Tiger tank build 4

BUILDING A TIGER TANK

Part 4 by Vince Cutajar

Fitted the upper part of the hull so that I could fine tune the alignment of both the rear plate and the front sloping plate.

Bolted the six battery tray pillars to the floor.

Also bolted the floor access panels.

Next started work on fixing the pannier gusset to the pannier floor. Used some rivets with a threaded shank to attach them together. The rest of the holes were filled with glued-in rivet heads.

Pannier gusset fixed to pannier.

Made some filler fillets for the interlocking plates.

I made what could have been a ‘field modification’ to the tow bracket. I added a chain to the tow pin so that it won't get lost.

Test fitted the idler tension mechanism. Needed the usual deburring and also had to refresh a couple of threaded holes. There is an end-float in the idler shaft of about 1mm. I could eliminate it but something tells me to leave things be. I added some miniature adjustment tabs as per real thing.

Glued them with JB Weld. Had to use a tweezer and magnifying glass! I guess it's an age thing.

Also had a go at the idler tension covers to remove the ridges on the tapered part.

Cleaned up the casting ridges on the idler hubcaps on the lathe. I will be changing the fixing bolts for this component from 3mm cap screws to 3mm hex with a one size smaller head.

And finally the actual idler where I cleaned up the CNC machining marks with a Dremel and a small grinding tool.

All the idler components were etch primed and put to one side. Started the clean up operation on the drive cases. Removed the light machining marks from the tapered portion of the drive cases. This time I put it in the lathe and used sand paper to do the operation. It did not take long.

Part 3 here Part 5 here

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