Hello AT owners. New owner of KT-2019-16

[Mark Allen]

Thank you for having me on your forum! I have been prowling for months after I discovered Armortek Products. I was working on money to buy a kit and get started when one popped up nearly in my back yard (20 minutes away). After meeting the guy we struck a deal and now the kit is at my place (yay).

The first owner had done some fitting of the hull pieces and the turret too. I am glad I spent the hours and hours reading everything I could on this great resource about the kits in general and the King Tiger specifically. I took apart what had been done and straightened the hull uppers sides. There is plenty more tweaking to be done, but I feel ahead of the game as from my reading here I know what to look for.

Next up is to get the modules all on order.

I have one question, that up to now, I have not seen asked or answered here.

What are the thoughts on actually welding the basic hull ? Same for the turret?

Thank you,

Mark

[Robert E Morey]

Mark,
No need to do any welding. Bolt it together is fine. I seal the lower hull joints with silicone or RTV to keep dust and water out, but no other adhesive are necessary. Add fake welds with epoxy putty or miliput.
Enjoy your kit!
Bob

[Brian Ostlind]

Congratulations. I am jealous you found a kit. I let mine go regretfully and I’m patiently waiting for another production run.

[Damon Resch]

Congratulations. I am jealous you found a kit. I let mine go regretfully and I’m patiently waiting for another production run.

Me too, hopefully they will release the KT soon.

[Adrian Harris]

Back in the day, Nick Farrugia welded a couple of kits. He is a welder by trade.



I would imagine you would have to be very careful with the settings due to the thickness of some of the parts of the KT.

Adrian.

[Mark Allen]

Thank you for the replies. I have a welder who is a bit of a legend around here. Aerospace welder for years. I have watched him tig weld a soda can back together with no filler rod.

The concerns are fixturing and warping. He is looking at it to see what might be done. Talking about structural welds to be done on the interior and "artistic" welds on the exterior mimicking photos. I'm interested in what he ultimately suggests.

At work on the kit this weekend. Alternating between fitting and more mundane tasks..road wheels. It took a couple to get the groove down, but they take a bunch of time. After reading many posts I had to decide what gets painted when for me. So far, it is etch prime every piece (sans hardware). Then determine what wont be accessible after the next level of assembly. That gets base color. Due the sub assembly, etch prime the hardware, and repeat. There are a LOT of parts in those road wheels...

The turret sides have been a lot of fiddling. They are not symmetrical. No matter what I do they do not stay right up against the two turret floors. However, fit is reasonable and roofs fit into place nicely with no modifications.

I'm going to try and keep up with documenting how the build goes. There are many threads that showcase the amazing skills of the Master Model Builders on this site. My abilities are simple in comparison, but I thought I could contribute by covering challenges and how I approached them. I will cue up a number of pages that represent the pages of the manual. In those I will detail what I ran into and what I did. I hope it is helpful to someone new to this, like me!

[Mark Allen]

Preperation and digging in:
I got my KT kit pre-owned. A little bit had been started. I started by first looking through all the boxes and bags, quite a lot to take in.

Since mine had been owned and started on, my first job would be to inventory the kit and see that all was there. The inventory sheets for several of the bags were missing so I started there. I used the parts list in the front of the manual and noted in the edge which bag each part(s) were located.


Here a solider inspects an unfinished hull...

The larger parts were inventoried and put into plastic tote boxes and labeled like turret, hull, suspension and wheels, also noted on the parts list which bag or tote each part number was in.

Finally, I got several of the flat plastic organizers. I labeled each compartment and put in the complete bags of each type of hardware. I leave them in there bag even as I am using them, heaven forbid I knock an open one over...

You need to think about a few things if you havent already. While you can pick up and handle any part with ease, they quickly get heavy as they get assembled. Think out your work area and how you will handle this thing, as it gets heavy, safely.

I am sure I will repeat this on many of the following pages. Fit checking, fiddling and rechecking are your friends! Dont expect to just bolt it together and move on. The more time you spend fussing with it the happier you will be with your efforts. Spend the time.

Surface prep for paint. Spend some time here. While tedious at times you will be happy you did down the road. I clean the parts first to get rid of oils or remains of cutting fluids etc.

Sharp corners or edges. Paint doesnt like these. Due to surface tension wet paint will pull back from the edges. Not much but the finished piece will have very thin paint on the edges. I break all sharp edges, file first then follow with sandpaper.

Aluminum needs special attention. It oxidizes quickly when exposed to air. Paint, even the etch primers have troubles attaching well to the oxide. If possible I give the aluminum parts I plan to paint a good going over with 400 grit, scoth-brites to get rid of most of the oxidation but to also add "tooth" to the parts. As soon as practical I subject the parts to the etch primer. Im in the US and use SEM paints. The primer is expensive but gives beautiful results.

[Mark Allen]

1 LOWER HULL:



My KT had its lower hull assembled by the original owner. It soon became apparent to me it would need to come apart and have some work applied to fit of the pieces. Unfortunately it was all secured with red lock tite, but after patiently working with the fasteners, heat and lacquer thinner all came apart and no hardware was ruined.

