RC Tanks Australia Forum

G'day All

I'm slowly working my way back into the hobby, and what better way to do that than with a new tank. Well I got myself the StuG III Ausf G.

Thus far I've been filling numerous gaps, holes, miss aligned plates and attempting to eliminating that horrible canyon between the hull and the tank body (Pics to follow).

I decided to go a little deeper with the build this time and would like to ditch the HL aerial post and substitute my own using either the existing molded items or an aftermarket item (something I will eventually want do with all my tanks as well).

Upon inspection it looks to me that the post itself may have been inserted during the injection process or maybe ultrasonically inserted later, either way its welded in good and tight, and my initial (admittedly cautious) attempts to dislodge it have come to naught, so can anybody out there who has already done so give me a hint as to how to remove it?

Thanks Spud

_________________
SpuD

Signing in to follow your build
I want a Stug III myself but they are kind of hard to come by

Thomas

Get a hammer and a nail puch and whack it out - Come on Spud, it's a Heng Long. Yes that is how I get them out.

On a side note I recently got a set of the new Asiatam shurzen sets for the Stug III. I was a bit scared that they would be a bit flimsy and made of soft white metal but they are pretty sturdy and I think a lot of the parts screw on.

Maybe the actual scale detail maybe a little off but I think it is an acceptable trade off for sturdyness. Especially since the hand made shurzen suports on my Brummbar were so easily smaked off by some wayward Tamiya driver.

cheers kg

_________________

rctanksaustralia.com

_________________
SpuD

Well I chose to use the:

• Trim away the excess plastic up to the inside of the deck, then use pliers and a little brute force to remove the post -method.

During the trimming down I exposed the nurling that form the main friction fit for the post, and this provided enough movement for the pliers and brute force to complete the extraction.

New problem, I have decided to covert my G to that with a saukopf, but after a couple of very sweaty hours have yet to work out how to remove the existing box type mantel, anybody got any hints??

Sspud

_________________
SpuD

G'day All

Here are my initial efforts to eliminate the huge gap between hull and the upper body, nothing historically accurate (yet) but looks better than seeing the tanks innards.












From the references I can find it looks as though the method used to join the hull to the tank body was done with angle iron and bolts, something I may try to simulate.

I've also ordered a set of new air intake boxes along with the associated mesh etchings and have got a set of metal suspension (mainly because of the external spring of shock absorbers) also on the way as well.

SpuD

_________________
SpuD

Hey potatohead - you can either get yourself a whole new pighead from Asiatam or a half pighead that will fit on your cut down boxhead from Modellino

http://www.panzerparts.com/product_info ... lotte.html

Cheers from the
Fishhead

ps. in both cases the pighead conversion wil result in a minor ache in head

_________________

rctanksaustralia.com

Fishman

.....a pighead was ordered along with the new intakes.

Potatodude

_________________
SpuD

Ok I've noted that all the sites seem to list the Asiatam saukopf as being that for the StuG IV, so does anyone know if the castings in real life were the same for both the III and IV, my guess is a tentative yes seeing that they both mounted the same gun??

SpuD

_________________
SpuD

Well I managed to get the gun out, the method is fairly simple:

1. Unscrew all the cable connections from the upper tank body, dislodge the IR battle system socket from the base of the commanders cupola (mine was held in with a spot of hot glue), dislodge the MG LED from the drivers vision port (I have already removed this item and deleted it mount point from the vision port, yet have retained the LED and its leads as I plan to add a coaxial MG for the main gun) and unscrew the MG/headlight terminal.

2. From the inside flex the two side tabs of the inner front plate of the upper tank body and dislodge this item from the upper tank body so that it rides freely outside the tank.

3. Unscrew the elevation motor (2 screws) from under the loaders hatch.

4. Unscrew the pivot mount (2 screws) from the roof of the upper tank body.

5. Pull the gun forward until the lug for the recoil motor hits the lower shelf of the upper tank body, then gently flex this shelf down to allow the lug of the recoil motor to ride over it and then whole kit and caboodle nearly falls right out.

6. You may need to cut the headlight leads to allow for total removal of the gun and other components, however if you are prepared to work tethered to the main body I guess you could leave the headlight leads intact. In my case however due to my research I have elected to remove the headlight altogether as it would seem that the StuG III G did not have a front headlight at all, yet instead relied solely on the centre front fitted Notek light for illumination, so I will as an alternative be using the leads for the headlight to connect up a working Notek light.

And so there you have it.

_________________
SpuD