While away on business last week the KV-2 showed up at my door. As this is my first Tamiya RC tank build, I thought I would show some photos of how the kit comes. For those who have built Tamiya kits, I'm sure this is old hat but form me as well as others who haven't experienced one, these are for you.

The first photo is shelf display packaging, the top lid flips up with display windows of some of the parts and lots of pictures and information. The second photo is the main box removed from the display packaging. The third photo is all of the metal parts, the tracks (resign) and the speaker. The forth photo is the electronics, turret rotation motor, gun elevation and recoil motors and the TBU. The final photo is all the plastic parts. The ruler portion of the T-square, at the top of the photo, is 26” long for scale reference.

Chris S,

VERY IMPRESSIVE... TANKS' for sharing with us..... Will you be doing an online assembly...be cool if you did a step/page by page online assembly so people who have not assembled one can watch you do yours...

You will love the Tamiya tanks.... wait till you have the lower chassis/hull finished and can drive it around without the upper hull installed..it will look like a moon rover and sound mean!!!!!

-CONGRATS!!!

-TOMAS
TX ARMOR

I saw the Tamiya video of the KV-2 recently. In the video it does have a different main cannon sound than the KV-1. It sounds like they took the KV-1 cannon sound and lowered the pitch of it to make the KV-2 sound. The KV-2 sound is deeper and heavier. I was anticipating they would just use the same unmodified KV-1 sound, being less work on their part. Therefore, I suspect the KV-2 has a different MF unit than the KV-1. Could you tell us the number of your KV-2's MF unit (MF-xx)? If it is the same as the KV-1, then they must be altering the cannon sound some other way..

It would be nice to finally get one of these, but money is very tight for me right now, so I have no choice but to wait until I have funds available for it. Don't know when that will be.. I have the static Tamiya Porsche KT, but again no cash to get parts to RC it and selling it won't generate enough funds for a KV (or any other Tamiya RC tank), so it still just sits in its box. RC tanks have become a low priority on my landscape. It is necessity only mode for me right now..

Anyway, I'm interested in seeing how yours ends up when it is finished.

Congrats, Flyn Cris,<div>this will be my next one... Thanks for sharing this. Excellent stuff.</div>

wish you have fun fixing it... :-)

I hadn’t thought about posting the build step by step Tomas, but that sounds like a good idea, just go easy on my meager building skills. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of questions as I go along. I haven’t built a model in over 20 years so this should be interesting 

RSEA, the MF unit is MF-06, I don’t know what the one for the KV-1 is.

Thanks Hal, hopefully you'll get some useful tips from mine.

please build a up a online review...thx

Well here we go, the photo below shows the end of steps 1-4. No surprises here, I borrowed some of the wife’s red nail polish to paint the inside of the brake/tail light lens. I almost forgot how fun it is to CA one’s fingers together, LOL.

On to the next page, the photos below shows the end of steps 5-8. Doing the torsion bars was bit futzy, I played around with the first one quite a bit till I figured out the proper technique of twisting the torsion bar with a needle nose pliers in one hand and the swing arm in the other. I did find it easier to remove the rear panel to do the last torsion bars on both sides. For wheel bearings and axles, the instructions show using the included grease, I used a ultra thin hobby oil instead, the wheels spin like they are on ball bearings now.

Hey Chris,

Wow! Congrats! Looks like you've got a really nice kit there.. a real step up from the ol' HL Tiger. Thanks for posting the build pics.. I'm going to follow along. Best of luck.. acetone works for unsticking your fingers in a... pinch. (Pardon the pun.)

Cheers, Bob

Thanks Bob, this kit has me thinking about getting the metal lower hull for the Tiger, makes a big difference.

Yes it does. Asiatam's lower hulls with torsion bars and roadwheels make all the diference in the world. I wish I had a Tamiya to compare it with.

Thanks Chris. The KV-1 also uses MF-06, but the cannon sounds are definitely different in the Tamiya video.

I used the transmission/gearbox brace from ETO Armor http://www.etoarmour.com/product_det...productID=DP31 on my KV-2. In the photos below I show it in the tank with one motor installed. To install, you need to remove the thread spacers on the bottom of the gearboxs and drill out the mounting holes on the bottom of the hull to 11/64".

These photos shows the tank assembled through step 14, I painted the hull with Tamiay light grey metal/plastic primer before I installed the road wheels and rear sprocket.

lookin very good....

The next step is to install the speaker and electronic, but I’m having a problem getting my radio talk with the DMD, see my other post here on that, so I skipped those steps and went on to step 22. I had one issue here though, when it came time to install rear deck lid, the magnets that and metal plates used to keep the lid down, keeps it up the thickness of the two materials. As there are no grab bars or anything else to get a hold of to open the lid(power switch and upper hull lock down are under this lid) the raised edge allows one to open the lid. Still there has to be a better way for Tamiya to handle this. The photos below are the completion of steps 22 – 32. Here you can see the turret rotation, gun elevation and recoil motors as well as the LED hull machine gun. This uses a hollow metal barrel with a fiber optic tube inside the barrel with the LED inside the tank.

Thanks for taking the time to share with us your progress and joy of building this fine machine!

Your welcome Swath and thanks to the others for their kind comments as well. With me new to Tamiya after playing around with Heng Long, I thought others who may not have had the pleasure building a Tamiya kit would appreciate this build. I'm amazed at the part quality of everything including the plastic bits, nothing I’ve seen in other plastic models I’ve built. The little things like the planning out where the part is formed from the sprue so that bridge connection is on the bottom of the piece or other areas, so that it is out of view as much as possible. The manual is easy to follow with plenty of pictures, the only real complaint I would have is maybe a little more verbiage on sequence on the tougher sub assemblies, and maybe a name for the parts that go on the outside so you know what it is. I know most if not all of them, but an new person to tanks wouldn’t what some of them are. But these are just little nick picks on a very fine kit.

Here is the KV completed before painting, still not operational do to radio/DMD issue, don’t which as both are new and one of so I can’t test them against a know working one.

Anyway, I’ve included a HL Tiger 1 in the photos for size comparison.

You've made a lot of progress in only 1 week! You must be an experienced worker from the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant. When and if I ever am so priviledged to obtain this kit, I don't think I'd have it assembled that quickly.

Спасибо comrade, my fellow comrades and I at the plant find that drinking the liquid of distilled fermented potatoes to be great help in the mass production of these animal killers so hated by the fascist invaders of our beloved motherland.

Не за что, Comrade. I'll have to try that drink someday.

When your KV Giant is ready to roll, really give it to the Fascists, Comrade! Slam a couple of those 152mm rounds down their throats. Give those cats something to swallow (I mean choke on!)

Za Vas

Thank for for this posting. Very curious how it will function once you get it running! - Harvey