A number of years ago, I was passing by the Tamiya USA booth
at the RCHTA Hobby Show in Chicago and much to my surprise,
a tank battle was in progress with a number of 1/16 Tiger tanks
blasting away at a replica of a T-34. What was interesting
was that each of these Tigers had synchronized engine sound
with the motion of the tank, different sounds for the drive
motors for the turret and gun elevation mechanisms, very realistic
recoil, sound and flash from the main gun fire, and even a
hull-mounted machine gun that lit and sounded when fired. My
wallet started screaming in agony at the sight of all of this
and I beat a hasty retreat.
Each year since then, Tamiya has
produced a new tank in the series including the M4 Sherman,
M26 Pershing, King Tiger, and Leopard 2A6. In addition, they
released an optical receiver that drops into the commander's
hatch opening and a special laser LED mounted on the main gun
barrel that is tuned to the optical receiver. Both are connected
to the tanks central computer system. When the main gun is
fired, the LED fires at the same target. If the receiver on
the target registers three hits (as I understand the programming),
that tank is deactivated for a period of time - a kill is scored.
MILES gear (for you Army types) or Lasertag (for the rest)
battles can be waged against one another (or team vs team)
without damaging the sizable investment that makes up this
project.
This year Tamiya released the
Panther G. While I've been waiting patiently for either the
T-34/85 or an M1A2 Abrams, my local hobbyshop suddenly went
out of business and they had this Panther G on the shelf for
half price. What the heck, my inner child got the better of
me.
The Project
The Panther box sat on the floor for a few weeks while I was
tied up with the frantic pace at work and using what little
time remained to publish daily Cybermodeler updates. Then it
happened. Free time! I celebrated by sleeping until the crack
of noon, then pondered my workshop whilst ingesting copious
amounts of coffee. Do I do the responsible thing and finish
the PT-117 build or
perhaps the F-22
paint job? It took several nanoseconds to suppress the
guilt and I turned my attention to the Panther.
I had made use of those few weeks to figure out what kind
of a radio should go in this beast since the my local hobby
shop was now gone. A little research on the internet revealed
that Futaba, a trusted name in the radio control hobby, had
produced a four-channel radio tailored for the Tamiya tanks
and robotics markets. This is the Attack 4WD and I found a
good price (and one in stock) at the Tower Hobbies website.
I already had the battery packs that go in the tank as well
as the quick charger from a much earlier RC
car project. I also found some wheel bearings that replace
the brass bushings inside the roadwheels on eBay. With all
of this stuff together, it was time to embark.
The Kit
Each of these tanks comes in a large box that even has a carrying
handle on it. Inside, the parts are very well packaged and
my example was in perfect condition. If you're looking for
a super-detailed masterpiece, this is the wrong project. I
recall seeing one of the aftermarket companies releasing a
SUPER detailed photo-etch set for the Tiger I, though I could
not imagine anyone going to all of the trouble of replicating
all of the buckles, clips and snaps that were in that set on
a tank that was going to rattle around and eventually vibrate
everything loose. To each their own...
The foundation of this project is the lower hull that comes
as pre-formed and pre-holed aluminum. The workmanship is excellent.
The rear of the hull, upper hull, turret, road wheels, and
surface details are all styrene. The drive sprockets, suspension
arms and other key mechanical parts are either cast metal or
machined. The main gun barrel is also machined aluminum. The
torsion bars for the working suspension are steel. Then there
are the computers, sound generator, and motors. The track links
are all pre-assembled and even in a usable color. Simply insert
one track pin in each track and adjust the track tension. In
other words, this a well engineered project.
Construction
Step 1 assembles the two tension pulleys that allow you to adjust the track
tension using two screws protruding under the rear hull. Each
pulley assembly is ten parts that all come together at once,
but this step is a quick glimpse of the steps to come. This
step is not difficult, it just requires patience and adequate
working space. You also become acquainted with Tamiya's thread
lock which helps to keep screws, bolts, etc., from vibrating
loose later on. Pay attention to the instructions as they clearly
show where to use the thread lock, don't use it where they
don't indicate.