The lower hull is the foundation and needs to be just so, in my humble opinion. The biggest challenges (so far) in check fitting are the warped panels (both upper and lower panniers, and the rear panel has a warp to it too) and the filing of tabs on the front and rear panels. Also as noted in other build the rear panel has a defect in the cuts on each side for the lower hull are not the same height.

Being my first AT kit I have a lot of learning to do. Things that the seasoned vets probably take for granted.

The most accurate parts are the floor panel and the the two torsion bar bearing bars, so that is the basis for everything else. After assembling the parts, an accurate width can be determined to use in the filing of the two front plates and the rear plate to fit perfectly in the lower panniers. I layed the parts on top of the torsion bar rails and marked exactly the same width onto the plates. Then a good deal of time was spent hand filing them to fit. Also straightened the lower panniers following other builders suggestions of blocking them up and jumping on them (not a great process, but..). The panniers had about a 3/8" bow in both of them. The rear plate is too short to respond to this method so it has to go to a machine shop for straightening.



The next thing getting done before finally assembly is chamfering all the joints slightly to give a place for the "welds" to live securely.

I am really glad I took the additional time to take it all apart and start anew.

EDIT: I find that the more time you spend fit checking the smoother the process goes. Dont just fit check the parts on the current page. Go through the manual and see what else is going to be affected downstream.

I decided at this stage, nothing should be tightened up. I did that and ran into problems at the upper hull level of assemble...

[Mark Allen]

2 REAR DECK:

[Mark Allen]

3 REAR DECK ASSEMBLY:

[Mark Allen]

4 UPPER HULL:



Pretty much the same concerns as with the lower hull, straighten the sides first. Now is the time to fit check the deck pieces to see how far off you may or may not be. Like the manual says get all the mounting brackets and screws in loosely. Then creep up on the tightening, going around several times drawing them tight. I check and recheck the top deck fit as this was going on.

I would suggest checking the fit of all the top deck components! This is were I found the warp in the upper hull sides. Also found that one had a problem when the machining of the relief where the decks sit on one side. Had to set that up in a mill and clear the about 7" long bump in that.With enough fitting and fussing the deck parts all fit in without filling or grinding!







Once they are tight and I am satisfied I applied the locktite to the treads and let is seep into the hardware. Next I turn the hull on its side and filled the gaps around the interlocking "tangs" to just shy of the surface with crystal clear construction adhesive.

Next masking tape around all the tangs and counter-bored hull hardware. I picked this up from the forum and it is a great tip. Then I applied the body filler to the small remaining gpas of the tangs and filled the hardware holes. Removed the tape after about ten minutes while the filler was still a bit pliable. Then after hardening sanded them all smooth.

[Mark Allen]

5 HULL ASSEMBLY:

[Mark Allen]

6 RESILIENT WHEEL:




I chose to prep and etch prime everything. Remember surface prep! Mask the bearing holes in the hub or you will have to remove paint later. Then the hubs, tires and the all the internal sides of the wheels got color. Half of the wheel discs got color on their outer face, these will be facing each other when assembled and would be hard to get a good coating of color. The bolt plate and the outer hub got color where the touch the assemblies.



Started by fitting the rubber to the "tire", the manual says 350MM, but I hand fit each one. I also used black CA (for rubber) to join the ends, not necessary but I do that. One wheel disc with color on one side and one with color on both is next. Assemble per illustration. I put three 2.5mm screws and nuts in the three odd holes in the disc center bolt pattern to loosely hold them together. Now its time for the three gauges that come in the kit to locate the discs in the center of the tire. Snug down the three temp screws, not real tight though. Next I use a small awl and go around the 12 holes to align both half's before proceeding with the nuts and bolts.



Get out the brass etch nut locking plates and pre-bend the ends slightly to make it much easier to set them when the assembly is done. Decision time! If you want uniformity on all the resilient wheels you need to decide how you want the pattern of brass locks to match the wheel hubs. OCD no doubt, but when I assembled my second one it was different and I couldnt leave it that way. I chose the gap in the brass plates to be aligned with the three odd holes in the hubs.

Put in two 2.5MM screws, the etched plate and two nuts. finger tighten only. Go to the opposite side of the wheel and repeat, again finger tight only. Install the remaining 4 sets.



Here is a tricky part, DO NOT tighten the first screw you attack fully! You must go around slowly putting tension on each one. The torque required to draw the two discs together is very close to the shear value of the 2.5MM nuts. But by going around and around drawing them down a bit each time you will get it!




And after a couple hours work:



In hindsight. Knowing what I know now I would replace the hardware with scale bolts so the bolt heads would be on the outside of the wheels, like the 1:1s. But this was my first go at one of these and much was learned.

[Mark Allen]

6B RESILIENT WHEEL ASSEMBLY:



Again, straight forward. Get comfortable, find something on television and settle in:

First I got the parts together. Following the idea I had seen on this forum, I cut three slots in the hubs on my band saw (visible in the picture of the assemble wheel assembly), right where the line were machined in. A tiny detail that is easy to do.



Here again, if I were doing this again, knowing what I do now, I would replace the hardware with scale bolts.

[Mark Allen]

7 HUB CAPS



I got my KT kit from the original owner. In the boxes were some unidentified detail pieces. So fitted some to the hubs. They will get a final touchup before color.