sunray

I was quite impressed with the stencils. I gave everything another few coats of floor wax again and left it to dry over night. Then I started the weathering. I used a Vallejo wash and hand painted the whole tank which seamed to take years. After that I used Vallejo's airbrush cleaner to push the wash where you want it. That why I gave it a few coats of floor wax and made sure it was dry so the cleaner didn't affect the paint. I wouldn't use Tamiya's X20 as I think it would be too strong but the airbrush cleaner by Vallejo is just right.

I bought it as I couldn't work out the best way of fitting my own but when I got the kit I could of made it myself. I would have bought the metal version as the plastic one isn't as strong as I would like. When I attacked the tank with a dremel my son wasn't too impressed but you can get replacement upper hulls and things off ebay if you are not sure. I have seen ones for a jagdpanther before. Hope this helps. Ian

Here is the painting. As before in my with builds I use Vallejo acrylics and with this scale they can take along time, even with an airbrush. I first I primed all the parts and then the base colour. Followed by the camo which was sprayed freehand and then I sprayed the whole lot with Pledge Floor Wax to protect the paint. After that I decided the paint on the insignia instead of using decals. The reason being that I have never tried it before and also if you make a mistake you can respray over it and do it again. Here are the results.

The next thing I did after finishing the mechanics was to go back and work on the upper hull and turret. I remove the plastic handles on the cleaning rod container and made some new ones out of aluminium from fish tins. I also added new mounting straps out of plastic card. The spare plastic tracks on the side of the tank come as one long strip. You can buy a replacement but this is what I did. First I carefully removed the track from the side of the tank then using a razor saw I cut them to produce individual tracks. Then using the track to help make the mount. The following photo's will tell the rest. Here it is fixed to the tank. I also added plastic track skirts which were brought (can get metal ones now which I think are better) and a false antenna made from twisted copper wire stripped from an old cable. Here is a photo of the rear with a bit of battle damage. I also tidied up the tools racks and made a few clamps from aluminium again. Here is the turret. The lifting hooks, handles, etc are made from bent copper earthing wire. I also made the glass for the periscope from clear plastic off wrapping. Here is the a few more photo's before painting. Everything was connected and checked to see if worked which thankfully it did.

I decided to upgrade to metal gears, tracks, sprocket wheels, idler wheels and a track tensioner kit. Depending which set of metal gears and motors you get, some come with a metal mounting plate but mine didn't so I made one from plastic card card. The reason being that the mounting screw holes might not match the holes on the lower hull. The metal idler wheel wasn't a good fit on the track tensioner but the get round this I used a small piece of brass tubing to build a packeting collet. The internal diameter of the tensioner mount was too large for the idler wheel stub axle. I cut a the brass tubing to the required length but the internal diameter of the tubing wasn't big enough to take the stub axle (that was asking too much). To hollow it out the tubing I carefully held it in a vice trying not to crush it and I then used a round pin file. To speed up the job I attached the file to a dremel. That done I had to file the outer diameter of the tubing so that would fit in the tensioner mount. After that it was just a case of putting it all together and screw in the grub screw. To fit to main tensioner assembly to the lower hull, you have to remove the old plastic mounts from the hull. Then drill a larger hole to take the new mount and drill two smaller holes for the mounting bolts. The track tensioner makes it a lot easier to atach the track and tension it but it also give the lower hull a lot of added strength. This one cost around £28.

To mount the new gun in the ball just required a larger hole to be drilled and I also drilled a small hole for the sight. Be careful when taking it apart as my circular mount cracked hence the washes. Plus if you do this watch out for the clearance of the cable and the drive gears. The next photo shows the gun cable coming back to the main connector for the upper hull. The plug in the foreground are the same as used on pc motherboards to connect cooling fans, etc but I found the size makes them ideal for connections in these tanks. Also the important thing in this day and age they are cheap! The motor in the background is the drive motor for the turret rotation. This is the socket for the turret. Here is the cable for the replacement headlight secured with hot glue. Inside the lower hull you are restricted by space. The speaker (black box behind the drive gears) on this one was mounted at the back so I moved it forward to tidy it up a bit and fixed it in place using double sided pads. On the hull floor I removed the mounts for the switches to make the floor flush and I added a piece of plastic card to mount the RX18 controller using double sided pads again. You can also see the new position of the On/Off switch and the volume controller to line up with the new hatch on the upper hull. If wouldn't win a design award but it works. The blue circuit board at the back is the receiver board and the black cable connects to the antenna. As I am not too keen with the external antenna that comes with the tank so I built one from a "Nerf" gun bullet, with a "Biro" inserted in it, copper wire wrapped around it and it works fine. The mounts are made from scrap plastic super glued in place.

