Armortek

Hello
I recently took delivery of the 2021 Tiger 1 Late tank
i have been doing a fair bit of metal prep work and etch priming the parts needed first

my question is what Loctite do i use on the main structure (base/sides/front/back etc)?
do i use the stud lock type loctite,or the medium thread locking blue threadlock,or does it matter
only seeing these tanks in action at Bovington i am not sure how much stress these chassis are under when ran R/C

also i see a few builds have countersunk screws on the base plate,does this weaken the fixing as you are removing more metal,i also note the front plate is held on by M3 screws but the baseplate is drilled for M4 would countersinking (like some have done) effect the strength of that panel

a lot of questions,but i am a total newbie to this type and scale of Tank

thanks in advance
Donald

Welcome to the forums!

I use Loctite 222 where it's a nut and bolt, and 638 for bearings and shafts. For bolts into aluminium I don't use anything, as the aluminium tends to grab the bolt anyway, and breaking one when dismantling can mean the part needs to be drilled or eroded out again.

I thought all the fasteners in the Tiger floor were M4 ?

The usual reason for countersinking is to be able to hide visible fasteners as the hulls were all welded.
I've never seen a hull come apart and I've seen them take some abuse in my time

I can't answer about the strength but the strength of the bolt won't change and I would have thought a countersunk bolt head would have more contact with the aluminium it was passing through than a bolt on top, so it will be distributing the tensile force more evenly. Possibly

Adrian.

Hi Donald,
Welcome to the Armortek family, look forward to seeing your build on the forum.
In many ways it's a matter of personal preference so I expect you'll get a number of different views. The point is that the strength of the join is in the fixing not the threadlock. The chassis is unlikely to be to subject the high level of vibration that would require anything more than the basic blue threadlock.
On the subject of fixing types there isn't really a discernable difference in strength between the hex and countersunk for our application.
One thing to be wary of is that countersunk screws will pull the parts being joined into a specific fixed position. The ideal approach to putting the hull together is fit all the parts with loose fixings and only tighten things up when everything is square and properly aligned.
If you are thinking about replacing hex with countersunk, my advice would be to to replace them one by one once you have bolted everything up tight. If you countersink all the holes beforehand, the plates could be pulled into the wrong positions and it'll be very difficult to move them around to square things up afterwards.
Good luck, David

Adrian Harris wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:27 pm

I use Loctite 222 where it's a nut and bolt, and 638 for bearings and shafts. For bolts into aluminium I don't use anything, as the aluminium tends to grab the bolt anyway, and breaking one when dismantling can mean the part needs to be drilled or eroded out again.

I thought all the fasteners in the Tiger floor were M4 ?



Adrian.

The ones at the front at M3 for some reason,but the rest are M4