Rex Ross

Hide your Maus, your Elefant, your E100, and your Teeny Tiny KingTiger!

I am coming for you in my Hun Hunter, my Bosch Beater, my Kraut Kicker, or whatever this wuz gonna be if it had been operational before WWII ended. I know it was designed as an assault gun, not a tank hunter, but it is my model and I can pretend it is anything I want it to be. As soon as I finish building the wings and pontoons, it will fly and float as well. Golly, now that I think about it, didn't the the Russians already develope one of those in 1936?

A T28/T95 Super Heavy Tank was the last thing I ever imagined that I would ever scratchbuild....... Uhhhh..... I mean......assemble from assorted materials suitable for building model tanks.

Now I know why I never imagined I would build it. It was a pain. Originally, it was going to be R/C, but that idea died an early death. It's a good thing you can't see the suspension, unless you really like Mickey Mouse rigs. Thank goodness for anti panzerfaust sand skirts! The track is from the HL Pershing. It took three sets of Pershing track and sprockets from Phil at RC Tank Wars to put shoes on this beast. The muzzle brake and .50 cal MG are "borrowed" kit items, but the rest is made from "basic stuff", or made from molds of kit parts. I worked on this model every day since Father's Day. As usual, it's the detail work that tried my patience and made me an alcoholic.

For the rest of today, I'm gonna enjoy thinking that this is "the only 1/16 scale T28 model" in the world. Tomorrow, I'll betcha 50 guys will post photos of theirs! And then Heng Long and Tamiya will announce the release of their battle ready example for only $150. Well, maybe not Tamiya.

I would be interested in your opinion of the texturing. I tried to duplicate how the main center hull looks, which was a casting on the real life 1:1 tank. I tried a new process (to me) and can't decide if it's sorta ok, or kinda crappy. Either way, I think I know how to do it better next time. I spray painted the parts to be textured with automotive primer paint. Then I quickly poured a container of table salt all over it. After it dried I brushed it off, and sprayed it with primer again. Later it got the OD paint job. The primer dried too quickly....... I expected the salt to dissolve and flatten out more than it did. I goofed on that........oh well. The gun mantle turned out better, I sanded the salt lightly before final painting. My tank may not look perfect, but I'll bet it tastes great!

At this point, I don't whether to turn this thing into a skate board or a mailbox.

The one encouraging thing about doing this model is.......maybe a Churchill would be a piece of cake by comparison.

Hmmmmm, I think I feel another brain cramp coming on.

Kitbashing Rules!

BiggTony

OMG!!! I don't know how to feel at this point!!!!!!????

kclank

Kelley's Heroes had the privilege of a public unveiling of this beast last Sunday and the sound of lower jaws hitting the dirt was deafening. Even the comparison picture of the M-4 next to the T-28 do not convey the sense of mass of this model. It looks like it should be 1:10th scale. Looks good up close too. So when are you going to build the British counterpart.

sevoblast

Nice work. Rex, and a truly unusual model to boot. Now, as far as kicking my hind quarters, lemme see here ....perhaps a one on one with the JT?

pattoncommander

Fantastic job. [X(] I had thought about making a T-28, but the cost of all the HVSS suspension parts etc put it on the back burner.
Glad to see someone made one and it really looks great. Are you going to eventually RC it?

Panther F

That now is nice. Since the real thing has been moved from Fort Knox to Fort Benning, your's will be the one we all get to salivate over.

Again, nice work. [sm=thumbs_up.gif]


- Jeff

Rex Ross

The T28 started to be an R/C model, but it would have faced the same problems as the real one. Where could it operate? All of the battle sites that Kellys Heroes has, have roads, bridges and tunnels that would be too small to navigate. Also, driving all four tracks was a problem. Just driving the inside tracks could cause getting "high sided", similar to getting "high centered". And, I also got lazy.

Rex Ross

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I cheated on the suspension parts. Since the suspension doesn't show, I only made resin copies of the outside road wheels from the Tamiya Sherman. The parts that you can't see are made from wooden dowels and plastic and brass rod. Each pair of road wheels pivots on a rocker axle, but that's it. If that tank didn't have those skirts, it wouldn't have been built.

BiggTony

RC or not, still and awesome piece! Ya know, what would be a great piece along side it since you've done a quad track vehicle?

shenlonco

My Feedback: (2)

[8D]That looks cool!!