I know what you mean Mike. It took me a while to work out how to mount the switches so they would be secure enough and that was on the lower hull. One thing I did change was to add a plug and socket to connect the turret and the lower hull to make it easier and faster to disconnect and the cost was pence. If you bear with me I will post it as soon as I can. Ian

Here is my strip down and rebuild of a 1/16 Heng Long Panther G. This one was bought new for around £70 for my son and with his permission he let me at it. I began by stripping down the tank. All the Heng Long tanks are constructed the same way with just a few slight differences. First remove the battery cover and disconnect the rechargeable battery. Then I removed the nylon tracks by taking out one of the track pins on each track. Now you unscrew the self tapping screws that hold the upper and lower hull together. There is a wiring loom to unplug from the RX18 controller card to allow the hull halves to split. There are also a few screws to remove to detach the rear plate. I then removed the sprocket wheels by unscrewing the allen bolts and off come the idler wheels. The rest of the wheels come off next which are just twisted and prized off. I decided to replace the plastic suspension arms with metal ones so they were removed. Be careful not to loose the springs, one behind every arm. I also filled I the On/Off switch hole,etc. The turret is next. I unscrewed the three screws holding the turret ring to the turret. You might have to cut a few wires depending on what version you have. Its a good idea to mark the wires before you cut them. With the hull disassembled now I can get to work. The quality of the plastic on my tank wasn't the best so I reinforced the support storks by gluing brass tubing over them. The silver grill covering the vent was mesh off a dish washer and the brass grills are bought photo etch. As I was relocating the On/Off switch and volume control, I wanted access via the machine gunners hatch. To do this I used a pin vice and small drill bit, I drilled lots of holes around the hatch and then using a tamiya saw I cut the hatch out. Using my dremel I tidied up the hole cut for the hatch. Using thick plastic card I made an insert support for the new hatch. I drilled two holes for the hinge. I then made the new hatch. The hull required a bit of tidying up and rubbing down and once that was done I replaced the headlight with a metal one and using filler I added some weld lines. I also added a hull LED machine gun and some photo etched grills. The battle damage was added with a dremel.

Excellent job Mike.

Hello Bill I didn't bother to "fix it" to be honest but I will have ago and I will let you know. Cheers Ian

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to leave a comment. Ian

Thanks for the comments. Now for the answers to your questions. The AUW now is approx 3kg and the original one was about 1kg or there abouts. The performance with the nylon gear is quite good and it will work with the metal track but the main reason I decided on the metal gears was the ratio to give a better scale speed and they both work well inside and out. The metal track is excellent in my opinion because as well as looking the part when it goes over terrain the extra weight it adds makes it easier to control. The battery set up is the same which is the Heng Long battery supplied with the tank which is Ni-Cd 1700mAh. I did buy another battery as a spare which is 3200mAh. Running time is around 1 hour with about 2 hours charging but I am not too sure as I have never timed it. I have seen them being sold new for around £55 that was for the Tiger without smoke. As I have said mine was £30 off ebay secondhand. The metal track with metal sprocket and idler wheels cost around £50. The metal gears and motors are approx £50. The barrel extension was £3 to £4. The headlights were around £5 to £6. If you need the RX18 with wiring looms and plugs it cost me £20. The spare metal track and holders for the turret were £12. The drivers and gunners hatches were £5 for the pair. In total my Tiger cost in total about £200. You can buy the tanks with metal upgrades, etc already fitted but I think it more fun this way. You can get most things off ebay or a site called http://www.welshdragonmodels.co.uk/ which is excellent. This was my first attempt at one of these and my knowledge about electrics and radio control would fit on a postage stamp. I have am doing another tank as we speak, a Panther G which I will post up as soon as I can. After that I have a few more tanks to do which are another Tiger (this one has a metal hull and fully recoil-able metal barrel), Stug III, Panzer IV and another Walker Bulldog. I hope this helps and thanks again. Ian

Now for the top coat and decals. I bought a set of decals but as the tank was a gift for my nephew Sam I decided I would personalise it a bit so apart from the stars on the side of the turret the rest are home made. I wasn't to happy with the "Predator Sam" and the"Uncle Sam" decals as they looked too thick. These were made using a inkjet printer and you have to give them a coat of varnish to seal them to the paper before they can be used hence the thickness so as I have a colour laser I tried a different paper which can be used straight from the printer which worked out better. The weathering. The metal effect is graphite pencil buffed up with a finger. Finished.

Now for the painting. All the paints used a Vallejo Acrylics except for the varnishes which are Pledge Floor Wax (gloss) and Hannants matt varnish. First I primed and pre-shaded.

