AFTER WINNING NUMEROUS AWARDS, KEVIN "BUCKSHOT" BUCHANIEC IS ASKED TO TELL THE TALE OF THE GRINDHOUSE.
MILLINGTON, IL - September 20 , 2009 - Kevin "Buckshot" Buchaniec continues his tale of how the Grindhouse came to be:
Part II: The Build
With a running vehicle, the fun part began. First up, chop it and make it look like it was from the WII era and of German descent... Some precision surgery with a Sawzall and she was chopped down a bit lower. As it was mentioned before the front was a bit mangled from a front end collision. To make an air through grill, the mesh from some old Compaq Server racks were cut and bent into place. Some angle and straight iron and it had its WWII-ish look. Other scraps of metal from what ever else could be found went to build the rest of the frame. Sheet metal and a generous coating of Bondo filled in the rest.
Although we wanted to keep a tank or armored car feeling, it was extremely important to maintain visibility... that is if you want to spend more time in the game rather than the dead zone. Several consultations with Zeke, one of the foremost authorities in tank busting, pushed the design from small square portals to larger screened frames. We get more mist from paint, but we see EVERYTHING.
Being one of the most important aspects of tank, a lot of time was spent building the turret. Looking through the various different armored vehicles, the German SDKFZ 222 with its flip top grenade cage seemed like the best and easiest one to duplicate. Rather than try to fabricate a circle and bearings of the turret, the best choice and most popular among Paintball Tankers, was using a pallet carousel. It's all metal and can be welded directly to it. Another concept we used (which was adopted from the Blackheart's tank) was suspending the gunner's seat directly from the turret ring. So that nothing would bind up in the turret, a rack was fabricated to hold our fireman's 4500 psi SCBA bottle and another beneath the gunner to hold the turret motor batteries.
The turret evolved and in 2009, a motor was added to automatically spin it so the gunner could concentrate in mowing down crunchies. With some basic wiring, two 12v marine batteries, a few relays and a really cool gunship cyclic from a Huey that WickedKlown had procured, she spins with ease. Basically the cyclic, which is mounted directly to the Gatling, controls everything.
The interior was gutted, primed and painted with several coats of sand colored enamel Rustoleum for easy clean up. Splathappy somehow scored a bunch of aluminum diamond plate and donated it to the cause. It fit perfectly for the driver and passenger's sides as well as the gunner's platform. The seats were found at Murray's Discount Auto on clearance for only $15 each (considering Buckshot lit the original seats on fire while welding).
Since the tank was originally being built to be fielded at D-Day first, a Normandy camouflage pattern was painted on it. Later, after getting a great sponsorship from Full Clip, it was converted to a dessert motif to match the Multicam patter the team was getting. The stencils were the work of D-Mac and his awesome graphic skills. He also has access to raw stick on vinyl and a cutter to use as stencils. It’s amazing what a steak and eggs breakfast will buy. Looking at the various options for tires and rims, we found out that it had the same lug pattern as a WWII Jeep. A quick call to Dewayne Convirs yielded a full set of 151 Jeep Tires and rims - for free. He even pulled them off of his own personal Jeep. Guess he liked the web site.
The build process was done on and off over the course of a couple years. As we fielded it and found out what worked and what didn't, it was tweaked. It's an ongoing process and the LSV2 is ever evolving.
Videos: An interview of Buckshot by Traumahead Sportz and a team-produced propaganda video taken at Living Legends 2.
