Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503

[Björn Johansson]

Its a good looking beauty that Tiger off your´s.

Great fun you had in -22 and deep snow !!

Great work!

[cahlfors]

Thanks Falckner!

Great fun you had in -22 and deep snow !!

As you saw in one of the pictures, I had some serious underwear. It almost helped.
In one of the vids, there is some background chatter from spectators. They had no underwear and had to leave before the next vid.

In this episode, I have tried to improve Winstone's convoy light.

First, I colored the glass tube with some glass stain (from Panduro hobby):


I dug out some old LED:s I saved when I was doing model railroads. They were ideal for making signals. Unfortunately, they are no longer available.


Carefully squeezing the assembly into the glass tube:


Is the color dark enough? Should I make a second pass with the tint?


Let there be light!

The LED:s are 3 and 5 scale centimeters apart - hope that's correct.
Assembling the LED:s was hell on earth. Gee, they were small! :shifty:

I can't mount it on the tiger right now. First, I need to make a square piece of sheet metal to put it on, then drill and tap that into the mud flap holding frame. However, the frame and mud flap got some combat damage at the last event in Norrköping and need to be mended first. A heavy steel elevator door decided to release itself with some seriously bad timing.

Thanks for joining my convoy! If you can only see one light, you are too far away. If you can see four lights, you are too close.

/Chris

[Kent W]

Hi Chris,

Very nice!
This is the 3rd attempt I have seen to make an accurate tubular 1:6th convoy light now that we know its colour was green and not blue, and yours the best so far.
Those LED:s is indeed small...so sad they are not for sale any more.

The measure between the lights shall in 1:1 be 35mm / 55mm.

Nice green colour that Panduro stuff makes, maybe a little, little darker if possible but quite ok as it is.

So you went the "custom Winstone one" way, I myself has 2 of them but now when we know what size the real thing had Steve’s is a bit to small and thin.
He is indeed excused as when he made his all those years ago no real one existed that had survived the war until the one that luckily turned up late last year.
The tube diameter is 8mm in 1:6th and the total length shall be 36,5mm instead of Steve’s 6 and 29.
Have not decided yet if I will scratch build or custom Steve’s like you have.

Nice inspiration you posted, thanks!
Please do post this on the Armortek forum as well as I am sure a lot of people would love to see this.

Kind regards
Kent

[pepppe75]

Hi!!

Fantastic work and idea chris!!


peppe

[cahlfors]

Thanks for the kind words and for the information update, Kent!

Indeed, I did not know much about its looks.

I think I will leave it for now. Putting it on the tank is the next challenge. I might go back and redo it to correct size or tint later, but right now there are "bigger holes to mend". And the errors are all on the small side, at least then, proportional looking. Hopefully.

Too bad my era tiger has that track toolbox blocking it completely from view. Only the biggest enthusiasts lying down completely on the stomach will be able to spot it. I guess it will be an "easter egg" for the first person who does...

Thanks,
/Chris

[cahlfors]

Thanks Peppe, too!


/Chris

[Björn Johansson]

Its a great convoy light you made

Nice work and some good to
use some off you´r old model railroad
things.

And just knowing its there and working,
will for sure annoy some

[cahlfors]

Too much smoke is dangerous to your health!

For some time, I have been working with the smoke generator. Again.
But you see, this time there is some real progress!
First of all, I have a better approach in connecting the smoke elements, so that any failures do not cascade. Secondly, I have a new micropump to fill the reservoir:


This is a common centrifugal pump of much higher capacity than the previous piezoelectric one:


Also, it can be disassembled in case dirt gets into it. In the very remote possibility that it would....

Thanks for following the progress!

/Chris

[cahlfors]

Tanking time!

It's been a great tanking day today - beautiful weather! Spring will come on wednesday (I think), but the feeling is there already.

Watch this cold start with the new smoking arrangement:


Actually, I did not see Carl Cat until now. He looks a little disturbed and he should be. No one messes with the tiger!


Charging in the sun:


I think it's smoking more than the prototype, but that's for the show!


Another cold start:


If you listen carefully, you will hear the spring birds making sure that everything is set for the mating season. It's not squeaky bearings, I promise!


As you will se in this clip, the lighting conditions make a great difference for the visibility of the smoke:


Plowing through the snow at high speed:


Suitable desktop wallpaper...


Conditions today were okay. The snow was quite wet. -22 is a lot better for tanking, but being able to drive with bare hands and casual clothes does have a certain positive atmosphere to it...
It did not look like the tank took too much snow with it into the garage, but most of the floor is soaking wet now! I always wanted to have the tiger in the living room, but there are some practicality issues...

Thanks for plowing along!

/Chris

[mrTyko]

There are tears in my eyes its so beautiful
Have a nice day
Robert

[Björn Johansson]

This is great "cough cough cough" smoking news
you got there

Love all you videos Chris they are so

Take care with you´r health

[cahlfors]

Thanks guys!

I have to tell you about a funny thing. I noticed in the garage that Mike Stannard's aerial foot was damaged. It had lost its brass part and wing nut. Totally useless. When watching the videos, I noticed that it was still there in some of them and then suddenly gone. Since I knew where I was when each video was taken, I was able to pinpoint the approximate location where it was lost. I also knew a branch got snagged at one instance, which could likely have been when it happened. Finding such a small part in the snow did not seem likely, but I did not have to look many minutes before I found it. This is the second time I lose details and the videos have helped me locate them again!

Cheers,
/Chris

[pepppe75]

hi chris!!

YEAH!!! the smoke spot on!!


peppe.

[cahlfors]

Unfortunately, there is no more smoke. I managed to toast the sound card when soldering this LED in place:

It turned out that I had forgotten the power on and wire connected and... zap! What a nuisance!
As we all know, the active substance in electronics is smoke. It must be contained at all times, or the component will fail...
Anyway, the LED is for main gun fire and is placed in the muzzle. The last time it worked, it looked very nice indeed.

Meanwhile, since that elevator door incident in Norrköping, the tiger has been at the body shop to get its fender reworked. It was badly bent, two solder joints were broken, the hinge was crooked and its support frame distorted. Now it's straightened, soldered, polished and clear coated again and while I was at it, I added the convoy light with its support plate. The oversize corner screws are M1:s. Ah, this reminds me of HO gauge again! The tap broke when I was finished. I was just looking at it, but I suspect I might have dropped a hair on it or so...(I'm missing some)

Now let's see how long the convoy light lasts before I manage to break that as well...

Thanks for coming along in the convoy!
/Chris

[Björn Johansson]

Love the way the convoy ligth turned out looking
so good!!

Sorry to hear about you´r other problems.