COMSECFOR

Hey I'm Steven in Charlotte, NC. A little about me: single custodial father and business owner. I own COMSECFOR Security in Charlotte. Since it's just me and my teenage daughter, I decided I needed a hobby besides building rifles and sitting on my butt all the time. As a former 19K tanker, I took the plunge and bought a M1A1 1:16 Heng Long a few months ago. What fun! I think my neighbors are jealous as they grin at me tearin' it up in my front yard!

I was poking around the Charlotte area and noticed there are only RC flight and buggy clubs. ZERO for tankers. Although I'm a newbie, I though it would be kinda cool to start a tank club and meet up with other tankers. Thoughts?

jarndice

Hallo Steven, A warm welcome to RCU,
I think a Tank club is a brilliant idea, there are nowhere near enough of them where we can Drive, Fight and just plain show off our Armour,
Unfortunately I am in England so I don't expect to be coming by anytime soon but there has to be some fellow tankers near you where you can hang out and have some harmless fun shooting BBs and I/R at each other and showing how to get an airbrush paint job to "die" for,
We answer questions on this Forum if you ask us.
Take care,
Shaun.

sevoblast

If memory serves there is a sizable club in Greenville. Just across the border from you is Danville, home of the AAF Museum with a large indoor tank battlefield. Here's the link. Enjoy and welcome to our hobby!

https://www.aaftankmuseum.com

COMSECFOR

Wow! I didn't know about that place! Do they host clubs coming to have battles?

sevoblast

Oh yes! Since 2003 and the facility is quite nice. No heat in the battlefield area in winter so dress warmly. I haven't been since early '06, I moved and it's a very long drive for me. I do miss the events and comradery. The Museum admin are very good people as are the tankers who attend the meets.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-t...formation.html

Crius

Welcome to our madness, Steve.

At least a couple of different clubs have events at Danville every year, like NEAD and HEAT. Check out this thread for upcoming events

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-t...formation.html

It's always good to have another Bulldog jockey, and I'll run out the video of mine at the drop of a hat so thanks for the opportunity.

This one has a Clark TK22 in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-H_hqIVYbQ And for some reason (Rex had a lot to do with it) I decided to build a paper panzer using the bulldog lower. Now I have two upper hulls and can change back and forth from actual tank to fictitious AA tank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r9bhTFPygY The Bulldog is one of my best running tanks and the most fun to drive, with either hull top.

TheBennyB

Yea, quite a few tankers in the greensboro/raleigh area. First event at the museum is weekend of March 18(I'll be posting info soon). Anyone is welcome. Even if you don't have an IR ready tank come and check it out. You can run your tank on the battlefield between battles and tankers are usually very willing to loan out tanks to try out and even battle with if you want to see what it's about. Beside the r/c battlefield the museum is HUGE! You can very easily spend an entire day looking at stuff, so if you don't feel like making the drive home alot of tankers get hotel rooms for a night or 2. I stay at the Comfort Inn right down the road from the museum.

skyflier

WOW!!! You look like quite a guy(I looked up your website)! It is a honor to have someone in the forum who served. Thank you for your service, God bless you.

COMSECFOR

Thanks, y'all! As a biz owner, it's kinda open whether or not I can travel to do that. Anywho, I've been looking at Tiger 1 tanks with metal tracks. I think that'll be my next project. At these tank battles, do RC owners bring several batteries with them charged or what are the rules on that?

TheBennyB

There are work benches provided with power so tankers bring their chargers and batts. These events go for 3 days so you go through quite a few batts. These are older pics but will give you an idea of the workbench area as well as an after party around the hotel pool after the museum closes.

COMSECFOR

The nerdery! I LOVE IT!!!!!!

sevoblast

Choir Practice, aka the AAR, is really grand. I don't miss much since I moved but Danville and the lads, they are top of the list for fond memories.

If you're going to battle you might want to consider a Tamiya. Tiger 1 is their best but the KV 1 and IS2 are right up there, in fact I rate the IS2 to be as good if not better than the Tiger 1. I'm currently chewing on an IS2 (pronounced 'Issdva') and hope to be able to finish it when the latest Care Parcel arrives Tuesday.

The handsome lad in the fourth photo with the Megadeath Tshirt, that's Daryl Turner, well known as our resident genius. Hands of gold when it comes to massaging our tanks.

Oh yeah, forgot to tell you about The Daryl. He will snipe your skivvies off from all the way diagonally across the battlefield and look innocent as a lamb whilst doing said deed.

COMSECFOR

By the way, here is my M1A1. This Heng Long came with A2 pieces such as the secondary sight, additional armor and APU. I was on the A1 active duty so I removed the extra stuff. Just under the glacis, I put my old unit indicators and other symbols to "make it mine." I don't have tiny stencils to put my old panzer name on the bore evacuator, so, I'll keep it clean.

sevoblast

Nice looking ride. Perhaps a view of the glacis?