Here is my build of a 1/16 Heng Long Walker Bulldog. It was bought from Modelzone for around £25 as it was an ex-display model. If you have seen my other posts you might notice from the photo there isn't as much room in the hull as the Tiger but this came already equipped with a RX18 controller board, sound and a smoke unit. I like to strip down the tanks to find out what make them tick and to see if I can improve them also it makes them a lot easier to paint. At first sight it may look a bit complicated with all the electrics so here is a brief tour. The tank comes with a pair of drive gears, left and right with each having it own drive motor. The pipework between the drive gears is the smoke generator. The green circuit board behind the drive motor is the receiver. To the left of the photo with the white plugs is the RX18 controller board, which is the brains of the tank and the black box which you can just see below the RX18 is the speaker. The lime green cogged wheel at the top of the photo is the turret ring. To the right of the turret ring is the turret drive motor and the white box in the centre of the turret ring is the gun elevation motor and BB gun assembly. Here is a photo of the turret. I removed the tools and plastic hand grabs as the weren't the best quality and I made some replacements from copper wire and super glued to the turret. To line them up I taped ice lolly inside the hand grabs which worked quite well. As you can see I got the filler out as well. I also removed the jerry cans from the sides of the rear turret bin so it made it easier to fill. From the photo below you will notice that the rear periscope hasn't got a cover. So this is how I got round this problem. I brought a spare upper hull and turret from ebay for £12 which had both periscope covers so I used the rear one as a pattern to make my own. The reason being is when I get more time I have another Walker Bulldog to do and the spares come in handy. The material I used was from an old CD ROM I stripped down. I cut it out. bent it and filed it down. And fitted. Next was the 50 cal. As you can see from the photo the ammo box is no where near the feed tray of the gun. The gun comes away without too much effort. The ammo box glued in place. I made a cocking handle from copper wire and a cocktail stick. I removed and filed rubbed down the tools on the rear bin and from the spare turret I had I added two more jerry cans. I decided to change the style of the 50 cal cocking handle which I thought looks better. I also made an exhaust pipe from copper wire and a piece of net curtain spring from Ikea! The copper wire was used to keep its shape. Also from Ikea I bought some net curtain to make a cam net. I cut and folded a small piece of curtain and inserted a piece of copper wire into it to again hold its shape. The straps are cut from a coke can. The net curtain is then painted with watered down PVA to stiffen and left over night to dry. Now for the fun stuff. As an ex-squaddy I can remember when the lads would add extra mods to their vehicles so I thought I would. Here is a turret basket I made for brass. This was my first attempt at bending brass tubing and I am quite pleased how it turned out. I didn't like the tool tray so I took the tools off. I braided some thin copper wire, cut it and soldered it. To fit the turret basket I marked and drilled some holes. Then I glued it in place. Here I tidied up the wiring layout of the upper hull.

Excellent build Mac. Just excellent! Ian

With the chipping complete I used a graphite pencil to give a more metal look. I just ran the pencil over the edge and buffed with a finger. And finally its finished. I have two more tanks to post so when I get some time I will post them up. If you have any questions or comments please let me know and I will try to help out. Cheers Ian

Here is some more chipping.

With all that done the tiger was reassembled which is basically the reverse of the disassembly process to check everything worked as it should which it did. I then took it apart again this time to paint. This was my first attempt at not only one of these tanks but also of using an airbrush, so if I can do it anyone can! I bought a DVD entitled AFV Acrylic Techniques by Vallejo which I highly recommend and after watching it a lot of times I decided to give it ago hence the Tiger. All the paints used are acrylic and made by Vallejo apart from the varnish which was Pledge Floor Wax (for gloss) and Hannants Matt varnish to finish. I first added some metal tools, photo etch engine grills, track holders and track and zimmerit (which is made from a rubbery substance) which is glued to the tank body but some filling and rubbing down is required. I added the zimmerit as it was a first attempt and I thought I would give it ago, I know this is an early Tiger and it probably didn't have any but I put this down to artistic license; anyway here we go. Giving everything a clean and sprayed on grey primer which takes forever as they are big models at 1/16 and a Tiger has got a lot of wheels. Then I did some pre-shading which also took for ever. Once dried everything was painted Dark Yellow (Model Air) and the cam was sprayed free hand. The tank is then sprayed with the floor wax for a gloss finish for the decals which I bought on-line from Germany. Them added it was spayed with gloss again with two coats which also took forever and left to dry. The brackets on the turret bins were made from aluminium off mackerel tins bent and drilled. The clamps for the wire cutters and axe, etc were also made from mackerel tins. Mackerel tins again! The cable on the headlight is bent solder and the tiny clamp is made from a "coke can". Now I added the wash made by Vallejo using a brush and I found it easier to wait for the wash to dry and then using Vallejo's Airbrush Cleaner and a brush to push the wash where you want it to go. The wash does take along time but with a cup of coffee or a can and the match on the radio time flies. The next photo shows the first bit of chipping. I admit there is a lot but I find it relaxing to do and also I used to own a "T" reg yellow fiat that believe it or not had more chips than the Tank!

