85 replies to this topic

[MadInventor]

Hi all,
I thought I would do a build thread of my King Tiger project. It all started nearly 2 years ago when I decided that my tamiya king tiger bounced around too much and didn't look realistic when driving. I also also wanted something a bit more 'meaty', that would churn up dirt as it turned. I also wanted a hull that looked suitably weathered, but was not particularly good at weathering effects. I thought I would kill 2 birds with one stone and build the hull out of scale thickness steel. This wuold add weight to the tank, and also have the advantage that when the paint gets scraped off, I'll get realistic looking rust / staining, on it. I am also hopeful that when complete I should be able to crush a coke can with it, no problem.

Unfortunately I don't have pics of it when I first started it, but here is an early shot me machining a lower hull side plate. I had to use 2 vices to hold the steel steady as it was such a long piece.



This next pic is the first sub assembly of the tank ready to be tig welded together. This is where I think this model is unique over any others in that I have re-created all the dovetails of the original king tiger design, and these have all then been welded to make the hull uber strong , as well as looking semi realistic.



These were then welded together, and floorpan welded in:





I decided not to weld the front dovetail, as I may need to get the front lower panel out in order to fit the gearboxes. The upper part of the front hull is 10mm thick steel plate



After several months of no progress as I was working other projects, I recently managed to get what I call the mudguards welded in. I'm sure this isn't the proper term, but you get my drift





I also shaped the rear tow point to an approximation of their correct shape. This was done with a 4inch angle grinder. Note also the nice wleding job on the joint for the rear hull plate the upper hull side plate. (Not my handiwork by the way)



Next I have fitted the torsion bar suspension stays in the lower part of the hull, and tidied it up with a splash of red oxide:




Heavy duty torsion bar springs made from old hacksaw blades. Created entirely with an angle grinder. Enlarged to 8mm width to increase stiffness to cope with the extra weight.





Current weight: 5.5Kg

[bigoggy]

this is total overkill, it's mad, insane, and a love it

[Kevin_Mc]

that's madness, i love when people go OTT and pull out all the stops.

will be checking for updates

[Novastar]

I used to model 1:35 scale Panzers so I can appreciate your quest for realism but this project is on another level ! Keep the pics and updates coming !!

[Tamiya1/10]

What will be the weight of your Tiger? Will you be using Tamiya's running gear or be specially made? To test the armor, I guess you will have to fire some 22's to match the scale.
Look forward to seeing more of your progress work.

[MadInventor]

I think the weight will be around 8-9 kg when finished. I'm planning on building my own transmission for it, the tamiya drives are too puny, and won't fit anyway as the side armour is 6mm thick each side on the lower hull, so the interior has around 10mm less space. I'm just in the process of cutting springs out of old hacksaw blades at the moment, as the standard ones wouldn't take the weight (Mine are 8mm wide rather than 6mm). I'm hoping to post some pics of it with all the idler wheels fitted and tracks sometime on Monday or Tuesday next week.
Thanks for the comments guys, it's a great motivator to do something when other people take an interest

With regard to testing the armour, the front should stand up to a .303 no problem. The upper glacis plate is 10mm thick, which is greater thickness than the armour in some places on full size allied WWII tanks, and it's sloped ! Would be interesting to find someone with a rifle and a slo mo camera, but now I've spent all this time on it, I don't really want to blow a hole in the front of it

[30cms]

i like this a lot.

looking forward to the next installment!

[MadInventor]

Quick update, idler wheels now temporarily fitted to one side to check spring tension. Looks ok so far, hoping to get remaining springs finished tomorrow night. Once both sides are done I've got some metal tracks to go on it, and then it will be back on the scales for a weight check

[DCLXVI]

I think the weight will be around 8-9 kg when finished. I'm planning on building my own transmission for it, the tamiya drives are too puny, and won't fit anyway as the side armour is 6mm thick each side on the lower hull, so the interior has around 10mm less space. I'm just in the process of cutting springs out of old hacksaw blades at the moment, as the standard ones wouldn't take the weight (Mine are 8mm wide rather than 6mm). I'm hoping to post some pics of it with all the idler wheels fitted and tracks sometime on Monday or Tuesday next week.
Thanks for the comments guys, it's a great motivator to do something when other people take an interest

With regard to testing the armour, the front should stand up to a .303 no problem. The upper glacis plate is 10mm thick, which is greater thickness than the armour in some places on full size allied WWII tanks, and it's sloped ! Would be interesting to find someone with a rifle and a slo mo camera, but now I've spent all this time on it, I don't really want to blow a hole in the front of it

If my calculations are correct and that is 1/16 scale, .303 should be the scale equivalent of what the russians shot at it (~122mm)...

But then again, that late in the war the quality of the steel the germans used in their tanks was lower than at the start of the war...

[MadInventor]

Got some more pictures of progress:

The tank is now temporarily up on its suspensiom, woohoo



I've still got to make 18 collars to stop the idler arms dropping out, but it looks so cool up on it's springs now.

