JPK 120 in 1:35

[Guest]

Any chance you could wrap a piece of 0.5mm card (or maybe two pieces of 0.25mm would be easier) around the axle? That would give you the extra 1mm you need on the diameter.

Good idea — I had had the same thought and would probably have used it, except that I did some checking yesterday and found that the Hobby Boss Leopard wheels will sit about 0.5 mm too far out. This may not seem like much, but it noticeably puts the track at an angle, so I will need to modify the insides of the wheels to move them in by that amount.

These wheels are Tamiya-style, with a poly cap trapped between the two halves, and it turns out that the section of the wheel that actually holds the poly cap in, is about 0.5 mm thick … Of course, that means that moving the wheel closer to the hull results in the poly cap not being trapped anymore I’ve been looking for material of about the right thickness that can be turned and drilled on a lathe to make inserts for the wheels so they will fit on the axles, but I haven’t found any suitable scrap yet.

That's what makes your threads so interesting :tongue-out3:
Just carry on as usual

Thanks, will do

Have to hand it to you, your research is top rate, along with your scratchery skills. Always interesting to follow .

Thanks Though I must add that the research here is more, “what’s on other vehicles of the era” than looking into the actual VT 1-2.

[Guest]

I moved the idler wheel arm and hydraulic piston:

[ATTACH]466375[/ATTACH]

The reason is because when I held the Leopard 2 idler wheel in front of the idler arm in its original position, it hardly reached beyond the bow plate. That can’t be good for cross-country movement, so I thought it needs to go forward.

This was done by carefully sawing off the idler wheel arm mounting from the hull with a razorblade saw, then glueing a disc of 0.25 mm plastic card behind it to make up for the lost material. Using a paper punch produced exactly the right diameter, though curved because of the shape of the punches, so I clamped it and the mounting to the wheel arm after adding glue to stick those three pieces together.

In the mean time while that dried, I filed the hull sides flat to get rid of the remains of the mountings and filled the half-round holes in the hull. Once that had dried, more filing and sanding made it flat again and I could glue the arm and piston further forward.

(For those interested in real-world details: Takom gives roadwheels and idlers that are a scale 660 mm in diameter. This is the size that the American MBT 70 and early German KPz 70 prototypes used, while the later German ones had roadwheels of 700 mm and idlers of 600 mm, which are also the ones in Dragon’s KPz 70 kit (and correct for the version portrayed in that). I’m not sure, but I think the Leopard 2’s wheels also have these diameters. The VT 1 probably — I haven’t checked — had old, leftover wheels of the original size.)

[Neil Merryweather]

typically bold stuff from you, Jakko!

[Andy the Sheep]

Just discovered your new build (maybe "project" is more appropriate ), Jakko and, as always, I'll follow it with interest.
The prototype of that weird tank hunter have been stuck in my mind since I saw it the first time on a defence magazine.
By the way: I was a reader of the Italian edition of "Armies and Weapons": it belonged to the same editorial group, had the same name just translated into Italian and used the same layout but was run by Italian journalists.
I still remember I used the infos about the ALCM and the MRCA (a.k.a. Tornado) terrain following systems I read on it in a school composition in '79:nerd:. The teacher was ... :astonished: let's say puzzled, to use an understatement.:smiling4:

Andrea

[Guest]

typically bold stuff

Nah, just a fun, quick, no-complications build as usual

Just discovered your new build (maybe "project" is more appropriate ), Jakko and, as always, I'll follow it with interest.

Great

The prototype of that weird tank hunter have been stuck in my mind since I saw it the first time on a defence magazine.

Exactly the same for me, though probably about 35 years later …

By the way: I was a reader of the Italian edition of "Armies and Weapons": it belonged to the same editorial group, had the same name just translated into Italian and used the same layout but was run by Italian journalists.

