Nice work Chris, your Tiger looks great. Will you add counterweight to tube in barrel? I added that to my Panther and it helped with bounce to some degree.
Best regards,
Bob
Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Sorry for the late reply!
I wasn't planning on counterweighting, but now that you mention your good experience, I will reevaluate that. Thanks!
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I wasn't planning on counterweighting, but now that you mention your good experience, I will reevaluate that. Thanks!
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Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
I just built myself a new 3D printer this spring. One of the incentives for that was to be able to print bigger parts in general and this holding bracket for the gun in particular:
This is just a prototype to check the concept and that nothing gets blocked by the design, although it already serves to hold the gun in place. The wavy part at the bottom is just support (that I did not care to remove) for what will be the linear bearing. The bracket itself will be made of aluminum. Missing from the design is a recoil mechanism. Not sure how to solve that yet.
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This is just a prototype to check the concept and that nothing gets blocked by the design, although it already serves to hold the gun in place. The wavy part at the bottom is just support (that I did not care to remove) for what will be the linear bearing. The bracket itself will be made of aluminum. Missing from the design is a recoil mechanism. Not sure how to solve that yet.
//
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Looks nice, curious about this. Need something in my Tiger too.
Robert
Robert
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Nice work Chris, that should work well with linear bearing. That seems like a lot of travel for barrel. How much did 88mm gun recoil?
Looking really good.
Bob
Looking really good.
Bob
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Thanks! About 60cm before firing pause was necessary, equaling 10cm on the model. Hard to say what was typical, though, but I am inclined to have as much recoil as I can fit - just because it's more fun to watch... 
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About 60cm before firing pause was necessary, equaling 10cm on the model. Hard to say what was typical, though, but I am inclined to have as much recoil as I can fit - just because it's more fun to watch... //
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
The running season is over for me and it is time to get started with repairs/maintenance and improvements. I got a valuable insight from Martin Hofmann at Hofmann ingenieur technik (https://www.hofmanning.de/) in Denmark this weekend. I have always been concerned with the lack of oomph of the exhaust. There is smoke, alright, but it does not shoot very high in the air. He observed that the system is anything but airtight. What I need is pressure buildup and for that to happen, it needs to be airtight. I wonder how I could miss that? 
Anyway, it was a reasonably quick fix and here are a couple videos.
Before:
https://youtube.com/shorts/OxmIQW3VaH0?feature=share
After:
https://youtube.com/shorts/LWZjC46R-aY?feature=share
Did it make any visible difference?
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Anyway, it was a reasonably quick fix and here are a couple videos.
Before:
https://youtube.com/shorts/OxmIQW3VaH0?feature=share
After:
https://youtube.com/shorts/LWZjC46R-aY?feature=share
Did it make any visible difference?
//
Last edited by cahlfors on September 24th, 2025, 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Hi Chris,
Your video or images didn't seem to post? I only see black space...
Best regards,
Bob
Your video or images didn't seem to post? I only see black space...
Best regards,
Bob
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Christoffer I think it is better if you post a link to the videos.
I can not see the videos either.
Robert T
I can not see the videos either.
Robert T
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
So weird! They have been gone for some days and now they are back! 
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Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Added links to YouTube...
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Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
Chris,
Links work - looks awesome even with leaks! But may as well not waste smoke inside hull!
Bob
Links work - looks awesome even with leaks! But may as well not waste smoke inside hull!
Bob
Re: Early Tiger 1 from sPzAbt 503
I had quite a bit of souvenir from Denmark:
The pressure cleaner broke, but the garden hose was okay to use:
https://youtube.com/shorts/mJZyqrGXg-Q
After drying, they were sprayed liberally with WD40 and stored until they could be put back on yesterday. There is always something coming loose in the suspension and this year was no exception. I am trying to figure out how hard to tighten the torsion bars. 2.9Nm was too much for the screws , so trying with 2.5Nm. We will see next year how that held up.
The motors had to be removed in order to access the torsion bars. The left one had the rolled pin on its way out, scraping against the hull:
Very annoying, indeed! The final drive had to be disassembled, everything cleaned up, greased and reassembled. There is still ugly noise, so I guess the gears are needing replacement down the line.
The tiger has now been reassembled and is mission ready.
//
The pressure cleaner broke, but the garden hose was okay to use:
https://youtube.com/shorts/mJZyqrGXg-Q
After drying, they were sprayed liberally with WD40 and stored until they could be put back on yesterday. There is always something coming loose in the suspension and this year was no exception. I am trying to figure out how hard to tighten the torsion bars. 2.9Nm was too much for the screws
, so trying with 2.5Nm. We will see next year how that held up. The motors had to be removed in order to access the torsion bars. The left one had the rolled pin on its way out, scraping against the hull:
Very annoying, indeed! The final drive had to be disassembled, everything cleaned up, greased and reassembled. There is still ugly noise, so I guess the gears are needing replacement down the line.
The tiger has now been reassembled and is mission ready.
//