RC Tanks Australia Forum

Hi! Im planning to cut the hatches in my Panzer III and in my Panzer IV too. My idea is to cut the hatches and reuse them. I've found small brass hinges very cheap on aliexpress so that part is ok.

But how do you cut it?

I also have PIII lateral hatches that I bought here some time ago and Im planning to make them operational.

Hi Rad

I have done this many times. First, I use a flush cut saw to saw off the molded hinges, then a scorer in and along the grooves to make about 90% of the cut. To finish off and do the corners I get a fine coping saw blade snapped into pieces and put into the "jaws" of your standard hobby knife.

If you are careful with cutting the plastic hinges you can even separate the two halves and drill a hole for some wire between them and make the hinges themselves functional.

HOWEVER, no matter how careful you are AND how fine a blade you use the space between your cut out hatch and the new hole in the hull is always too wide. You will have to then fill in this gap with thin styrene plus add a lip so the hatch does go through into the hull. It is a lot of work and I just get the aftermarket hatches these days.

As for the Panzer III if your goal is just to have access to switches inside and not realism then I often hinge just the air intake covers. Or if I'm really lazy just make them removable.

Cheers
KG

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rctanksaustralia.com

Thanks for your tips, I will try and see what happens. Hope to not to break it too much...

I want to do it for some reasons, first for getting access to all the switches without opening the tank, second for added realism, and third and most important, is because what I enjoy most is being busy trying to do new things and trying to repare the mess.