So is this, by the looks of it. The front cover of issue 47, that has the actual VT 1 article, says it’s the issue for “15 Ottobre - 15 Novembre 1978” And I thought those kinds of mistakes were only made in the digital age, because someone forgot to type the translated text into a text box … Looking inside, it says the publisher was Interconair Tecnomedia AG while the editorial offices were SORECOM S.A.M./INTERINFO, both located in Monaco. Oh, but the address for Interconair Tecnomedia’s parent company, Interconair AG, is in Switzerland … Let’s just say this definitely seems to be the defence industry at work here (The magazine was printed in Italy, BTW, in Gorle, Bergamo.)

I still remember I used the infos about the ALCM and the MRCA (a.k.a. Tornado) terrain following systems I read on it in a school composition in '79:nerd:.

About ten years after that, a schoolfriend and I had to do a class presentation together about a subject of our own choice. Him being an aircraft geek (and Top Gun fan), we decided to do it about the military. I don’t really remember too much of it, though I do remember him ending up explaining how fighter jets are launched from aircraft carriers, including a drawing on the blackboard of how you can tell a carrier plane from a non-carrier plane by looking at the nose gear strut

[Guest]

The VT 1-2’s sides apparently had a removable panel held in place with socket bolts:

[ATTACH]466600[/ATTACH]

Most likely, these were for access to the autoloader, but they seem an unlikely thing for a combat vehicle to have due to the weak area this would create in the side armour, so I filled it all in:

[ATTACH]466599[/ATTACH]

As for the autoloaders themselves, the VT 1-2 appears to have had one on the left-hand side only, with the right gun probably (is my guess) being loaded by hand from outside before each shot. The model has a hatch with some vents in the roof behind the right gun, while on the left is what seems to be some kind of protective cover that has no hinges or bolts. I think that if there is an autoloader on both sides, the roof would likely be much the same on each side, and it would have a hatch through which to refill the autoloader. Out with the saw and knife again:

[ATTACH]466601[/ATTACH][ATTACH]466602[/ATTACH]

I also cut a piece from the sloping upper part of the left side plate, so I can extend the vertical part upwards to meet this new roof section, like on the right. Once the glue is dry I can fill some seams and then build a hatch on top like on the right.

[Guest]

More progress but elsewhere on the model:

[ATTACH]466616[/ATTACH]

I had intended to put the commander’s periscopes straight onto the roof, but the height of the driver’s hatch convinced me I needed to add something below them. This is the plate that should go over the periscopes on the Leopard 2A4, but glued upside-down to the roof around the hatch opening I cut. That also showed the opening to be too small and not quite as round as it seemed in isolation, so I reamed it out with a sharp knife using the hole in the kit part as a guide.

The periscopes are the tops and bottoms from Asuka Sherman periscopes, of which I have tons spare because you always get at least twice as many as you need in one of those kits. The white bits around them are just plastic strip, and then I added some discs with bolt heads between them, all just punched from thin card.

With the machine gun ring on:

[ATTACH]466617[/ATTACH]

The grey cone is from the Takom roof, and will now be the base for the commander’s viewer. I also started making the gunner’s sight:

[ATTACH]466618[/ATTACH]

These are leftover bits from the Ironside M67 flamethrower tank, whose plastic parts are a poorly moulded copy of the Tamiya M48A3 kit. These particular bits are for motorisation, so I didn’t need them for that model, and 20 years on, I cut them down and filed them flat so two side-by-side can form the basis of the gunner’s sight. No idea yet how I’ll detail it — we’ll see

[adt70hk]

Again Jakko, great work and detail.

Andrew

[Jim R]

Certainly using up the contents of the spares box. Work looks very neat. A lot of thought as to what was likely - your ideas on the autoloader access makes total sense.

[Tim Marlow]

The usual well thought out construction going on here Jakko. Nice one.

[Guest]

Certainly using up the contents of the spares box.

To be honest, not really The Leopard hatch comes from the kit I bought specifically for this, that also donated the suspension parts. The only bits from the spares box so far are the commander’s periscopes and the brown block on the glacis plate, that will be gunner’s sight.

Work looks very neat. A lot of thought as to what was likely - your ideas on the autoloader access makes total sense.

Thanks, as I said before the idea is to make it as it actually might have been in service, rather than just going by what looks cool and impressive.

The usual well thought out construction going on here Jakko. Nice one.