I'm sure someone here can come up with the stencils or decals for your evacuator signature. If you were a little closer I could have a couple local artists we know hand paint them. They'll be doing some numbers and such for several of my tanks come spring and if I'm lucky my charming bride will let me repaint her trophy Panther G to something besides winter white with Sov numbers and stars. She's a vicious fighter, by the by.

skyflier

Was that last pic celebratory? lol

Imex-Erik

Pretty sure that is just after hours at the hotel I remember that pool area and that "heliboat" we played with too! Man that thing was a trip!

Green Amphibian

Hello Steven,

I'm Herman from just north of Winston Salem and a member of the H.E.A.T. club. I go to just about all of the battles at Danville and really enjoy building tanks. If you decide you can make the March battle, I will be happy to loan you a tank to battle with to see if it is something you want to do. The AAF museum has the lowest prices on Tamyia tanks and parts too.

Herman

COMSECFOR

Wow! Thanks for all of the replies. Now, regarding the markings on the front slope / glacis for my unit numbers, they turned out bad. I mean, those stencils were SMALL. So, I'm gonna remove them and get smaller stencils soon. Herman - I might take you up on that!

Crius

These are decals I did on the computer. Did your markings have the white background? After I did this I wished I had painted the white squares and then used clear decal film with black characters. Maybe next time.

How are you doing your markings?



And yes, at my house the cat hair is part of the decor.

Pcomm1.v2

M2 mounted upside down.

M2 mounted correctly.


Hello and welcome to the rc tank hobby.

Tip: If you follow the HL Printed Assembly Steps to the letter, your 50 cal will end up mounted upside down, as yours is. I also made that little error too and the forum, a couple of years back, was quick to point that out Anyway, here is my Abrams, below, with the M2 correctly mounted.

Check out these Abrams detail parts: http://eastcoastarmory.com/sherman_16.htm

Again, welcome and impressed with your "site".

John

COMSECFOR

OMG as a 19K I shoulda known it was upside down! And as far as the unit labels go, I used some labels that came with the box and cut them out. Yes, it is highly inaccurate, but, I have NO clue where to get printable labels I can dry install. Now, as far as I can remember, the background on the unit numbers IS NOT white, it's an off-yellow color as it was when I was active duty. What do you recommend I use for dry labels to get this accurate. By the way, on the bore evacuator, it should say, "BOOTS UP," as that was my panzer's name, thus:

Glacis
3 (TRIANGLE) 2-67.................B-34

Bore Evacuator
"Boots Up" (with a bit of overspray squares on edges...at least that's what I remember what we sprayed on it just before combat in Iraq.

Also: Gary...how did you get the turret to swing a continuous 360 as the RC panzers I've seen don't do that?

Crius

Hi! First, I just noticed that you signed your name as Steven and then my dumb ass went and called you Steve! Sorry about that, and let me ask a little late, is Steve OK or do you prefer Steven?

Anyway, as for markings, I just started experimenting with dry transfers for model trains. They're easy to use and come out great. I did the barrel markings on my M1 with them, and I think they look good



They make these letters in all different sizes, fonts and colors, and the pack I got for the Abrams was about 6 bucks. As for the black triangle, I simply printed that as a capitol letter "A" and then with a fine point brush and some semi gloss black I turned it into a triangle after it was on the tank.

To get 360 rotation you just file a tooth into the stop block on the ring. I think I have a video about that, but I'll have to dig it up. If you haven't already discovered my youtube channel you might want to take a look at it. The bad part is that the search engine at youtube isn't the best so it can be difficult to find a particular video, even for me, the guy that originally posted them! But, if you go to the youtube channel for Gary Hoff (that's a pen name) and click so it shows "Videos" you can skim through and check titles and thumbnails and that can really help to find a particular video. Take a look at this video, and skip ahead to about 1:50 and it will show you how I do the 360 turret rings. It's really quite easy. Or you can call Erik at Imex and I think they have them ready to run with the stop block removed. And speaking of Erik, that's one guy you'll want to get to know. He's a wealth of info and one of the best all around RC guys we have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWLdUAHiGJA Back to the markings - If you want to paint the squares (simply mask the rectangle and use a bit of spray can or airbrush) I could easily make the number decals for you in black on clear film. Of course, you did say you want dry markings so that makes me ask, is there a reason you don't want to use decals? If you really want stencils maybe we should talk to Greg (Airbrushler) and see if he can make some. That guy is really good with a lot of stuff, but stencils are an art form with him.

As for "Boots UP" I highly recommend dry transfers. You can check them out online by searching "Woodland Scenics", one of the biggest suppliers of scenery and transfers for the Model Railroad community.