RC Tanks Australia Forum

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SpuD

OK here is the slide block stop that I have modeled, I have had to add an additional guide/tube to the recoil slide to allow for the gun flash LED and it's wiring to pass through recoil unit freely.

At rest:



Recoiled:



When fully recoiled the length of the entire unit beyond the mounting (due to the addition of the gun flash LED tube) is now 71mm.

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SpuD

.....correction, after a minor tweak to the gun flash LED tube, the fully recoiled length is now an additional 2.5mm longer than the above, so length of the entire unit beyond the mounting when fully recoiled is now 73.5mm.

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SpuD

The revised extended gun flash LED tube in the at rest position:

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SpuD

Here are the three basic components of the recoil unit as they currently stand:

Main Body:



Main Body with Slide:



Stop Block:

_________________
SpuD

.....and a sectional view that I prepared earlier, but only just now was able to up-load.

At rest:



Recoiled:

_________________
SpuD

For the StuG I've been toying with the idea of adding a mock breech block (and maybe the recoil cage) to the recoil unit, note that there is nothing accurate here as this is just simple a POC model.....



The breech block is designed to fit into the end of the barrel slide and there is slot provided (underneath) to allow for the gun flash LED leads.

_________________
SpuD

..... a slightly more accurate attempt at the mock breech



Meanwhile down on the farm, I've been plodding along in the real world as well, in that I've been working on the hull. My current point of focus is the rear tow hitch points. First up I have decided to ditch the boat anchor sized retention chains that Taigen provided with the hitches, with some much finer chain that I have. I have been hunting high and low to find a decent reference image of how these chains attach, as the way they are supplied does not make any logical sense, as I'm sure the actual idea behind the chains is to have one end attached to the tank and the other attached to the pin, with the pin then held in place with a cotter pin (or such) like that below:

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SpuD

Well I asked myself if there was any way to make the recoil unit design more compact.....

and so as an alternative here is recoil unit Mk II (or short)













..... just giving myself options

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SpuD

New chains attached, and some rudimentary cotter pins fashioned from some spring steel fishing tackle clips.





After scouring through all my references I've found an image of the StuG at Aberdeen Proving Ground that show remnants of the chains, that appear to be connected via a ring through a hole drilled into the top inside of the hitch horn castings.

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SpuD