I accidentally started this thread in the war room, so I'm reposting it here. Man I'm an idiot

Hi all,
I started this project last year, and had to shelve it while I worked on some other things. So I pulled it back out and dusted off the parts. This will be a true conversion kit bashing the WSN T-34/85 RC tank, with the super detailed Trumpeter T-34 static model kit, Imperial Modelbau SU-85 resin conversion kit, and Tamiya IR electronics. You may have seen some of these postings and pics in another thread last year, before the project got put on hold.

The Iperial Modelbau kits (SU-85, and SU-100) are true resins. They appear to be urethane resins, and of fair quality. The SU-100 comes as a solid super structure (fighting compartment), where as the SU-85 kit which I am currently working on is made up from several flat "slab" peices that need to be built up. The castings themselves are of pretty poor quality, they are very thick, have lots of air bubbles, and my peices are severely warped. It will take extensive work with hot water or a hair dryer to get things flat enough to glue together.



Craig

For this project I opted to stiffen the WSN chassis with a 0.80 styrene plate with structural ribs added. The lower hull is now very stiff, with virtually no flex. The upper deck will come from a Trumpeter static T-34. And I'm upgrading the stock WSN gear boxes with Tank Toko metal gears and bushings. Ethan added these to his SU-122 with good success. You can see both my Su-85 and his SU-122 build at our website at www.desertarmor.com

With the chassis stiffened up I went to work on the suspension. The easiest way to reduce flex and bolster the suspension would be to buy after market metal components. But I never said I was looking for the easiest way. I added laminated styrene, and epoxy with baking soda as a filler to fill all of the openings in the stock WSN suspension arms. Making them a lot stiffer, and hopefully stronger.

I'm planning on keeping the lower WSN hull as well as using the more stout stock suspension parts. Then combine the back half of the WSN roadwheels and sprockets with the more detailed Trumpeter outside half as they have crisper and more refined detail. Likewise I'll be mating the Trumpeter upper hull which has much better cast metal texture and details, to the WSN lower. All of the engine louvers are operable, as well as the hatched and a multitude of detail parts. The fuel can tie downs and rear engine deck screening are photo-etched brass affairs...........very nice. You end only using about 15-20% of the Trumpeter kit, but the results are well worth it. Because they are made by the same company and share some parts most things can be crossed between the two with only a little adjusting and tweaking.

The retail on all three versions that Trumpeter puts out is about $140-150, but you can usually find them on e-bay for about $80. Which is pretty good considering they come with complete interiors, and complete engine and transmissions. It's actually kind of a shame most of those parts will go to waste. Of course the tracks are too fragile to run but look great for the "extra " track hung on the hull (come with ice cleats as well) and all of the pioneering tools are nicely done.

Finally got to laying up the fighting compartment. The pieces were severely warped and took quite a bit of work to get the resin to mate up nicely with the Trumpeter upper hull and the WSN lower. I also fabricated custom "snap" closure to seat the upper and lower hulls. I used aluminum alignment pins, home made snap closures, and I may add one or two strong earth magnets for security.

Also started to add some detail to the fenders. I think the Russian tanks looked a lot meaner without fenders, so I'm ripping mine up.

For the front right fender (mud guard) I cut the fender at the hinge,and then fabricated a new half of the hinge plate. I drilled attachment holes and added styrene bolts to the other half, simulating the look that the mud guard has been torn off or removed at the hinge.

For the front left fender I completely removed it and fashioned a bent under fender brace from styrene. My plan is to then add a new fender fabricated from thin gage aluminum which will be bent and torn.

Hey, it looks great! I have one of the first kits Andy sold and mine was in several pieces too.

Watching your thread just might make me pull my stuff out and look at it again.

Wow, it looks great. [sm=thumbs_up.gif] I hope you finish it this time. I'm interested in seeing all of the innards installed and wired up.

Great project streetsquid can you show us some close up of the custom snap closures?

The Blitz

Nice to see your build going again, streetsquid. Keep it coming.

Gary

Thanks for the positive responses, I'm determined to get it done this time, and I'm shooting for our next battle day as a completion date. April 12th.

The WSN lower has enough room to accommodate the Tamiya electronics comfortably. I built two small .080 styrene boxes that were fitted and keyed for snug fit for the DMD and MFU. I'm using the stock gear box container with Tank Toko metal gears added, and there is still plenty of room for the battery. The only part I haven't got totally engineered is the gun movement.

Polish or Russian markings? The WSN is a perfect platform and a nice performer too.

Keep up the good work! [sm=thumbs_up.gif]

Oooo, those styrene compartments are so fancy! I really like that it makes the DMD and MFU look like they were made to be there.

