How to make a cost effective KV-1 rear light

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phyrephish
King Tiger Commander
King Tiger Commander
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Joined: Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:24 am

How to make a cost effective KV-1 rear light

Post by phyrephish » Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:47 am

Hey All

With 3 KV builds on the go at present coming up with a couple of KV rear lights easily and cheaply was necessary. The task was to make a light as seen below.. Not really a hard job....

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Materials:

Well, when I say cheaply I mean using bits and pieces that I had hanging around already. So here are all the bits I had lying around.

1/4" Tube styrene
Strip styrene (0.25 x 4.8mm)
PVA glue
LEDs (2mm and or 1206 SMD)
Saw
Hobby Knife
Red clear paint (or food dye) - other colours could be used eg: orange

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In addition to the above some Mr Surfacer and paint of course.

Construction:

First step is to cut a 8 - 10 mm length of tube

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Next cut a similar length of strip

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Bend the strip

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Glue the strip inside the tube as shown

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Use some Mr Surfacer to "fill" the join between the strip and tube as shown.

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You can also use the MR Surfacer around the rim of the tube to give a rounded finish

Undercoat/Prime:

Paint with Undercoat or primer

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I would also suggest now painting the fixture in Russian armour green BEFORE going onto adding the lens

Making the Coloured Lens:

Small lens such as these can be easily made with clear setting PVA glue. To colour the lens add a small amount of clear paint. I guess you could also use any food dye. Most drawings of the KV-1 rear light show both lens sections are red. However, I want to put 2 different LEDs into these fixtures so I plan to make the smaller lens section amber/orange and the larger one red. In the example pic at the top of this post one could even argue that the bottom lens is somewhat amber anyway.

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The example below is of a different rear light but the process is the same. Once your PVA/dye mix is done use a toothpick to spread a film of PVA across the lens space. As you can see it would be best to have painted the part in the final colour BEFORE adding the PVA lens.

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Stay tuned for part 2.....
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