Restoring an old Tamiya Leopard A4

[Meter Rat]

I have always thought the early Leopard was a great looking tank. Looking forward to seeing all rebuilt. I'm enjoying tearing my own tanks down and rebuilding them a lot these days

You do a great job of rebuilding, and repairing them.

Short post. As I am waiting on parts for the chassis of the Tamiya Leopard 1A4, a small amount of work was done on the body. Removal of the plastic mudguards, and the fitment of new rubber ones. Will need to order some 1mm Meng bolt heads to finish this area.



Bit of scratch work made some tow cable holders, and the spaced off the the tool boxes as per the prototype.



Dry build up of the chassis which highlighted some issues, and a few mistakes, of my own making. These will addressed

[Meter Rat]

After some absence. Work has continued on my Leopard 1A5DK, to the point where some paint could be applied. Tools on the rear deck have been replaced. Lots of filler and sanding required now.

[SoCalBobS]

Wow! Great job on a great tank.

[MrChef]

WoW! You've done some great work here Ian! The white paint brings it all together. Nice work sir!

[Meter Rat]

Made a right stooshie of the paint. The top coat reacted with the original paint, or some contamination.

Before.



After two hours of sanding, and sore fingers.



Still need to spend more time sanding, with ever finer wet and dry.

[RichJohnson]

Yikes that paint reaction sucks. That can just ruin a great model. Love your work on the DK A5 upgrade,
live finshed two so far, My BE1 and a fictitious 1a7 upgrade which was my mechanical prototype for upgrading uperations in the models.
My AS1 is half done, I haven’t decided in the camo pattern yet but it will be a version of mudcam not Auscam.
I also have a C2 mexas sort of half done, working up the 3d printed armor is a real pia.

Good luck with the paint solution. I hope your able to smooth it out and repaint it to be a good coat for such a nice build.

[SoCalBobS]

I had something similar happen once. I used Testor's paint and decal remover to get down to the bare plastic. I don't know if it would work on your project. There also a lot of "old wive's tales" chemicals that strip paint without affecting the plastic. One I did use was carburetor cleaner, but I can't remember the brand. Good luck however you proceed.

[Meter Rat]

Cleaned up the mess. Went old school, with emery paper, then wet and dry used wet. Two hours of my life I will never get back. At least I was able to do it in cooncil time. And use their heating to dry it.

[Meter Rat]

After stripping the paint off, and a thorough clean, new paint was applied.Stencils were used for the UN markings. I need to paint the bridge weight marking on the front lower hull, then weathering can continue. The lights were wired to give headlights and taillights, and separate switched convoy marker lights. Weathering, is going to be enjoyable, as these got filthy due to the kosovan weather.

[RichJohnson]

Nice work. Cool, detail on the lighting.
Another leopard 1 comes back to life.

[tank_me]

Cool build. I spent about 3 months in Bosnia back in 1996.

[Meter Rat]

Managed to complete most of the weathering on my Leopard 1A5DK. A few bits have come off in the construction, and will need remaking. Now just waiting on some matte finish to seal in the weathering. Looks like one of the smoke dischargers needs back in place.
I can not believe that I started on this just over 5 years ago.

[RichJohnson]

Pretty nice. I drove both of my finished ones around this weekend in our San Diego battle.
each one is set up slightly different and I’m not quite satisfied with either one as far as driving and battling and loosing speed during the hit knock out process.
my Belgian BE 1 has taigen trannys (39:1 ratio) with 380 motors using a Tamiya dmd11 and uses 8.4 volt battery and 3d printed plastic Tamiya tracks and it’s slow. Then as it gets hit it gets even slower until it just can’t move, I had 390 motors in it but was drastically overpowered and put too much torque on the ground and would whip around nearly uncontrollably in turning.
My modernized 1a7 with all the fake armor I added, has Henglong red ultimate II tranys (33:1 gear ratio) with 390 motors and uses a 7.2 volt battery and the metal rubber pad track and is quite a bit faster. It is just slightly squirrelly when driving but performs better when dashing across an open field, and as it takes the 6 hits and slows down on each one.
Im still not quite satisfied with either but I like the performance from the 1a7 better.

I still have several more tanks to build yet and am trying to work through what is the best way to set them up.
The dmd11 has a very different driving algorithm in it designed for the centurian kit and trying to get a good trany design to match it is challenging for a good smooth logarithmic curve while driving.

[Meter Rat]

The niece visited, with the child who is the spawn of satan, and simply does not understand the word no. As it could not get his own way, he pulled the shelf off the wall with the Leopard on it. Damaged the transporter it was on, and wrecking the Leopard.

Damaged transporter cab.


Broken search light and gun.

Barrel broken in three places.

Gear box output shaft broken.

[cleong]

Visitation rights have, understandably and rightfully, been firmly revoked.

[RichJohnson]

Wow. So sorry to see this. I can imagine how the succeeding events transpired. How old is the child?

[Meter Rat]

Visitation rights have, understandably and rightfully, been firmly revoked.

I say nothing, on the matter. Because I will be the one whom is wrong. Oh well! **** ‘appens. We will be diswayding future visits, as this is not the first time he has wrecked objects when he been unable to get his own way.

[Meter Rat]

Wow. So sorry to see this. I can imagine how the succeeding events transpired. How old is the child?

Thank you.

I say nothing, on grounds of incriminating my self. The child is seven. Even our neighbours boy, who is the same age, and frequently asks to use my models, and has gained the skills to use them with care, and respect. Just turned and told him he would be in trouble
Oh well, it can be repaired.

[RichJohnson]

Unfortunately so many parents today do not teach their kids NO and are raising brats. My son is 11 and is quite respectful most of the time.
I once experienced a couple young teens maybe 10 and 13 who were invited into our tank battle area with their grandmother. The older one was caught grabbing the barrel of my 3d DKlM M60a3 while it was on my table, it’s a very expensive custom Tamiya grade model I built before Tongde existed. When I returned home I found everything inside the turret broken apart. I wept greatly and sat it on the shelf and retired the model.
The same child suckered my son into letting him drive his Tamiya Pershing when I was not aware and he proceeded to ram it into a concrete wall over and over until he broke the whole barrel and mantlet off. My son is a generous and kind kid and shares his toys freely but we had to have a talk about limits and strangers and it’s ok to say no especially on special expensive toys.

[Chris curran]

This is sad to see the destruction of such a fine model. It can be fixed. It will be fixed.