Thanks

On to the latest work On the engine deck, I replaced the moulded-in handles (Tamiya style) by copper wire, and also built the basic shape of the hatch on the left-hand side:

[ATTACH]466629[/ATTACH]

The grey wedge on both was a single kit part that was to go on the right-hand hatch (open ends front and rear, low part in the centre), so I cut it in half and used it on both sides, opening to the rear on both.

I then glued the upper hull to the lower:

[ATTACH]466630[/ATTACH]

For this I stuck the gun pods and the side panels on without glue, then carefully glued the hull halves together and once I was sure the sides also lined up correctly, removed them again. This is pretty much necessary because the gun pods will be trapped between the hull and the side plate, there is no way to remove them once the sides are on. If I’m to get any paint in there at all, it will have to be before I glue the sides on, but I need to finish building the gun pods first — for which I’m waiting for a second gun barrel that someone said I could have.

[scottie3158]

Jakko, nice mods as always.

[Guest]

Then here’s another mod

The design of the gun pods is poor, because you need to install them together with the side plates, meaning you either have to paint all this first, or you have to keep it all loose until after painting. In my case, because of the alterations I’m making to the left rear deck, I would also have to either fabricate stuff on two pieces and have it all line up nicely, or paint first and then add stuff to bits already painted.

After wracking my brain for a good while, I came up with a number of ways to solve this, to allow the guns to go in after painting. The one I settled on is:

[ATTACH]466833[/ATTACH]

I sawed the bit of pipe off the gun pod, filed the area flat and the sawed a slot below each of the two pivot holes. The slots are slightly narrower than the holes, so that the pod clicks in place over the axle pegs on both sides.

That done, I stuck the pipe on the axle it would have gone over:

[ATTACH]466834[/ATTACH]

Then pushed it as far as it would go with the gun pod and glued it in place. I can now add the outer plates and then slot the gun pods in after painting. Before I do, though, I’ll need to add some paint under the overhanging roof bits, as they will be hard to spray later on.

[scottie3158]

Jakko, a great bit of problem solving.

[Guest]

Read on for some more of that, if I say so myself First, having modified the gun pods and painted under the overhangs, I could glue the side plates to the hull:

[ATTACH]466891[/ATTACH]

And then I could build up the hull around the new bit of rear deck:

[ATTACH]466892[/ATTACH]

The putty still had to dry before I can sand it all flat, of course.

Eventually, it dawned on me that trying to move twelve wheels inward by 0.5 mm was far more troublesome than moving eight wheels outward by 0.5 mm, so:

[ATTACH]466893[/ATTACH]

… I punched some discs from 0.5 mm and glued them to the drive sprocket and return roller axles, so they’ll sit slightly further out than normally. That just left the problem of adapting the 3 mm poly caps to the 2 mm axles. I tried a number of different things:

[ATTACH]466894[/ATTACH]

On the left is a piece of 3 mm sprue with a hole slightly over 2 mm drilled into it on a lathe. This works, but it’s pretty laborious, because you can’t just drill a long tube and chop it into lengths, and if you’re not careful, the tube will split or buckle or go wrong in some other way. Another thing I tried was wrapping plastic card around the axle, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread. The bit in the middle is 0.13 mm (according to the packaging), the other is about half that (it’s Tamiya Pla-Paper, which my non-digital callipers say is slightly over 0.05 mm). The thicker plastic didn’t work because it’s not flexible enough, the thinner is but it’s very hard to roll it up just tightly enough, even when using some 2 mm rod to roll it before it goes onto the axle.

Another thing I thought of, was to glue bits of 0.5 mm strip or rod around the axles, but I discarded that as being far too fiddly and laborious.

And then my eye fell on:

[ATTACH]466895[/ATTACH]

… a roll of 0.5 mm copper wire! Wrapping that around the 2 mm rod gives a coil that can easily be put onto the axle, and the poly cap then grips it tightly. About the only drawback seems to be that it might pull the wire off the axle even if I glue it to that, but that just means I shouldn’t test-fit the wheels much, or at all, and I can live with that