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well I've decided I cant let Peter Q have all the fun! FYI He's been very helpful answering newbie questions.

I've also been busy working on road wheels and although not as far along as Peter am quite happy with how things are coming together.

I developed a rhythm to bending the locking tabs whilst loctite'ing the nuts in place using a very small flat bladed screwdriver. I think they turned out well.

In addition when you tighten down the bolts holding the halves together the bolt sticks out a little too far for my tastes. Finally the ends of the bolt just don't look quite right to me. So I ended up using a dremel and a diamond file to shorten and flatten them a bit.

I really like the effect and think they look pretty true to the originals on the tank. A small thing perhaps but delightful for me to figure out and address.

Still learning a lot since this is my first model in about 30 years and my first Armortek.

Really pleased so far with the quality of the parts. What do you think?

Keep it up Don.

Vince

Hi Don,

Good to see at least one more JT appear on the forum!!

Cheers

Peter

Thank you Vince and Peter!

After a small delay I was able to finally get the lower hull together! Yay!

Feels like a milestone (maybe an inch pebble) and a reason to post!

Today is first day of trying to use a spray gun... Hopefully I can get it figured out.

Think I'm doing OK. Yay!

Decided to work on the rear deck to reduce piece count and take a break from the wheels... So many wheels!!!!

Took a picture and I have to say "dat ass"...



Also spent some brain cells trying to figure out how to deal with those cap screws in the rear deck...

Here's what my "fix" looks like:



These were done with some JB Weld and some nylon 2mm nuts I got off Amazon. I have since made a 3D drawing of a "plug" that will get glued into the caps and provide the hex head look and be 80 times easier than hand gluing these nuts in place.

Feedback on the look is appreciated.

Nice work Don! why not simply change the rear deck cap heads for hex heads?

Phil Woollard wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:31 am

Nice work Don! why not simply change the rear deck cap heads for hex heads?

Thank you! Great Question!

The smallest actual hex head bolts I can find are M3. The dimensions of an M3 hex head are 5.5mm across the flats and 6mm across the corners.

The holes in the plate are to accommodate the 5.5mm diameter of the M3 cap head screws and are just slightly larger.

For the fasteners to look correct in the plate, I would estimate that the holes would need to be at least 7.5mm across. Otherwise it wouldn't look like you could get a wrench on the bolt. The problem with that is as you can see in the picture several of the holes are very close to the edge of the plate as it is.

I played around with M3, M2.5 and M2 nuts to determine the aesthetic that looked best and would look the most "scale". To my eye the 4mm/4.3mm of the M2 looked the best with existing holes. At 1:6 scale the bolt would be approximately an inch which seemed like an OK size based on pictures of the real Jadgtiger. Also with the cap head screw still in place it looks like there's a washer under the nut.

These are the nylon nuts I got from Amazon to test with: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XFJP5RT/

I took the dimensions of the nuts and add a "post" that will fit in the M3 socket heads. My buddy is ripping off a bunch on his 3D printer for me.

Definitely could have used M2.5 nuts and bolts mounted "upside down" with the bolts dremel'd down and the nuts "boltified" with some JB Weld, but again it looked a little cramped.

The "problem" now of course is that I'm probably going to modify the roof plate to use the same size fasteners. For that I may switch out the kit supplied M3 hex head bolts for M3 button head bolts and use my caps to provide the same "bolt w/ washer" aesthetic.

Hi Don,
Knupfer Modell-und Feinwerktechnik carry a range of metric screws/bolts with smaller head sizes. Perhaps M3x10, M3x15 or M3x20 would suit: they have a 4mm A/F head which is 2.5mm thick.

Alastair

AlastairCooke wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 20, 2020 2:35 pm

Hi Don,
Knupfer Modell-und Feinwerktechnik carry a range of metric screws/bolts with smaller head sizes. Perhaps M3x10, M3x15 or M3x20 would suit: they have a 4mm A/F head which is 2.5mm thick.

Alastair

Alastair,

Excellent! Thank you for this resource. Now I just need to learn German!

Well I ventured into the land of simulated welds.

I used the photos of the Kubinka Jadgtiger as my model since I have good close up photos of the welds.

I also did the research to confirm that the Germans used mostly 5mm and 6mm weld rods and hand welded their tanks. I'm sure a lot of you know that already but it was new info to me.

So based on the photos and the research I took my first crack. Also the first time working with Milliput. Not sure if I love it or hate it or both!

Anyway enough blah blah blah here's a picture. Be gentle please!



Almost forgot! I made a custom tool:

Did some beer can engineering inspired by others.



This beer gave its all...

It sure would be nice to see this one at the US tank meet next September in Virginia.

a nice start I'm looking forward to further developments

johnny johnson wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:26 pm

It sure would be nice to see this one at the US tank meet next September in Virginia.

That's definitely doable! I'm in PA so not far at all.