Hey all,

Somehow, i came to idea of making some of theese. Ive been watching some nice builds on this site, and after allmost 10 years break decided to make return to scale building. During those years been building R/C aircraft, witch was good fun, got 1/6 scale fw190d-9 replica, witch flies nicely.. but somehow, due to lack of time im no longer able to spend that much time flying, thus decided to move somewhere i can work on when sun goes down too
as i got pleanty of r/c gear avialible, its not gona be difficult to addapt these. Got nice programable 9 chanel radio set, that will save me from all those missing chanels for nice functions. I got several models already ready to start with on my shelf, so this is somewhat of inroduction post, with many more to fallow, including build step by step posts. What i aim, is not realy armour for bashing outside, or crawling on carpet. Its more to tweak kits a bit, still saving scale exterior, and iterior if posible. Scale speed is not what i aim at my models will be SLOWER than that. mostly becouse sd.kfz.234 should cover over 0.6m in 1 sec in max scale speed, witch is A LOT for such tiny kit, and would loose all details on it. 1/35 scale is becouse of realitively good size, in terms of internal space for tweeks, and external measurements for storage, plus lots of PE and other aftermarket parts like tracklinks allready avialible. Returning to question of speed, slower crawling kits will not require ball bearings, just oiled styrene, or delrin bushings, so it highly simplifies construction.
curently i do work on dragons sd.kfz 251/21 drilling (6217), and their new 234/1 is next in row. Changes will be soft rubber tires for more grip (elseway, without differential for track drive, 251 just wont turn), fully working suspensions, and AWD/AWS in 234 case. And of course im going to build several tigers and panthers after that, dont even doubt. Just waiting for new trumpeters KARL for ultimate fun aswell.
At moment, im clearing up track links for 251, and will shortly return whith pictures, as ill start making working torsion suspension for it (that is if ill ever clean up all those links )
Hope this is going to be good fun build, and i hope there will be some support forme other builders, as i realy might need some advices on finishing etc, as those 10 years did some difference, especialy to what you get in the box nowdays

Best regards,
Cactus

Ok, heres some pregress on torsion bar suspension. I chose 1mm styrene bars to work as torsions, with little preload those should be right on spot (hopefully )





now i only got to drill all holes in hull, prepare holes for driveshaft and idlers. thats for tommorow. Btw, can anyone give me weight of finished sd.kfz 251/21 ? i need estimate figures so i dont need to put lead in it for correct ride height, or whats worse it wont ride lower than needed.

Wow....can't help with the vehicle's weight, but I sure do want to see how this pans out. I assume you'll use CA Glue to attach the "torsion" bars to one side? If so, will it hold? Or do you have another idea in mind.

This is going to be a joy to watch!

Thanks!

Mike

Suspension arm were driled, and 1,6mm styrene rods glued in with plastic glue (revell contacta, still from old modeling days) Works fine, as after fully curing joint is hard to break, but still, its first suspect to break, after track links As its not but joint, im more aware if it wont break itself, so care should be taking on driving tests. Nad on other side, ill glue pieces of smaller tube, with internal holes of 1mm, so theres more surface for torsion bar to stick to.
now partial head ache is attaching roadwheels, those are on loose side on Dragons kit, maybe its ok, but still need a way to attach them so they can spin.

Ok, finaly figured out how to attach roadwheels. Ill ad 2 tube pieces, one longer, witch will be glued to wheel, but not to suspension arm. This tube will be instaled on suspension arm, and fixed in place with short piece of tube from outer side. Should work, just got to get few additional sizes of drils for different fits of tube. Heres some more progress picies. Somehow, in order to preserve most of internal details, ill move drive gear to middle of hull, so worm gear pulling it will be concealed with transmission cover. Bad news, is i need to add bushings to central part of axle. Thing is, that along with turning, worm gear will pull/push gear too, bending axis and stressing it too. currently gear clears hull approx 0.5mm. this means that if gear is on more less flexible axle, and not fixed, it will slip until will reach hull, and will jam entire drive. Propulsion will be granted with servo motor and gearing. Servos have very nice amps for dc motors, shortly speaking, its cheapest speed control with reverse, motor, and gearbox in one package. Radio ready too

An update again. Instaled all motors in. This includes servo for stearing, and striped servo for drive. I will do finall fixing of drive servo, as will close hull. Im realy happy about stearing servo, it is connected to stearing linkage by steel cable. This does rock suspension a bit when turning, but gonna fix it. Drive servo might be on slow side, but there should be pleanty of torgue to proppel it forward. Obviously i do need rubber tires, whitch is going to be something new to me to manufacture.
Now im preparing some subasemblies, so ill paint them before enclosing hull, and glue torsion bars in. I cant glue them in now, as i got wheels aligned and glued to suspension arms, and it woiuld make paint job somewhat dificult. More to fallow

A brilliant piece of miniturization.A case of Vu JaDE all over again.We go from the early 70's tamiya motorised to this.
plus ca change.Plus c'est le mame chose.

Man thats cool cant wait to see the result.
You couldnt make a video could ya?

Oh,are you planniing on using the kit track?or Fruilis? might be a strength issue with the kit track.Though they are workable

Viseos of early drive tests will be on, just lil bit of patience, not much to show untill it on its wheels and tracks.
An issue at moment is fitting receiver. Under hood theres space for batteries, and thats about it. I might conceal conectors in one of ammo boxes at the rear, and grop receiver in as crate while riding around. Theres realy not that much space. 234/1 seems to be much more spacios, despite its hood is same lenght, but its lil wider in front. Oh well. Will think a bit more, maybe there is a sollution.
As for tracks, well, strenght is an issue. I use kits tracks, fruils would give more strenght, but way more load for drivetrain. Currently, i might risk breaking track if it jams. an option is to drill track links, and replace plastic pins with wire one, somewhat time consuming, but not difficult task to acomplish, but ill try to get away "cheaper" for now. In worst case, ill have to do same amount of work later one. Its bit diferent from shasis breakdowns, where for example suspension arm breaking, is hard to repair, due to load part faces, joint will always be subject of failure. Most important, is that im not makling these to travel at high speeds etc. I want them to be more techy, move arround a bit, but not smash into diorama buildings, and get away without damage.

After some more asembly, and running test, i came to decision ill cary on building this as scale kit. I just like building too much, dont want to loose any of details
It does run, has enougth torgue to pass most obstacles, but as expected is on slow side, and has to be kept slow, due to backlash in worm gear. It makes it run jerky if exceeds certain speed. Thus i removed all hardware, and will continue making it as scale kit, as its realy nice piece to build, would take bit too much reengineering to fit all internals to make it run well, and not to loose the details.

hmmm, bummer to hear that you are not continuing the RC bits...but I support your continuing to build it as a static model...

but allow me to recommend this site to you:
http://web1.incl.ne.jp/hinoki/

hopefully it will give you some inspiration!
if only i can read japanese

Ive been looking over work of that Japanese guy, its realy nice, but i must admit i cant force myself losing any details I see much more sence trying to do it with static 1:16 kits from trumpeter, as plastic parts are way stronger than tiny details on 1:35. and now aside t34 we gona have halftrack and kingtiger. bigets problem with 1/35 i see, is low weight. for normal suspension action, you need more, of weaker torsion bars. this way step after step you get to point, when kit can be run only to show that its running, but in longer run in will desintegrate itself. Unless of course i replace most of parts, and make it somewhat ugly, but robust