Small Scale Military Headquarters

Hello fellow 1/18 fanatics! I have a problem with my DAK Tiger. The current tank has solid steal road wheels. The Tigers in North Africa had had rubber trimmed road wheels, which don’t look unlike the rollers on a XD Panther. What I want to know is how hard is it to remove the road wheels on a XD tank? If it is an impossible task then I will just live with my DAK Tiger having incorrect wheels. I just wanted to get my tank as close to authentic as possible. I would appreciate any info or techniques anybody has to offer.
Lance

Hmmmm,.......I don't think you can get these off without tearing it up. ......You might try adding putty around the inner edges,...then sanding,..and paint it flat black or testers "rubber",...or try and get some rubber or vinyl O-rings to line the wheels with. Tricky problem. ......Good luck on it though.

The wheels feel like they are "snapped" in place. Like MG42 said, you would probably cause more damage than it would be worth trying to pull them. They may be screwed on from the inside though. You would have to disassemble the tiger from the bottom up to get under the floor to see. That maybe a route to checkout.

Filling the groove with putty would be a alternative. It will take time but it would work. Or...you could paint the groove black to give the illusion of being rubber too.

A DAK tiger is a neat and interesting subject. I was thinking of doing one, but I have not had the time to make up a set of Fiefel(sp?) air cleaners for the backend. You will also want to have two headlights instead of one as on the 21st model. The early headlights were on top of the hull corners near the hatches. Good luck with the project and we cant wait to see the final result.

TJ

I play paintball as one of my hobbies. I have seen small black o rings that are sold for tightening up the hopper as it goes into the feed port. You may try these around the edges of the road wheels. I think they have alot of different sizes. You may find one that works. The only problem is that as with all paintball accessories, they can be expensive. Like a dollar per o ring.

good Luck.


Dennis

Didn't Tigers in North Africa have disc road wheels? If so, they also had a third wheel per axle.

Anyway, if you are looking to remove the outside wheel from the Tiger, which leaves the inside one untouched. Get a something round a little bigger that the gap between the wheels. I think I used a screw driver handle. By rolling the wheel and pushing the round object between them will pop the seem of the outside and inside road wheel. So on each axle you will have the inside wheel still on the tank and the outside one from that axle will be in your hand. I hope that you can understand that. If you want some pictures pm me with your e-mail and I'll see if I can help you more.

momaw nadon

I'm also currently working on a DAK custom using the 1/18 Tiger. The road wheel axels press into the hull ( I know this because I completely disassembled my tiger for painting, losing the smoke grenade launchers in the process ). Considering most DAK schemes were not finely painted, it would be very likely that the rubber would have been just painted over. Or you could simply paint the outside edge black. The more glaring inaccuracy is the Commander's Cupola with vision blocks. That just screams 'mid-production.' I'm hoping to locate a Panzer IV for not too much money to donate it's cupola. Also the mantlet where the gunner's sight is located happens to be incorrect (I've ground the reinforcing armor off). To turn this tank into an early-production example will take some work. You'll need to scratch build your own headlight brackets as well. I'm doing mine in the style of sPzAbt 501 with the headlights moved down from the top of the hull and the trimmed front fenders. While it won't be perfect, I think it'll be pretty dang close. Good luck with your project.

flpickupman,
All you needed to do was split the inner and outer road wheel and they are screws that hold it on. I haven't run into where they are pressed in with a pin like on the Panzer IV wheels are. Which version are you working on? the plastic or diecast one? All the plastic ones I worked on have screws.
momaw nadon

The motorworks boxed diecast version. I think I'm not gonna get too wrapped up about it. The treads are going to cover most of the wheels anyway. I figure I'll go as far as painting the rim black to simulate rubber. I have some preliminary pics up in my album now. Picked up some sheet plastic and will likely start bulding the sPzAbt 501 headlight brackets tomorrow.

A solution to the road wheel problem would be to use the ones of the Panther. They are pretty simular to the Tiger's rubber rimmed road wheels. Now though , you have a Panther with no road wheels. Not a problem. Some of the last Panther G's produced had steel road wheels like the Tigers. So just swap the road wheels. The eatly cupla and the filter system on the back of the Tiger are the reall hard parts. By the way these Tigers were not part of the DAK. They were assigned to indpendent Heavy Tank units and arrived in Tunisa after the DAK campaigns.

grockwood wrote:A solution to the road wheel problem would be to use the ones of the Panther. They are pretty simular to the Tiger's rubber rimmed road wheels. Now though , you have a Panther with no road wheels. Not a problem. Some of the last Panther G's produced had steel road wheels like the Tigers. So just swap the road wheels. The eatly cupla and the filter system on the back of the Tiger are the reall hard parts. By the way these Tigers were not part of the DAK. They were assigned to indpendent Heavy Tank units and arrived in Tunisa after the DAK campaigns.

What is DAK? is that a toy brand? Or paint scheme version?

Dave

Deutches Afrika Korps

It was the unit that fought the brits in North Africa during WWII

Panther huh? Looks like I have another tank to acquire and frankenstein. Will the Tiger treads still fit?

Im taking the advice of a another board member and using culking. I will oost pics when I am done.

OK, DAK check... I have only the Motorworks gray painted Tiger 1.

And I bought that kicking and screaming as I thought the sizing was incorrect. Evidently the Panther is a bigger tank.

My scaling method, read up on the web, combat width supposed to be 12 foot, so that is 2 1/18 figures wide

Dave

grockwood wrote:A solution to the road wheel problem would be to use the ones of the Panther. They are pretty simular to the Tiger's rubber rimmed road wheels. Now though , you have a Panther with no road wheels. Not a problem. Some of the last Panther G's produced had steel road wheels like the Tigers. So just swap the road wheels. The eatly cupla and the filter system on the back of the Tiger are the reall hard parts. By the way these Tigers were not part of the DAK. They were assigned to indpendent Heavy Tank units and arrived in Tunisa after the DAK campaigns.

There is a problem with using the Panther wheel on the Tiger. The Panther wheels are larger in diameter. The Tiger would sit up to high and you couldn't use as many of the Panther wheel to make it look accurate. Good idea though.
momaw nadon

Has XD come out with an Afrika Korps Tiger?

........Not yet,...doubt they will.

How much larger are the panther road wheels? 2mm? 4mm? Is it really enough to be an issue or to the extent you couldn't trim them down?

Here is a comparison shot of the wheels:
http://community.webshots.com/myphotos? ... ity=EkAibB
I would say it is about 1/8th difference, maybe more. If you don't have a lythe, it's hard to remove that much and keep the roundness of the wheel. Plus you defeat the purpose of using it, because you have to cut all but a little off of the rubber part. The other problem you run into is the center hub, it looks nothing like the disc wheel of the Tiger. I have been running all these, because about two years ago I started an early version Tiger myself and that is the biggest hold up of my whole project.
momaw nadon

Well crap. Now I'll have a $60 Panther of dubious value. I may just have to take a flight of fancy and assign a Panther to sPzAbt. 501. Too bad there isn't some enterprising individual making 1/18 Early Production Tiger road wheels.

Man! What the heck were the Germans thinking making the Panther's road wheels bigger than the Tiger's?