1:10 M1 Abrams scratch build, not great, but fun

[dremu]

Originally Posted by egronvold

Wow, you’re cranking out models! Nice to see all the designing and craftmanship.

Heh, thanks. Actually more like cranking out the writeups, as this is the last few years' worth of builds. I had a coupla threads on another forum which has since went gone defunct, so I figured I'd try committing them to posterity here. Found some more pix:



Starting the hull, with the bazillion holes for the pillow blocks. As above, annoying that the sides aren't symmetrical so each had to be measure and marked separately.



608ZZ skateboard bearings. Sooo many bearings. Also the chain sprockets. Of course the ones for #60 chain have like a 1" or 1.5" bore, but the motors have a 10mm shaft.



Printed up adapters to fit, with a key for the slot in the sprocket and a slot for the key on the motor. Also has holes for the sprocket's set screws, though had to get longer ones so they engage both the sprocket and the inner motor shaft. Took lots of infill to make them strong, but so far they've held.



After chunking out the roadwheels on the printer, put them on the mini lathe to clean off the supports and such. In retrospect I prolly could have just mounted them and let the chain do the work.



I might have gone a bit overboard on the bearings, but I feared the 3mm plywood would warp under load. I figured sandwiching each side was cheap insurance.

Finally, if you have an Abrams, obviously you need an M1070/M1000 HETS to carry it around. Right? (shakes head)



That's as the tank sits now. There's some more greebling, broken tread pads and whatnot, and antennas (thinner piano wire, with printed bases and centers, plus the RCIED antenna, same as on the trucks). There's also a little 2.4GHz drone camera on the front of the turret, by the mantlet.



Video goes to a monitor mounted on the TX, little flip-up sunshades on top and sides.



I did a separate thread for the HETS. The truck itself came out fairly well, but the trailer suffered from the same issue as the tank, namely oversize, overweight, unwieldy. Kinda like the guy who built them =))