Roboticus_Prime

Crius

That looks really good, Chase. They go through the snow pretty good. Maybe time for a little winter camo? And I really like what you did with the turret on that pershing. That's really cool. Now I'm just wondering when you're going to build another one and send it to me? Bwahahaha

Roboticus_Prime

Thanks, Gary! I'm terrible at painting my tanks. That Sherman is from when Taigen first started selling them, and I still haven't painted it.

The Pershing turret wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was mostly pull out the old, and slap in the guts from the Tiger turret. Only had to swap some wires for the elevation motor, and fiddle with attaching the rod to the barrel. I actually need to make some type of sleeve for the inside of the barrel. I made it initially for IR, so there is a lip holding the muzzle brake on. It sometimes catches the BBs. With your 3D printer, you should be able to make a barrel that is smooth inside, and is thick enough to have a proper hook on the "breach" for the recoil rod.

Crius

3D print a barrel? Bite yer tongue, Laddie. I've been a machinist for over 40 years. Didn't you see the last turned metal barrel I made, for the 15cm Howitzer? I just picked up a dragon PAK 38 kit, that may be the next turned barrel. And no, it's not "CNC". It's better. I had the job done in less time than it would've taken to set up tooling and program a cnc lathe. Now, muzzle brakes are different. For those I have to buy the mill-hand a crunch wrap.

Roboticus_Prime

Forgive me good sir. I only started checking the forums again a few months ago, so I did miss that. I've been trying to find a small lathe to turn barrels on, but I dont want to drop $700 lol. For the muzzle brake, I just cut one of the plastic HL ones off and used it. Lol

Crius

Building the Merit 1/16 15cm Howitzer

Check military surplus places. Sometimes you find small portable lathes but I have no idea what they go for. But I wouldn't expect much for less than $700. And I wouldn't buy one less than 18 inches between centers.

tankme

I have an older 9x20 lathe I can't even use right now since the original owner fubared up the post that holds the tool holder. He adapted a quick change tool holder and did it the wrong way causing the post hole to strip out. I ordered a new cross slide for it where the post mounts in an attempt to return it to a stock config, but it didn't fit the lathe. I was trying to get the company to fix the problem with the new cross slide and eventually they blew me off. So now I'm stuck with a lathe I can't use and spent over $150 on parts that don't fit right.

Crius

Have you tried putting in a helicoil?

tankme

The original mount used a smooth hole for the shaft of the tool holder that was inserted from the bottom of the slide. The shaft has a "button" top that fits into a recess under the slide to retain it. Then it was threaded on top to hold the tool holder. This guy took the smooth hole and threaded it to mount the new tool holder. The threads were very shallow as the bore of the hole wasn't sized correctly for the modified tool holder shaft and eventually the threads gave up. To me, holding the tool holder to the slide with just threads was a bad idea as they would eventually fail. I should find a local shop that could machine a new tool post to fit the old slide. I don't think a helicoil would be the right solution to fix it as I don't think it was the right solution to simply thread the hole in the first place. As you know being a machinist, the tool post has to be able to withstand a lot of force to do it's job without chattering all over the place. My guess is this guy figured this out and sold me the lathe. I only got to use it a few times before the tool post failed. By then it was pretty much too late to do anything about it.

sollie