Speaking of springs:



I've got all springs made. Used old hacksaw blades, and made the first 10 in the front of the chassis 10mm thick to give extra stiffness to hold up the front of the tank (The frontal armour makes it front heavy)

The view from the other side of the tank:



I chucked a couple of 540s, an 8.4v battery, and an old KT gearbox into the hull for a quick weight check, it came out at 7.5Kg with the plastic tracks fitted. I can easily add another 1Kg for the metal tracks, so I think around 9KG for the finished article.

The next job now is to paint strip the plastic tracks so that they can be painted a decent colour and fitted to one of my other KT's so that it can donate the metal tracks it has to this project. Suggestions welcome on the best way to do this, bearing in mind there are about 180 track links to clean !

Whilst that is ongoing, I need to construct the track tensioning mechanism as the standard one could not be used due the thickness of the side armour. Once that is complete I can then look to mounting the drive sprocket axles, and building the gearbox. Can't say I'm looking forward to that one.....

[SteelRat]

Glad to see you're getting back into this Martin, and it's really starting to look good.

Just one thing though, I think your King Tiger should be renamed a 'king Tiger.

[MadInventor]

I've made some progress on the tank. It's now got the rear idlers fitted properly with a working track tensioner mechanism, and the front sprockets have been temporarily fitted so that I could fit the tracks on it.








The tank rolls freely backwards and forwards on the tracks, so I'm very pleased that everything lined up ok.

This is the track tensioner mechanism






I had to extend the original idlers arms with rods, which slot into the idler arms and are then pinned to prevent them rotating inside the ilder arms. These rods are then clamped solid by the mechanism bolted to the back of the tank. The mechanism is quite simple, but it was a pig to get it to line up properly in both dimensions so that the rods would fit smoothly into the clamps.

I also took the time to paint strip a set of plastic tracks, and fit them another of my tigers so that I could have the metal tracks off it for this one. I have to say, brake fluid is wonderful stuff. I'm surprised it's not marketed as paint stripper for plastic. After removing and polishing all the track pins to remove excess paint, I dipped the track links in one pot of fuild for a day to remove the worst of the paint, then gave thema quick scrub with an old toothbrush to remove the worst of the paint, then they got a second dunk for another day in some cleaner fluid to remove any last remanents of paint. The tracks came up like new and I would say they have nver been run, as there was no sign of any wear on the pleastic at all.




Plastic tracks, before and after.

Also, when I fitted the track tensioner, I made sure that the screw holes were in the right place to match the holes for the exhaust stacks. This will make it nice and easy to fit the exhausts when the time comes, and it also hides the holes I drilled for tapping the threads to hold the track tensioner in place. That's the good thing about building with 6mm thick steel, you never need to worry about stripping the threads out.



Temporary fit check of exhausts while the old plastic tracks were still fitted.

Fat boy now weighs in at 8.5Kg with the metal tracks fitted, and I still haven't fitted a gearbox, motors, batteries, or a turret yet.

[mossy2]

Good greif mate!

[Steamysteam]

It's built like a tank.

[Leethal Driver]

Blimey

First time on the BRASA forum and I'll deffo be coming back. What a jaw dropping piece of kit.

Really needs a scale working turret

[MadInventor]

I've made more progress on the tank, the upper hull is cut out ready to be fitted, just needs some minor adjustments at the front end to get a perfect fit.



The turret is a standard tamiya item, it's going to have ambush camo, no zimmerit, the base colours are complete.

[MB Drapier]

That is so cool. Keep the updates coming!

[Miggers]

That's superb.

I like the idea of a scale thickness steel hull,wifey wouldn't though.She whines enough now about my mostly plastic Tiger 1
rumbling across her nice laminate floor

You've got a bit of a way to go yet though if you want scale weight.
The KT is,what,50+tons AUW?,you need to be hitting around 30 pounds(13-14kg)for "scale" weight in 1/16th.

All the best with it and keep us posted.

Mark

[MadInventor]

I've made a little more progress on the tank today. I didn't want to use the standard tamiya bits for the ropes on the side of the tank, so I decided to fit my own rope hooks instead, so that I can give the tank a bit more of an individual appearance. To do this, I first marked out where the bottom of the hooks were with a hole punch, then started a hole with a 2mm centre drill and a handle held power drill. I then enlarged the holes to 2.5mm with a normal drill bit. I made the hooks from 1.5mm thick steel plate, cutting off thin slivers and then bending at 90degrees. I then temporarily put a backing plate behind each hole and filled it with solder. The hook was then held in pliers and heated until cherry red with a small blowtorch, while I kept the hull hot with another larger blowtorch. (First time I've ever had to use 2 blowtorchs simultaneously to do a job ). When ready, I pushed the hook into the molten solder and wiggled until I was happy with the position, I then removed the heat and allowed it to cool. I then removed the backing plate and moved it to the next hole. I didn't get as far as doing the 4 rods for holding the thick tow cable and the cleaning rods, but these are 2mm on the model, so I will simply drill and tap the hull and thread some rod in for them with a generous portion of threadlock.








