Big Kitty - Tamiya's Leo 2A6

[Beobachtungsbereich]

Well we had TRM's Bad Kitty and that is one hell of a piece of work so I figured I'd take on the "Kitty" theme to a new level....

Tamiya's RC 1:16 scale Leopard 2A6 Full Option Kit


I had saved for it for literally months, damn near a year. "Wanna Timmie's Sarg?" was often met with "Nope, saving up...".

I missed out on A LOT of coffee.

I know I have a few projects on the go right now, but this one arrived a few days ago and I couldn't stop myself from opening the packaging.




I said to myself "Just a peek and I'll put it away and finish the other tanks".

My wife rolled her eyes at me.

So I opened it up, with the help of my son who constantly said "TANK! TANK! TANK!" as I grinned from ear to ear.





Looking at the parts from the outside of the box, my mouth drooled and my eyes bulged from their sockets.

My wife's eyes rolled yet again.

Two days later I opened it up, just for curiosity's sake. I just wanted to look at the manual to see what I'd need in the way of materials and tools. It's one hell of a masterpiece of engineering, I now understand the price tag.

Looking at the manual it's daunting. I've never done electronics on this scale, never did any fiber optics, nor the sheer planning of the build either. Everything has to be well thought out in advance and priming and paint has to be considered as well or you'll end up with a lousy paint job on a very expensive piece of kit.

It's big...this is only a little over half the kit laid out!











the power pack and transmission has to be assembled









Final drives assembled




Power pack and transmission assembled




Total time to assemble - 7 hours.

Greasing the gears and ensuring the tolerances were set properly was the hardest thing in this massive step.




Today's work was capped off with assembling 6 road wheel/ swing arm assemblies in an hour.




All in all, I'm extremely satisfied with the kit. This is not your typical RC buggy but a full on model that has a stabilized gun. This is the most accurate RC Leo 2A6 on the market...it even has the same whine of the turbos, the clunk of the traverse gear mech. It even goes into the load position when fired.



TANKS for looking!

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

SO....ummmm, going to scratchbuild yourself some slat armor, belly armor and cuda cam net to do yours from the sand box?

 

[NecronautDrummer]

You know, I just read a build log of someone who did this on a swedish armour site. 4 to 7 rattle cans of Tamiya paint to coat the sucker (depending on who you believe...)!? Sounds like someone's gonna have a merry Christmas indeed!
Just watch for the clearance between the turret and some of the hull pieces as it traverses.

Just checked a few prices on this kit and OMG! $1100 for this kit? No offense, I'm just surprised that eye rolls were all you got from your wife! :-X

 

[Beobachtungsbereich]

I got the kit for a wee bit cheaper than that actually. I've seen kits go for as low as $750 and unfortunately I couldn't get it that low.

As for my wife rolling her eyes, we had an agreement when I first joined up - my field pay is mine to do with as I wanted. There is a lot of field pay in this one from the past year. ;D

4-7 cans of primer? What was he doing? Huffing it?

Scott - I've already looked for slat armour, Barracuda kits for it and there are none. Scratch building it all is WAY beyond me, at least for now. Hmmm, a half moon chisel, some vinyl table cloths.....styrene sheets for the slat armour....er....STOP IT!! ;D

 

[schweinhund227]

So ! you are Showing off hey ?? ROFL

I actually saw one of those built! None functional at the time but same as yours I believe!
It's a Monster !


Superb engineering all the way ! Taken “it’s a Tamiya” !

Looking forward to see what you do with it !!! LUCKY B> d! LOL

Merry Christmas! in advance ! well deserved !

Coming back from the SAND-BOX you sure deserve a break ! you, your family and your Crew !

Stay safe


Enjoy !

 

[Carsenault]

SO....ummmm, going to scratchbuild yourself some slat armor, belly armor and cuda cam net to do yours from the sand box?

thats what I was wondering too.

 

[Beobachtungsbereich]

Coming back from the SAND-BOX you sure deserve a break ! you, your family and your Crew !

I've been back since April 2009. Thanks though!