Step 2 installs the suspension arm bushings into the lower
hull. This takes a little time and lots more thread lock. Here
is where I came up with a way to speed up this process. Apply
a drop of thread lock to the tip of your Phillips screw driver,
then put the screw on the screwdriver. Add thread lock to the
screw threads and install. While my screw drivers are magnetized,
the drop of thread lock really kept the screw in place until
it was safely threaded into the bushing. I didn't loose a single
screw to the carpet monster and this set went by rather quickly.
I removed any remnants of the thread lock from the screw heads
and hull using lacquer thinner on a cloth
In Step 3, we install the torsion bar mounting rails
to the lower hull, also using thread lock to secure the screws
in place. Study the installation drawings for the tension pulley
assemblies as there is an interesting mix of parts. This is
the first step installing Allen screws and I used the same
trick - a drop of thread lock on the Allen wrench - to keep
parts from dropping off the tools before installation. Worked
like a charm!
Step 4 was interesting. You install the steel torsion bars
through the hull rails, then install the corresponding torsion
arm over one end while twisting the arm to align the keys to
the slots in the hull bushings, then pushing and locking the
suspension arm shaft into the hull. The first one took a little
experimentation to understand, but once you get the suspension
arm through the hole/slots in the hull, the torsion bar snaps
the arm to the neutral position and is fully articulating after
that point. One by one, I install each suspension arm, but
many of them don't want to slip into position. As luck would
have it, I have a very small hammer with a rubber mallet head
on one side. I used the mallet to tap the arms into place where
they snapped to their neutral position. Don't use a heavier
hammer nor a hard-headed hammer as you might damage the suspension
arm.
Steps 5 and 6 add the electronics tray inside the lower hull
and the remainder of the track tension mechanism that adjusts
the position of the track return rollers. Step 7 assembles
the first styrene parts with the two mufflers and the jack
that is stowed on the rear of the tank.
Step 8 installs the twin drive motors into the lower
hull, one for each set of tracks. Take note that they are installed
in one order only - Left Gearbox, then Right. If you do it
backwards, the Left Gearbox will not install.
Step 9 assembles the styrene rear hull with the mufflers,
jack, and fittings. This assembly is mounted to the rear of
the aluminum hull in Step 10 and now the Panther is really
starting to take shape!
Then there is Step 11 and this is where I started came to
a screeching halt. There are eight sets of road wheels on each
side of this tank. That makes for 32 individual wheels since
each set is made up of a pair of wheels. The wheels are molded
from styrene, but each one is fitted with a rubber tire. Tamiya
cast these tires with a rubber "sprue" and you must cut this
sprue from the inside of each tire, connected all the way around
the tire 360 degrees. I pulled out my trusty X-Acto knife,
started one cut, replaced the blade with a new one, and resumed
cutting. The sprue is thinnest where it meets the tire, so
if you can keep your cut along that edge, it isn't too bad,
but I wasn't in the mood to cut 31 more tires - the project
was put away for the evening.
The next day, I was fired up about something and needed something
to work out my frustrations. I must say that I went through
all 31 remaining tires in no time flat. What's more, if you
pay attention to where the blade is traveling around that thin
channel between the sprue and tire, there is no trimming or
clean-up required after removing the sprues. The tires are
done!
Step 12 is the assembly of the wheels with include
axles and bearings (or bushings if you don't buy the upgrade).
Before I can assemble these wheels, a quick look through the
instructions reveal that I have gone about as far as I dare
without doing some painting. This Tamiya kit is conveniently
finished with three colors: Tamiya XF60 Dark Yellow, Tamiya
XF61 Dark Green, and Tamiya XF64 Red Brown. I use Dark Yellow
as my primer coat. Though the styrene is roughly the same color,
the real exercise is making all of the machined metal parts
come out the same color as the styrene. With the wheels painted,
it was time to assemble the wheels and axles.