For this type of conversion, do you simply use the Tamiya plugs on the ends of the WSN wires for traverse, elevation etc. or will you have to figure out a way to use the Tamiya parts? [sm=50_50.gif]

Blitz,
The snap closure were an interesting affair to say the least. I wanted to make to upper hull easily removable, yet secure enough not to create problems on the battlefield. Now I'm no engineer so I just started brainstorming and thought I would experiment. What I ended up with are a couple of different closures that work pretty well, it's easy to open, the hull stays together pretty well, but it is a pain in the rear to line up and securely snap down. So now I'm thinking about adding some strong magnets to help align and secure the two pieces more quickly. So I'll break this down into sections.

Front edge of the upper and lower hull.
I epoxied short pieces of aluminum tubing in the lower WSN hull that line up with the stock mounting posts of the upper Trumpeter hull. You simply slide the plastic mounting posts into the aluminum tubing and they hold quite nicely.

Rear deck of the upper to lower hull.
In the inside edge of the upper hull I used styrene to make an "L" shaped catch bracket, which lines up with a corresponding styrene ledge in the lower hull. For assembly you line up the post and aluminum pins at the front, and pivot the back section of the hull to capture the L bracket under the ledge or lip.

More to come on the side catches

Russian white wash with red markings, and I'm gonna beat the hell out of it with lots of mud and rust

The styrene boxes only look fancy because they're still in the stark white compared to all the surrounding green plastic (LOL).

I'm not sure on the traverse, recoil, elevation yet. The gun only has about 10-12 degrees of side to side travel. I'm probably going to forgo on making the gun recoil, and just focus on elevation and side to side with small servos, that's what's gonna matter when battling. In any event I will probably cut the one end off of the Tamiya connectors and replace them with deans plugs

The side snap closure were the pain, but they work pretty good once you get them aligned. Which isn't that easy with all the heavy and warped resin attached.

There are 4 side snap closures.
I took the stock mounting bosses of the upper hull, hollowed them out, then epoxied a small finish nail into the hole. I created a styrene washer to add more gluing surface to secure the nail from being pulled out.

In the lower hole I drilled corresponding holes through the sponsons. Now once you line up the front pins, pivot the body into place and catch the rear hull on the "L" bracket, you simply slide your fingers between the track and hull and press. The nails "pop" through the holes and secure the sides of the upper and lower hulls. They do take some tweaking to get them to line up though. I think they would work well on a complete scratch build where you wouldn't be fighting the huge hunk of resin (fighting compartment)

Very nice work! You are going all out, huh!!!

Looks awesome squid. I hate to say it but I think you will eventually find the gearboxes failing. The weak link is not the gears but the lack of bushings that the shafts fit into. I went with the metal gears and had it grinding after a day in the rough. A lot of slop will develop between the pinion that comes out of the gearbox and the larger drive gear.
The rest of the mods look great.
Perry

I packed my WSN gearbox with the Tamiya ceramic grease and it has 4 or 5 battles on them and it is still going strong.

Thanks Perry,
I hear your concerns with the gear boxes and was compelled to do something a little beefier. But Ethan has run this set up in two WSN conversions (T-34/76 and his SU-122), both with the Tank Toko gears, and another guy in my club did the same, and neither of them have had any issue since making the conversion. Combined those tanks probably have 8 battles to their credit. Now they did originally run the stock plastic gears which failed miserably. But since switching to the metal all has run smoothly with no slip, slop, excess play, or grinding. Our battlefield doesn't have a lot of elevation change, so it's not too bad. I guess only time will tell. Thanks for the input, I really appreciate everyones comments, and encouragement.

Panther F,
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement.
I started as a small scale modeler, so I like to super detail everything. I'm still trying to learn to balance between adding all of the realistic but fragile scale details, and something that will still hold together on the battlefield. Our club is trying to bridge the gap between lookers and runners.

Here are a few pics of the latest work done. Using the Trumpeter upper I added all of the working engine louvers, hatches, and covers on the rear deck including a very nice piece of photo etch brass screening. I plan to make all of the hatches operable using brass rod to replace the plastic, so I have full access to switches and charging jacks, but still have hatches that will hold up to the abuse of being used. Next will come a heavier texture, to tie the different medias together and create a rougher cast look.

Plastic hinge rods removed and sanded smooth, then through holes were drilled and copper rod added, making the hatches operable but with much stronger hinges to stand up to opening and closing

Drilled attachment holes through the styrene left front under fender brace that was added earlier, then epoxied thin guage aluminum to replicate the torn and bent remains of the fender and mud guard