 

[spud]

thats a lota parts

 

[panzerace007]

Oh .... Yeah ... The Big Kitty is on th Prowl !!

have you checked with these Guys for some of your stuff ?? I picked up some stuff for My 1/25th scale Tamiya Jagd-Panther ( Non R/C ) These Guys say that They have th largest inventory of R/C Armor in th Western Hemisphere .... They might be able to hoo ya up on some Cool add-Ons. ( I'm not affiliated with them , just a happy Customer .... ask for Gene !! He's a great Guy )

- http://www.artistichobbies.com/products.php?cat=84

I'm waitin to see this Big Kat come out & play !!

 

[Beobachtungsbereich]

Well, now that I'm back home from visiting relatives for the holidays, time to get back to work!

Now have the torsion bar assemblies, bump stops, volute springs, return rollers, idler adjusters on. Used Tenax 7R to make sure the parts stay in place.

That being said, there were many breaks taken to ensure that the room could air out. I was literally gluing the parts on outside the window due to the vapors!






Today I'll be (hopefully) shooting on a primer coat for the lower hull and suspension....but it's not looking good so far. The little dude is, well, being a typical 2 year old. ;D

TANKS for looking!

 

[spud]

wow that looks Huge

 

[TRM]

Hiya Beo!! Playing a bit of catch-up here.....WOW!!! 1st, thanks for the little atta-boy on my Bad Kitty!! I like this!!!! I think deep down inside..everybody likes Big Girls!!! Count me in on this one from here on out!!! She is HUGE!!

 

[Beobachtungsbereich]

Primer coat is on the hull bottom tub as is the base coat. It took over an hour to shoot primer and at least 2 for base coat.

I think I'm in trouble though....it took almost an entire bottle of the base colour to do what you see in the last two pictures!

I'm going to have to do a sealant coat as well later. The edges are a bit easy to chip.

As for scale, next pics I put up I'll make sure there's a Vallejo bottle next to it to give you an idea of the size of it.

TANKS for looking!

 

[spud]

lol at least your having fun ;D

 

[NecronautDrummer]

LOL 4 to 7 rattle cans, I told you! JK

In all seriousness, I think anyone of us would love to be in your shoes right now, working on this behemoth of a model!

 

[Beobachtungsbereich]

Here you go...something for you to relate the size to.



As for having fun.... ;D

As for 4-7 rattle cans - I still think that's a bit much. It's big but a rattle can has an awful lot of paint in it.

Time will tell. I'm keeping track of how much paint I'm going through.

TANKS for looking!

 

[HWR MKII]

when i built mine years ago it only took one rattlecan to paint it. and the finish took alot of abuse.

On the construction side of things dont overtighten the suspension swin arm mount screws. even the slightest overtightening will cause the ABS to split rendering the arm unuseable. Use the supplied threadlock on the screw and tighten it till its "just" snugh enough. Or go on ebay and hunt around for the metal replacement ones.

 

[NecronautDrummer]

Yeah, overtightening a screw can lead to big problems in the future. I built a Bandai Gundam PG Zero several years back and I overtightened pretty much every screw on that beast. A supposedly 'fully poseable' $300 model is now seized up so tight that it can't be posed at all!

 

[Beobachtungsbereich]

when i built mine years ago it only took one rattlecan to paint it. and the finish took alot of abuse.

On the construction side of things dont overtighten the suspension swin arm mount screws. even the slightest overtightening will cause the ABS to split rendering the arm unuseable. Use the supplied threadlock on the screw and tighten it till its "just" snugh enough. Or go on ebay and hunt around for the metal replacement ones.

Good to know!

I've been making sure that everything is just snug and not over doing it so far. Last thing I want to do is start replacing things as I'm building it.

I'm now going over the next portion of the build and seeing what I can "prefab" and prime/ paint before installation of electronics.

Regards

 

[Beobachtungsbereich]

Well, didn't do much as niner domestic was out getting some retail therapy and I was holding down the fort.

Got some of the electronics done ( the sound box and hull wiring harness) and a bit of matt clear on. Hit the road wheel hubs with a bit of flat red for the oil level check plugs.





TANKS for looking!