Armortek

Did you get your tracks on yet? How many links are you using?

At the moment each track loop has 96 links as per manual. Most probably these have to be reduced but I will do that when the tank is complete and the torsion bars settled. I will see how it goes with 96 on each side. At this stage I am more interested to check that the tracks operate as they should and that they don't jump off the sprocket.

Vince

Made the test of the tracks running with remote control and it was successful. The tracks did not jump the sprockets and operated as designed. That was a relief as I was worrying about it. Although not shown on the video, some turns were also made. I have removed one track on each side so now each track loop has 95 tracks. I think I can safely remove more but I will leave that for later.

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Brian, can you have a look at the following photo. It is showing the motors in the hull. The one on the left (driver side) is sitting at a higher angle than the other one. Is yours the same?
Vince

No. Mine look the same angle. How great to get your hull moving!?

Thanks Brian. I thought it was strange that both motors are not at the same angle but it seems that it is not affecting operation.

Vince

Definitely not right. They are easy to misplace and I even think they can go on backwards?

I have been in communication with Armortek and also sent them photos of how I installed the motor mounts.

Kian said that I installed the mounts correctly but one set of holes in one of the mounts was machined slightly offset. He assured me that it will have no impact on the running of the model or the fit of the parts apart from the motors sitting at different angles. He also offered to send me a new mount.

Great customer service but most importantly put my mind at rest that all is OK.

Vince

Removed the electric motors and tracks and put the hull back on the table. It is starting to get heavy now but I find that with the hull on the table it is more comfortable to work on the model. Must start to figure out a simple (cheap) but effective way of taking the model off the table.

Still waiting for the rear mudguards to arrive from the States and trying to resist the urge to start on a different part of the tank. So started the painting process of the bits and pieces which are part of the rear plate. Also managed to put some weld seams on the bottom of the exhaust cylinders.
Earlier this week I was looking at the photo-etched grille mesh which comes with the kit. As they are not shown in the assembly manual I wasn't sure how to use them. So I asked Kian and he kindly sent me a couple of photos which are self-explanatory.
The edges have to be bent.

Vince

hi vince, try and get a finer mesh thats sits under the etch mesh your fitting, there's a few photo's on here regarding the mesh "set up" on the rear of the tiger, regards simon manning.

Thanks Simon. I have to remember that when I come to that part of the build.

Vince

Decided to attempt the bending operation of the photo-etched grille covers. Not having any sheet metal fabrication tools I used my large milling vice and some parallels to hold the photo-etch grilles. Wasn't as easy as I thought it would be but at the end I managed to do them all.
I might modify them a bit. Just waiting for some material to arrive.

Vince

I like that piece that isn’t bent do you think it should be trimmed? So it does not cover the hinge or is it better left

In the photos that Kian sent me, the un-bent side was not trimmed so for now I left mine like that. It does not foul the hinge as it is. Having said that, it wouldn't look bad if it was also trimmed.

As it is, I am modifying the photo-etch mesh so I might change my mind again.

Vince

Earlier this year, when I was working on the road wheels and sprockets, I acquired an another photo-etch set from Armortek. This means that I had an extra set of photo-etch grille mesh to play around with. This gave me the courage to experiment with the photo-etch grille covers and see if it's possible to improve them.

Yesterday I received some course and also some fine woven metal mesh and the result of the experiment is shown below.
The mesh I got is made from mild steel. I would have preferred if it was brass but I could not find it. Does anybody know of a source of course brass mesh? I soft soldered the mesh to the bottom of the photo-etch frame and then cut the existing photo-etch mesh. I have only made one for now as I wanted to get some comments (good or bad). Well, what do you think? Is it worth the extra effort to do the other three?

Vince

I like it. Why is brass better than steel? Are you going to make upgrade kits for fellow modelers?