After seeing a few RC tank battle sites on the web I decided to have a go - I was surprised at just how big a 1/8 scale tank is and at 30kg the weight is a major factor - like where do you keep it, how do you get it in and out of your car etc.
Construction is from 10mm MDF and the plans was taken from a paper model and enlarged to scale with Photoshop. Plans are available for free download below. Simply take the paper parts and scale up as required.
Tracks are made from motorcycle chain and hardwood molding and the wheels from industrial roller door wheels.
Drive motors where from cheap slow 12v electric screw driver gearboxes
Turret and gun controls are Futaba servos and RC is a JR 9 channel PCM receiver
Main turret Gun is a stripped down and modified Electric Glock 18 BB pistol that will fire single or Auto and the machine gun on the front is a cheap BB canon from a small rc tank which fire on full auto.
Download Tiger Tank plans here 3.2mb
Download Hetzer Tank Plans here 1.7mb
Download PanzerMk4 Plans here 1.4mb
Download T34 Plans and 3d parts here 4.1mb
Check the Reference Page for more info
RC Tank Machine Gun (blank firing) Plans
Download Article in Thai Combat Magazine Page 1, 2, 3
This is the Heng Long version of the Pershing Tank - smoke effects and sound included.
Heng Long have had a lot of bad press - but the price is hard to beat. I thought I would buy one, give it a bit of attention (texture and paint over) to see what I ended up with.
The texture was added with a tooth brush and epoxy putty thinned with methanol on the main body sections.
The texture layer was then airbrushed over and dry brushed in places.
I am fairly pleased was the results and the fact it costs less than half of the nearest competitor and a quarter of the price of the leading brand of model.. cheapness has a quality of it's own
Click on the thumbnails for larger images and click on the links to watch the video clips
Improved drive system and tracks
The drive system for the tracks has been changed to chain drive through a reduction gearbox. The track pads are now made from 5mm alumimium strip which is drilled and tapped with 3mm hex cap screws to fix them to the drive chains
The BB gun has been changed to make use of an old airsoft AK47 which has been cut down to the bone so that it fits inside the turret . The gun achieves 390 fps with a 0.2g airsoft BB and is set to fire on semi automatic with a 200 round capacity.
The new paint job is a temporary scheme for a few photographs for the Camouflage research section of the site.
More details and video to follow - if you can not wait - contact me
After a long delay due to other commitments, I have finally got around to finishing the body of the Radio Controlled 1/6th Scale King Tiger Tank.
A new track system has been used, more reliable than the one used on the Tiger 1 model and a more robust drive.
The wheels used are old Supermarket Trolley Wheels - very cheap as they are changed out and discarded at regular intervals, just ask the maintenance department at your local Supermarket.
The track system uses rubber sheet cut to the appropriate width and length to form the backbone of the track.
Aluminum strip 1" is then rivetted to the outside to make the track plates.
The drive uses Timing Belts and Timing Belt Pully wheels that are available free of charge from most Automobile Service Centres - these are consumable parts that are chaged at specific time intervals so nearly all bearings etc. will have enough life left for our low speed uses.
The Timing Belts are cut and bonded to the inside of the Rubber Strip (use Rubber Adhesive and spot tack the outside edges with CA Adhesive)
The pulley wheels are sandwiched between wooden wheels to incease the width - the pully teeth mesh with the Timing Belts which provides the non slip friction for the track drive.
I have uploaded the template plans and Build photographs for this project and they are available by clicking the links below
The plans consist of cutting templates for the main parts in AutoCAD format and a 130 Page Build Photograph album for reference.
The plans are available free of charge and the files are in AutoCAD and Adobe PDF format and approximately 8 Mb in size