nigelr32 Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 Hi all, I have spoilt myself lately.. I have bought these kits.... I see them for sale at a good price and can't help myself!! The Sherman was a good deal, £399 all in including the Tamiya CD rom on the Tiger 1. The latest purchase was the Leopard, and boy what a bargain!! Less than £450 from the guy I bought the Pershing off, he wanted it "out of the way" I will say, £1150 retail is rediculous, even for a kit this good!! Anyway, what do you get in the massive box.. well, do a search on the 'net and you'll see plenty of reviews. I don't have a table big enough to spread it all out on!! sorry... On with the build, we start with the Differentials, yes, in this kit you get to build the big beautiful gearbox... Parts for the Centre Diff.. Built up... You get two tubes of Ceramic grease in the box. Now on to the side Differentials, there are two of these... Built up.. Finally, I would like to show you a small mod, as recommended by Dodoslovensko on Youtube. He has kindly put up a lot of film on how he built his leopard and modified it. One of his mods was to put epoxy in the two slots in the driving flats of the MG8 Output gears. It's difficult to photograph, but hopefully you can see it.. The blue marks are from the blu-tack I used as a barrier while the epoxy cured. Anyway, that's all for now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shar2 Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 Flippin' 'eck Nige, that's one mother of a haul. Looking forward to watching the builds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 Cor lumme! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunpowder17 Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 Cool. Ive built them all. I love the full option tanks. My only problem with the Leopard is that they give you plastic suspension arms. A friend of mine broke them all in one go. He was a bit heavy handed though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelr32 Posted May 11, 2013 Author Share Posted May 11, 2013 My only problem with the Leopard is that they give you plastic suspension arms. A friend of mine broke them all in one go. He was a bit heavy handed though! I know what you mean, but those steel arms are so expensive!! I think the pivots should also be replaced. I guess this one needs to stay on the carpet? So, on with the gearbox build... Here's the parts for the mainshaft... Here's the shaft all built up.. I've glued the bearings into the gears as they are not a tight fit, and it would be catastrophic if they spun in the gear.. don't ask me how I know... On to step 4 of the manual and we are building the layshaft.. Once again, all put together... Spur gears. These are driven by the motors and transfer the power to the gearbox. Finally, we can see the gears in the lower half of the gearbox casing. the casing is made of glass reinforced styrene. Very strong!! Check out Tamiya's website for details on this 'box works... very clever!! http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/56020leopard/ Bottom of page. Thanks for looking in Nige 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunpowder17 Posted May 11, 2013 Share Posted May 11, 2013 Its definately their best gearbox for tanks. The good thing about it is that its all replaceable. The tank does run very smoothly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelr32 Posted May 11, 2013 Author Share Posted May 11, 2013 Here's my final build thread for today. I've started on the 540 motors... I checked the mesh of the pinion gear with the spur gear, before assembling the gearbox halves,because Tamiya state 14mm from the end of the gear to the motor casing, but one of them needs to be more like 16mm to mesh correctly . The gearbox, fully assembled is quite a lump and weighs in at no less than 0.7 Kg!! These parts go to make up the output shafts, they drive the sprockets and bolt on the outside of the hull. Assembled... This kit is typically Tamiya quality. This has been a pleasure to build, complex enough to be interesting and simple enough for anyone to have a go at!! See y'all tomorrow. Nige 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelr32 Posted May 11, 2013 Author Share Posted May 11, 2013 Its definately their best gearbox for tanks. The good thing about it is that its all replaceable. The tank does run very smoothly You obviously kinow what you're talking about with regard to this kit. What glue have you used on the Hull? Nige Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelr32 Posted May 12, 2013 Author Share Posted May 12, 2013 OK, so how did this get moved?? I thought a 1/16 build belonged in the 1/16 section?? Anyway, on with the wheels.. Here are the parts that make up each pair of roadwheels... You can see the phosphor bronze bearings on the left, they are as the kit provides. I have bought some ball bearings for the wheels, they are on the right... Here we can see the built wheels, ready for primer. If it's of any interest, the wheels are made of ABS, so require a strong cement to stick them. I went to the Gloucester show today, and Little cars.com provided me with a liquid cement called "Plastic-Weld". It claims to glue ABS, and certainly appears to do the job. I tried it out on some ABS sprue first.. Thanks for looking in Nige 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOUSTON Posted May 17, 2013 Share Posted May 17, 2013 Geez! That is some build.. Flawless work in MY eyes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Stenzenko Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 I built the 2A6 and it's a nice kit but I did replace the track tensioner piece on the front idler wheels with a brass one as the kit has a plastic spline and weras really quickly. I used the same sealed bearings as you have which are great and I also replaced the suspension arms with the metal aftermarket tamiya ones as they do break over time from the tension.If you sue the metal suspenion arms you can then later add metals tracks if you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crossy Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 WOW, that is awesome. I want a leopard. Make sure you do a WIP please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mick Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 will be watching Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shar2 Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Since this thread was started, it should be known that Nigel has since left BM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.P. Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Since this thread was started, it should be known that Nigel has since left BM. Dang!!!! I was looking forward to this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewfl290 Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I think this the same guy that was building a 1/32 HK B-17 over on LSP? He went to a lot of trouble to highlight errors in the kit and then went on to do something about it, his work was amazing. He pulled off there late last year, I can only assume because he came in for load of unwarranted stick from certain quarters. It's a shame that he's no longer on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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