe,

I wish you had emailed me, I could have saved you a lot of frustration with the tyres

It's been while since I fitted my last ones, but I used a boiling pan of water. I dropped the tyre in and left of about 10 minutes, fished it out, put on some thick gloves on and it pushed over the rim quite easily some of the tyres take longer to warm up so if it doesn't go on easily put it back in for a bit longer.

Its best done when the wife is out Then you can use her best stainless steel pans with the glass lid that way you can see that the water is boiling and make sure the tyre doesn't settle on the bottom . Don't get caught though Helen knew something had gone on but she didn't figured out what

Paul.

[Uwe Gerstenmayer]

Hi Paul ,

thought you're pretty busy so wouldn't like to bother you

I've tried all the variants with cooking, with wife , without wife, 10 minutes , 30 minutes etc...

Maybe its simply due to the fact that I'm disabled and fighting with a kind of rheumatism, especially on the hands. Not much power left in it

I just think the tires are from 2005 or 2006 , and obviously they become stiffer and stiffer over the years.
With the heatgun it was a significant difference and much easier for me than

I'll have a "Bierkrug" check with my buddies now but will drop you a note tomorrow

cheers,

Uwe

[Paul Wills]

Hi Uwe,

I am always busy but never too busy to help out a friend my fitters went on the beer last night and got nothing done after 19:00, so I joined them

Paul.

[Uwe Gerstenmayer]

Hi Paul ,

I had as well again some "Research-Beers" the last days, thanks to your really helpful hints !

So over the last few hours available for the Flak I could do some little progress again on the cruciform and the wheels

I made the leveler with its brackets and protection-covers for the arms,
the first one fitted today and I'm quite happy with the result so far

Some mods on the upper edges of the cruciform and the "guide pins" of the jack-pads (hope that is the correct word for it ?? ) have been realized.
Close to the hooks I've replaced their fixings as well.

On the jack pads I made the co-relating grooves to avoid rotation while leveling up or down.

On the wheels story I've got a quite hot finger removing all the residue on the outer profile blocks with my little quarter-file, but looks much better now for me

Cheers ,

Uwe

[Paul Wills]

Hi Uwe,

"Wow", Great work, you have taken your build to anther level in detail. I can't do that modification to mine, no milling machine

Paul.

[Uwe Gerstenmayer]

Hi Paul,

hope you're doing well and come along with all your "projects"


I've been a bit "out of order" the last days but could realize some small bits and pieces on my Flak again.

The cruciform is at least base-painted now, on the dial I tried myself with wipe painting .

The levelers are all complete and mounted and the grease-ports for the folding arms have been added.

The remaining details on the folding arms are still on the "workbench" and will be mounted once completed.

Now I'm really looking forward for Tims fantastic "little Masterpieces" to be added to the gun


cheers for now,

Uwe