Rex Ross

Are you talking about the Tortoise?????

When you donate the track. When hell freezes over. When gas is a dollar a gallon again. When Sandra Bullock asks me to be her Boy Toy. When I fit into a pair of 34 waist pants again . Need I go on????

Rex Ross

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Are you saying you want a piece of me? Bring it on! Take yer best shot! [sm=punching.gif]

Wait a minute.....JT? Did you maybe mean JB, or GT? (Jim Beam, or Gin and Tonic?). [sm=bananahead.gif]

karel47

awesome build ross, nice done afteral, not excisting orreal a masterpiece

sevoblast

Slavutovich..a local brew, not bad and every bit of 2 griven 30 a half liter bottle....aka 28 cents a jug.

Unfortunately, at the moment a one on one would be difficult, involving for me about a 18 k mile round trip, during which I'm sure more than one customs inspector would have some interesting questions about the JT and it's electronics suite.

However, I'm sure my JT will make mincemeat of your TD. Just try not to scratch my paint whilst I'm providing the much sought after flow through ventilation for your ride. The CO, aka Victor Charlie Oscar, gets really irritated at such unseemly happenings and has been known to take rather extreme umbrage at such dastardly behavior on the part of the victims of said JT.

karel47

yes i help you with mine servoblast, we blow him away from 3500m he will never knows what hit him anyway ...

Ern

Awesome ~ great job! thanks for posting... Here's the one that was at the Patton Museum

sevoblast

Am I mistaken or is that four sets of Easy 8 bogey wheels peeking out from under the skirts? And was the outer set of tracks just idlers, as per the not symetrical alignment of the rear drive sprockets? Or is the not symetrical alignment in the rear drive an effort to stop some of the harmonic resonating of the tracks?

Rex Ross

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I wuz wondering what excuse you would use to avoid meeting me for a showdown on the field of battle at high noon. The only thing holding me back from coming to you is that my Parole Officer refuses to remove my ankle bracelet because I am under house arrest, under indictment, or under the influence...........most of the time. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

sevoblast

Sigh. That's a pity you can't come here for a number of reasons, not the least of which it is high summer now, temps in the upper 90's, and the eye candy at beach (5 mikes from the family schloss), well calling it spectacular is probably one of the greatest understatements of all time. If you do manage to make it to Krim, I strongly advise you to bring your heart meds with you...

As for the ankle bracelet, not to worry. DHS will never notice, and when you get here, I'm sure I can find a friend or two in a well known security apparatus who can assist you with the bracelet to any level you want to attain. Then it's a few weeks of tanks, beach, beer and wine, until VCO has had enough of us and whips out the heirloom 15 kilo silver serving spoon and proceeds to play the Anvil Chorus on our respective noggins. Of course she will only do that after she has trained on your poor TD with her T34 and Sov Panther. Quite the vicious little fighter, she is. Contrary to what they say, on occasion youth and exuberance does triumph over experience and treachery...me having learned this the hard way.

Rex Ross

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The bogey wheels are resin copies made from the Tamiya Sherman. I made a latex mold of one and cast them with resin. All of the inside road wheels are wooden dowels cut to fit (and painted black). Every source of info that I could find indicated the outside tracks were freewheeling idlers just to reduce ground pressure, and were not driven with a spline (or something) connecting to the inside track sprocket. The photo of the rear end of the T28 at the Patton museum shows that, but it's not easy to see unless you have a good photo. I was going to align them with a long pin that went through both sets of tracks on each side, but I ignored that when I decided not to R/C it for now.

I don't know if any of the crew had a reason to play the Harmonica.

(Sorry about that, I just can't resist really bad jokes).[sm=lol.gif]

From the "What were they thinking" department..............
http://www.airlandsea.info/2010/01/t...port-mode.html

sevoblast

Sorry, should have clarified...meant not only the model but the real beast. What size main gun did this thing have? Looks like a 9cm, but then it's difficult to be certain.

Panther F

105MM

karel47

the jagdtiger get a 128mm high velocity Gun with can hit targets up to 4000m

Panther F

Yeah, two different vehicles with two different purposes. One designed to break a fortified line and the other to destroy armor.


- Jeff

kclank

Hell is freezing over since Obama took office, i will donate the track, err where is that polar bear i am supposed to violate?