Hey Tankers!

I really ought to spend more time writing these posts so I don’t bombard you all at once like this, but that’s Finals week for ya!

As some of you know, we have been searching for the original blueprints ever since we started this project. We’ve contacted libraries, archives knowing Tristan’s need for historical accuracy, the actual blueprints would prevent an “uncanny valley” that plagues so many re-created tanks, examples being the AFV’s in Saving Private Ryan, White Tiger, and several reenactment tanks used worldwide. Not to detract from them, they are wonderful and the reenactment scene wouldn’t be the same without them, but we are starting from scratch and have an opportunity to do this right. That being said, Tristan recently tracked down and got in touch with an archivist at the Czech National Archives and began a dialogue about the tank and the project. We were offered a stock of 76 images, some in English some in German, that might be helpful to us. We’ve just recently recieved those images and are thrilled to have them. Below are a couple examples

They don’t have dimensions, I assume they were for presentation or demonstration purposes over manufacturing but they’ll help. We may have to get exterior dimensions off of our model or spend the cash to go abroad.

As you can see above, our model (the 1:16 Panda) varies for accuracy, and while it is very nice I might be wary of having a tank that looks 96% like the real thing. It might look JUST enough off to bug me. We want it to look indistinguishable from the outside. The team will discuss shortly on how perfectly accurate we want it to be, and what it would cost.

As for the Transmission, today we finalized the prototype drawings. Steve spent all day going through each and every one making sure they were standard and up to par. Beckett finished his Bending and Shear diagrams for the driveshaft, and Tristan put together the full assembly drawing.

After roughly 200 man-hours and countless revisions and redesigns, we have something we can call a prototype model. But in the end it needs a massive rework. To sum up why: we messed up our safety factors and ended up with a transmission over 2,300lbs. We could lighten the transmission significantly by cutting the gears from 2.75″ wide to 1.5″ wide. or less. Suffice to say a MkII needs to be drawn up. That’s another 200 man hours. We’ll get there. Hash and rehash. That’s prototyping though!

Some thoughts:

The website’s not even being actively broadcasted and we’ve gotten offers to help us. This is incredible. I can’t thank you guys enough. When the time comes we’ll need all the help we can get to broadcast this project to the world and volunteers like you will be vital to the success of Project38. Maybe there’s more interest in our project than initially thought. Maybe we can go bigger and badder than we had planned? Who’s to say? It’s going to be a bumpy ride with the best company possible. I look forward to it!

Anyway, thanks for reading, I’ll try to get shorter, more frequent updates again. Now that Finals are pretty much over expect more regular updates!!

V/R

-T.Ankmann.