The kit provides brass bushings to allow the wheels to
rotate 'freely' on the axles. Tamiya provides some grease
to help with lubrication. I have some issues with this approach.
Even if operated on the cleanest floors, this tank is going
to attract dust.
On normal floors, you're going to get larger
particles of sand and dirt in the wheels. If these axles
are greased, then the grease will collect the dirt inside
the wheels.
If you don't grease the axles, the brass bushings will
create friction on the axles and potentially build up heat
depending on how hard you're working your tank. Once again,
not a good idea on the wheels and axles.
Also, the more friction you have
in your wheels, the harder the drive motors will have to
work to propel the tank and that, in turn, generates heat
from the motors and battery pack. Those expensive electronics
inside the tank hull are no-doubt rugged, but there is a
limit to their thermal tolerance and the cooler you can run
your tank, the longer the life of those electronics.
For me, the solution was simple. As with my radio control
car project, I replaced the brass bushings with sealed ball
bearings. I found Hobby Summit hobby shop in Hong Kong that
sells ball bearing kits for this tank on eBay. I placed an
order and had my bearings in about a week. You can see in this
photo the axles with the brass bushings and the ball bearings
side-by-side. While you can't see much difference, the wheels
move much more freely now.
I assembled all sixteen wheel units with their axles with
my new bearings, but otherwise by the instructions. I didn't
use (nor do I need) grease with these bearings. Unfortunately,
the return rollers did need grease and special brass bushings,
but the return rollers and drive sprockets can be dismantled
later. The wheel units are glued together, so servicing these
later will be next to impossible.
Step 13 has you install all of the wheel units on each
side. Each axle has a keyed flat spot to lock the axle in place
with an Allen screw. The hardest part is interleaving the wheels
and mounting the axles onto the suspension arms. I took my
time here as I installed all of the wheels, spun each one to
see if it was rubbing against one of the adjacent wheels, then
installed the Allen screw with a dab of Tamiya thread lock.
As before, I used a drop of the thread lock on the tip of the
Allen wrench to hold each screw whilst maneuvering them into
position. Once again, not a single screw fell into the carpet.
Step 14 is only to remove four links from the pre-assembled
lengths of track. Simply pull the fourth pin, remove the links,
and save them as spares.
Steps 15 and 16 installs the properly lengthened tracks
onto the wheels and drive sprockets. I loosened up the tension
adjustment screws on the underside of the hull rear and installed
the tracks per the instructions. This didn't take any time
and then I played with the tension on the tracks until they
sagged as indicated in the Step 16 illustration.
Safety note - the instructions are clear on this and Tamiya
even wants you to install safety stickers on your hull, but
anything (like your fingers) that get caught up in the track
and drive sprocket are going to get injured, squashed, and/or
damaged. If you're working on the drive system, be sure the
tank is switched off (or better yet, that the battery pack
is removed). Be careful as these drive motors can really move
fast and fingers, clothing, or other things can get caught
in the track and pulled into the drive sprocket.
Steps 17, 18 and 19. Step 17 is charging your battery
pack. Step 18 is nothing more that loading batteries into your
transmitter. Everything checks out fine on my Futaba transmitter.
Step 19 is where we connect up the DMD Multifunction Unit and
DMD Control Unit together with the speaker module, rechargeable
battery pack, and Futaba receiver. The instructions show four
labeled lines coming out of the DMD Control Unit and inserted
into the receiver in channel order. Unfortunately the channel
order is reversed on my receiver, so I put the Ch.1 line into
the Ch.1 port on the receiver, ditto with the other three channels.
When all was connected, I powered up the receiver and heard
a burst of static from the speaker and nothing else. When I
turned on the transmitter however, the Maybach engine turned
over and started. I followed the calibration instructions outlined
in the Tamiya instruction booklet and then turned off the transmitter.