I wanted to add metal idler wheels, sprocket wheels, tracks and track tension. The problem I had was the idler wheels didn't have any bearings fitted and there was too much play on the stub axles so this is how I remedied it. I bought some brass tubing, one the diameter of the stub axle and the other the out diameter of the first if that makes sense. Here is the stub axle and my brass collets. Here is the 10mm bearing but the hole on the idler wheel was 9mm. Enter my trusty dremel and stone. Bearing fitted. With another piece of brass tubing I made another collet to take up the rest of the play and I put a cut in it to allow some adjustment. Because space was getting tight the fixing nut had to be filed to size and it was all greased. The finished article running smooth with no play!

You are right there Mike plus the internal antenna gives excellent range and its cheap. It took about half an hour to make. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Cheers Ian

To give me a bit of practice of soldering I had a go at making a hatch handle but not to scale. I bent a small piece of copper wire around a craft knife handle and soldered the ends together. Next I cut another piece of copper wire to the inside diameter of the ring and soldered into place. Now I cut two smaller pieces of copper and soldered them in place. Finally I cut yet another piece of copper wire to make the shaft and soldered that in place. A hatch or valve handle made from scrap copper wire. The grab handles were made by bending into shape using flat nosed pliers.

Next was the turret. The commander cupola had to come off as it was facing the wrong way. This came off quite easily and was tidied up and stuck in place with super glue facing the right way. The turret comes apart with the removal of a few screws allowing access the BB gun and gun elevation motors. Not being a big fan of BB's I disabled the gun. I dismantled the barrel which is again straight forward. I wanted to do this to add a barrel extension as the barrel comes in the recoil position. The extension is available on-line for about £3.00. The plastic barrel requires cutting with a razor saw but first you will have to remove the aluminium barrel which is inside the plastic one. The extension fits well with the aluminium barrel reinserted in the plastic one and everything in glued,filled and rubbed down. On the early version of the HL Tiger the mantle is the wrong way and had to be swapped around. I also bought a pair of metal smoke dischargers as I didn't have the plastic ones. Also I bought a metal pistol port as the plastic one fitted was the wrong way around. As I attacked the upper hull with a heat gun I did the same with the turret but in my haste I damaged the emergency hatch and that to had to be replaced. The handles for the hatches were made from bent paper clips. The turret was then reassembled and fitted back to the upper hull. Now for the brains. This Tiger came with an RX13 card which I wanted to replace with the newer RX18 board which again isn't that hard but you will have to do a bit of soldering, but nothing hard (just soldering wire to wire). First I made a base to house the RX18 out of an old CD case and bits of scrap plastic. As you can see from the photo the RX18 is plug and socket compared to the RX13 which is soldered. This makes it easier to work with and gives you a few extras like IR, smoke, etc. After that I relocated the On/Off switch on the lower hull just below the gunner's hatch. I also fitted the new motors and gears which add a lot more weight. Like every else after thinking I decided to change around and I moved the On/Off switch to the drivers side which seemed the right thing to do and I put the volume control on the gunners side. I fitted the receiver above the battery compartment which was no problem but I didn't want to use the whip antenna that comes with the tank in case I poked my eye out. So I made an internal antenna out of a "Biro", copper wire, scrap plastic and a "Nerf Gun bullet". I cut the biro to the length of the nerf gun bullet, then a cut to length a piece of copper wire making sure it was longer than the whip antenna. I inserted the biro into the bullet and I wrapped the copper around the bullet. I attached two bits of plastic as brackets and glue the assembly to the lower hull. I have tested the range in excess of 60 metres with no problems.

Thanks for the comments. I have started to post the builds in the forum "Work in Progress" so please let me know what you think. Ian

The photo shows the upper hull with all the plastic moulded tools removed and filled, new lights fitted and the driver and machine gunner hatches cut out and working metal ones fitted. I also opened up the drivers viewing slit but you can now buy an open drivers viewing slit if you don't want to do it yourself. The side skirts have been attacked with a heat gun and screw driver. The reason why I have cut out the Drivers and Gunners hatches and added metal ones, was to enable access to the On/Off button and Volume control as I wanted to move them from under the hull.