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| Type: |
IS-4 |
Armament: |
130mm |
| Built: |
November 2003 |
Armor: |
250mm |
| Builder: |
Erik Kump |
Rating: |
40/4 |
| Status: |
Under Construction |
Battles: |
0 |
| Owner: |
Erik Kump |
Points Earned: |
0 |
| Call Sign: |
Nomad |
Points Given: |
0 |
| Notes: |
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Welded stainless steel construction Cast aluminum tracks Independent suspension
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I am building a 1/7th scale (putting the hull length at 38") Soviet
IS-4. There were 250 made toward the end of and after WWII. I can't seem
to find the web page that had stats on it to confirm, but if memory
serves it had a 130mm main cannon, and a luxurious 250mm of armor at the
thickest point of the turret.
The hull is welded .048" stainless steel (not sure what gauge that would
be). The tracks will be cast aluminum, though I haven't decided whether
to emulate real track links or to go with a variant of the TTS. Each
road arm is individually suspended. I have EV Warrior motors that I
planned to use, but they may be too big to fit, in which case I have
some high-power drill motors I could use. I am toying with the notion of
coaxially mounting a 6mm (paint) BB cannon with the main cannon and
possibly wireless video. My major sticking point right now is trying to
find some inexpensive batteries that will fit in the low profile hull I
chose without sacrificing capacity.
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Click Photo For Enlargement (187 Kb) |
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This is one of the line drawings I came across when I was trying to
decide which tank I wanted to make. I just loved it. Nice and wide, wide
tracks, not too tall, and it has a roomy turret.
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I scaled off the drawing and made this CAD model to give me hard data on
the compound angles.
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Click Photo For Enlargement (42 Kb) |
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Click Photo For Enlargement (90 Kb) |
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Here's a pretty good shot of my hull so far. It still needs cleaned up
and painted, but it's done. The upper and lower hull will bolt together.
Shown with universal scale. I have the suspension components half done.
I'll send details and pics of that when it's done.
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Another view. No, that isn't my floor. I've been working on it at work
after hours. My wife is starting to get mad at me I think.
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Click Photo For Enlargement (66 Kb) |
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Click Photo For Enlargement (107 Kb) |
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Here is a view of the rear. I'll shoehorn the drive train in here. The
cover panel is shown to the right.
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I didn't have a lot of weld experience when I started this project, and
what I did have was MIG. I knew I needed TIG, so I had one of the
welders at work give me a crash course. After practicing on some scrap
for a little while, I started assembling. Mostly I've been able to fit
the pieces well enough that I could just flow the edges together, but in
this case there was a big gap. The "weld" on the left shows my first
attempt to flow extra material into the gap to close the seam. Ick. So I
tried laying the weld rod in the gap and flowing over it. As you can see
by the stitch on the right, this worked much better.
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Click Photo For Enlargement (120 Kb) |
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Click Photo For Enlargement (46 Kb) |
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The left center area here had a slight gap, and I tried my hand at
"dabbing" the material into the weld. You can see by the lumps that I
was pretty ham-fisted about it, but it's still a solid weld. I took a
Dynafile to it, and it looks much better now.
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I got compliments from the welders for this bit. I'd hardly call it
professional, but they said it was very good considering how little
experience I have. (Okay, this one isn't part of the tank. It's the
burner for the foundry I'm putting together to cast other parts for the
tank from aluminum. I figured that it was close enough.)
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Click Photo For Enlargement (64 Kb) |
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