I also sprayed a quick coat pf primer over the one side as there is no more work required with a blowtorch on it now.

[MadInventor]

Hi all, I've managed to progress the tiger a little more this week. I machined a lump out of the front glacis plate so that the bulge for the machine gun could be fitted. I widened one of the view holes at the top of the glacis plate as it didnt look right. I also glued on the front light, and made the power cable that runs to it from a piece of copper wire from some old mains cable. I also cut some detail parts from an old rear panel and glued them to the rear panel on this. I discovered that I'm missing 2 D4 parts for the rear panel, an none are currently available on ebay To finish off I've put a coat of XF60 over it, I've now got to locate a suitable ambush camo pattern I can paint onto the tank, so that I can figure out when to fix the exhausts and guards into place on the rear panel. Still, at least I can permanently fit the suspension now I've painted the lower hull.

[Blademaker]

That thing is awesome! Please take some video of it running when you finish it. I don't know if I could keep myself from at least firing a couple 22's into the frontal armor though.

[MadInventor]

Hi all, here's the latest on the tank.

I've now made collars to hold the suspension arms in and prevent them from dropping out. They were made from 10mm plastic rod, with a 6mm hole drilled in them off centre by 1mm. This gives enough clearance to fit a 5mm grub screw to attach them to the torsion bar, whilst leaving enough clearance between the collar and the bottom of the hull.

The hull has been drilled and tapped with 2mm threads so that the track guards can be screwed directly onto the hull. I've drilled and tapped the 4 holes for mounting the tope rope holders.

I've resprayed the roadwheels and sprockets as some of them had been painted with humbrol enamel which was not a perfect colour match. I first sprayed them with halfords red oxide, followed by some Flora margarine applied with a rough sponge. I then painted the XF60 over the top to give the correct colour. Once the paint had dried, I washed off the flora to give the appearance of flaking paint. I also painted the entire tank with 3 tone ambush camouflage and added the exhausts and their guards. I have to say i'm not really happy with camouflage job. There seems to be a difference of opinion on the net as to whether or not the later king tigers without zimmerit applied had a hard edged camo or a soft edged for the ambush camo job, and no one seems to be ble to provide any definitive evidence either way, just personal opinion. I would really have liked to have been able to paint a historically accurate paint job onto it, but in the end had to make do with what my imagination could come up with. I totally overdid it on the dots and the camo pattern seems uneven and unbalanced without the dots. If anyone can post accurate 5 views of the camo for the tanks that didn't have zimmerit (hard or soft edged) , I might have a go at a repsray.

I've also made 1 drive shaft for the right front sprocket, and am going to use a couple of 15tooth 32DP pinions for driving them. It's handy that pinions for brushless monster truck motors now have a 5mm inner diameter. For those that missed the update in my showroom, here's some pics of the recent progress.:




Starting to fit the track guards



Tapping through 5mm of steel with a 2mm tap is not the easiest. Snapped 5 drill bits and 1 tap.



Pardon the pun, looks like a bad case of german measles












Zimmerit and standard camo tank looks a lot better in my opinion, although the ambush should look better if it's done properly, I didn't want to cover up the steel hull with zimmerit. Anyone with a decent 5 view of a camo pattern for a non zimmerit tank, please post here

_14042013192110_1

[SteelRat]

Really outstanding job Martin... holy schmoly. Would love to see some footage of it running. Assuming it will under all that weight

[MadInventor]

Hi all...
I decided I didn't like the ambush camo. So this afternoon:







Back to square 1

I found this link

http://www.network54...edged base camo

and thought, that looks rather good and there are useful reference photos as well. This is how mine turned out:





You're probably wondering what the string is for over the turret ??????

Well, as SteelRat wanted to see the tank moving, I thought I'd do a quick movie. Obviously not having any gearboxes yet was going to prove a problem, but I thouight, no worries, I've got another Tiger with twin 540 silver cans in. If that can move itself and tow 9Kgs uphill as well, I'm probably onto a winner.

So, I trimmed, drilled out, and tapped some tamiya plastic shackles to make them usuable, and hooked up the steel tiger to the Tamiya tiger with the power upgrade. I also used an 8.4V battery for a bit of extra ooomph.

Getting prepped for the tow:



Here's a link to the movies I took:

http://www.tamiyaclu...mVP5B6IU9JS.AVI

This next one includes the 'Hammer test', to show it's not plastic. Don't try this at home

http://www.tamiyaclu...mJ0PU28J82S.AVI

Arrgghhh, brakes, brakes, my kingdom for some brakes
http://www.tamiyaclu...mK8ASNNZ5CO.AVI

You'll have to excuse the poor quality vids, my cameraman (Mr B. ...) was busy doing other things today Hopefully I can get some better movies done sometime in the near future.

[tonysmini]

I can't wait to see this move under it's own steam, I love the hammer dinks, although I did wince when the steel tank rear-ended the tow tank, ouch! Any damage?