The engine shut down. Too cool. The instructions warn not to
connect up the other devices like the main gun flash unit until
later as there are still other steps that need to be done to
get the electronic units set up properly. Of course I fired
up the transmitter again and played with the throttles, gun
traverse and elevation and listened to those sound effects.
This is going to be fun!
Steps 20 and 21. Step 20 is simply stacking the two
DMD units atop one another with double-sided tape and installing
two connectors. Step 21 is where it really starts getting interesting.
The stacked DMDs are affixed to the aluminum tray inside the
hull with double-sided tape with the backs of the DMDs against
the right side of the hull. This leaves just enough room on
the tray to lay the battery pack.
Connect the drive motors to the corresponding lines from the
upper DMD as shown in the instructions. Be sure and get a solid
'snap' connection or they will come loose later. Use some of
the nylon cable ties to bundle up the wires as shown. There
will be several unused connectors at this stage but don't worry
about this now as these will connect up the turret systems
later on.
Step 22 continues the process by installing the speaker unit
into the rear of the hull, installing the radio control receiver
onto the speaker unit, and installing the battery pack. Note:
Do not tape or mount the battery pack. Simply lay it on the
tray next to the DMDs and connect up the power connector. You'll
want to be able to remove the battery pack for easy charging,
or to be able to swap battery packs in the field while in 'battle'.
Steps 23 and 24. Okay, you're done with wiring and mechanics
for now. Time to get on with some model building. These steps
assemble and install details on the upper hull. I elected not
to install any of the tools at this stage as I didn't want
them to get camouflaged nor did I want to cover up sections
of the hull that would get camouflaged.
Steps 25, 26 and 27 continue on the left side of the
hull with the hull-length steps, rear deck heating unit, tow
cables, headlight and gun barrel travel lock. I opted not to
install the tow cables and spare track at this stage.
Steps 28 and 29 continue the detail installations on
the right side of the hull. It was also time to start laying
out the camouflage pattern before we start the installation
of the motors and lighting units. Here you can see the Red-Brown
laid out and drying before adding the Dark Green.
Step 30 is interesting. Here you take a nicely machined
machine gun barrel, attach a brass adaptor, insert a light
pipe into the barrel and an LED into the adaptor. This was
the first time I had to use cyano in this project. Before installing
the light pipe, you need to scrape or sand the sides of the
pipe to allow the blinking machine gun to be more visible from
the sides.
Step 31 installs the machine gun unit into the bow machine
gun port, install the turret traverse motors and wheels around
the turret race. Finally, the only soldering job in this project
adds an eye to the end of the RC receiver antenna which is
connected to an external antenna on the hull.
Step 32 slides the upper hull onto the lower hull, connects
the machine gun and turret traverse units into the DMD controllers,
and hold it all in place with a retaining screw disguised as
an engine vent on the rear deck.
Steps 33 and 34. Step 33 is the assembly of the gun mantlet.
Pay attention to how the parts are oriented or you might have
to start over again. Step 34 brings us to the beautifully machined
main gun barrel in aluminum. I primed this with Dark Yellow,
then installed the flash unit as indicated in the instructions.
This is mated up with the mantlet and a recoil motor. This
assembly also has the only servo link in the project that connects
up the main gun frame with the elevation motor to be installed
soon.
Step 35 simply installs the rear plate of the turret,
the commander's hatch, and a mount that can be swapped later
for a connector for the battle sensor modules (available separately).
Step 36 mounts the main gun to the turret. I am a little
puzzled here as the main gun is rather heavy, but there is
no screw-mounting of this mantlet assembly to the turret -
just glue. It may be fine, but my instinct tells me that this
will be a recurring problem with glue alone. Do NOT use cyano
here as that will break away under duress. I used good old-fashioned
Testors Liquid Cement on this job as it will provide the strongest
and more tolerant join.
Step 37 assembles the traverse ring and elevation motors to
the turret bottom. This assembly is mounted to the rest of
the turret with four screws.
Steps 38 and 39 add the finishing details to the exterior
of the turret.
Step 40 mounts the turret onto the hull and connects up the
remaining electrical connectors.
The Moment of Truth
After bench-testing the DMD units, I was ready to see if this beast
would work as I had seen at the trade shows. I switched on
the main power switch on the rear of the hull and set the tank
on the floor. As appropriate, it sat quietly. When I switched
on the transmitter, the Maybach engine turned over and barked
to life. There it was, sitting there idling and waiting for
my commands.
First thing was the drive. It will take a little getting used
to controls, but the tank moved smoothly on carpet and on hardwood
floors. Turning was not a problem moving forward or reverse.
The turret moved left and right with the appropriate sounds,
but the gun didn't elevate. A quick look in the turret revealed
that I forgot to install the linkage arm between the gun frame
and the elevation motor. That was easily remedied with a long
hemostat so I didn't have to dismantle anything. Retesting
the unit and the gun elevates on command. Let's go shooting!
The instructions show that with the elevation trim in neutral,
nothing will happen other than moving the main gun up or down.
Slide the trim full-up and snap the stick up and release, the
main gun fires. BOOM! Nice sound! Not only does the gun fire,
that flash unit in the barrel flashes brightly, the gun recoils
into the turret and moves back into position, and the hull
even lurches backwards in recoil. Those DMD units are nicely
programmed!
Slip the elevation trim full down and quickly move the elevation
stick downward and the bow machine gun fires. The machine gun
sounds out smartly over the speaker and the LED blinks in unison
out the end of the machine gun barrel. The machine gun continues
to fire as long as you're holding the stick down.
According to the instructions, the unit comes pre-programmed
to only allow the main gun to fire no more that once every
nine seconds. You can change the switch settings to once every
three or five seconds. There are two different options in the
nine-second rate, one for large gun recoil, one for small recoil.
I switched my options to once every three seconds.
Time to hunt cats. As my wife watched, we saw two different
reactions among the cats. The ones who've been here a while
simply watched (Buddy, the Norwegian Forest Cat, actually yawned
as the tank passed him). The kittens didn't know what to make
of it so they headed to higher ground. Oh well, the tank failed
the cat test...
Final Touches
With the tank completed, it is time to go back and fine tune
the camouflage (and paint those parts that were installed after
the last camouflage session. The whole airbrushing job was
done with my trusty Iwata
TR2 airbrush which has the ability to work down to finer
feathered lines and still cover larger areas with just a pull
of the trigger. When the three colors were laid down and dry,
I shot a coat of Future acrylic through the TR2 on the areas
where the decals would be placed. When the Future had dried,
I applied the decals with Tamiya Decal Softening Solution and
let the chemestry work its magic. The decals had laid down
with no silvering. Another coat of Future blended the edges
of the decals into the surrounding surfaces, then a coat of
Gunze Sangyo acrylic Flat Clear removed all evidence of the
gloss coat.
Next came the paint brush, the three main colors, and the
paint guide. Color-by-color, spots were applied to the camouflage
and the effect is quite interesting. Once again, this was all
set aside to dry. The spare track links and pioneering tools
were painted next and installed on their respective stowage
racks. The only things not yet done are installing the tow
cables and applying some weathering.
Conclusions
As you can see in this short video, the Panther has lots of
fun potential. I really can't see spending much time or expense
with photo-etched details when this tank is going to get jolted
and bumped in 'combat', the hull is going to get flexed as
you pick up the tank or remove the upper hull to access and
recharge the battery pack, and any of these actions will quickly
cause cyano-type glues to fail. If you want a super-detailed
Panther, buy a static kit. Keep this gem around for fun!
Any of the tanks in this Tamiya series are highly recommended.
I've been impressed with these as I see them at
the hobby trade shows, and now that I've built one, I can honestly
say that any modeler can tackle one of these projects with
a minimum of fuss. It is definitely not a weekend build, but
it only took me approximately 24 hours (not counting drying
time) to complete.
