My Beaut Aussie Cent

[John Fitzsimons]

Fantastic work. Bet they look even better close up. Just like your panzer III hatch ports.

[davidwilkins]

Hi Stephen
It was great to meet you at the show and seeing your centurion close up. Your workmanship is outstanding and again many thanks for sharing your build.
It is very frustrating for me at the moment my build is still on stop and seeing your build and all the others progressing is as I say FRUSTRATING, hopefully over the coming weeks I will get some answers from the hospital.
As you say you can get to tied up with measurements, if it looks right and you are happy with it that will do.
Thanks for your input on the mill I have just ordered one.

Regards

David

[Stephen White]

Lots of detail around the hatches to complete. This tank was struck by RPG7 during the Binh Ba battle so I thought it would be good to replicate some of the splash marks on the bullet catchers:







Hatch locking handle:





Driver's foul weather hood mounting fixtures:





Hatch retaining catches. I was tempted to make them functional but not really worth the effort:





Hatch springs - retaining lugs:









Now to make some scale springs. It's easy enough if you accept that getting the size right is more of an art than science and it's worth making some samples of different sizes. The originals were substantial with only eleven coils. Materials to use are either spring steel from a model shop or for the thinner sizes, guitar strings. Dead cheap, £1 a go.



I was concerned that using scale thickness would overpower the lugs, so I made some thinner ones and some out of soft bonsai wire, which would be non-functional.



The technique using the lathe is pretty self-explanatory. Select an appropriate sized mandrel, lock it and the wire in the lathe chuck and leave the other end free to rotate in another chuck in the tail stock. Wind by hand keeping pressure on the wire, using the tool post for alignment. Always do a few turns more than needed and take care to release the pressure before cutting off.





The untensioned spring will expand slightly so make under size. For a fully functioning spring, you should heat for half an hour in a hot oven and cool slowly to equalize the stresses in the wire but you can get away without if as in this case, the spring isn't taking much tension. Now to decide which to use.....



Hope that was useful.

Stephen

[Stephen White]

Springs fitted:



Last details, hatch rests, padding inside hatch opening and rain catcher:





Texturing, using Upol High Build filler and round milling cutter:



Final paint:











Now for something different..... anything.....

Regards

Stephen

[Adrian Harris]

How about making a Baked Alaska

There must be something that you can't do to perfection...

Adrian.

[Stephen White]

Before starting on the running gear, there's an opportunity to put the base coat paint onto the hull. Since the early sixties, Aussie AFVs have been painted in a unique Australian colour, Olive Drab Lustreless. It's quite distinctive and is still in service, although just about to change. Paul Scott sent me a sample which has been a godsend because it's impossible to ship solvent based paints in any quantity, frustrating as Protec still make the paint. I believe Sean has been able to use it on his Cent in Australia. I've had a car restorer do a match and he's come up with BS4800 10b25 Turtle Green. I was sceptical seeing it on a monitor screen but sprayed in thin coats, it's pretty close. I'm pleased after failing to find a match with model acrylics.














Now for the final drives.

Regards

Stephen

[Tim Bowman]

Incredible!

Tim

[Stephen White]

Final drive casings. There are two considerations here - keeping the structural integrity and not doing things which won't be visible. The inside halves need a lot of refining and there is plenty of meat to allow it. The outside halves contain the gear housings and although they could do with machining to shape, I decided on discretion but this isn't a problem as much of it is hidden behind the running gear.

The inside halves need a flange cutting, the casing flattened and three ribs fitting.



I had to do most of it by hand. Despite all sorts of cunning plans for work holding in the rotary table, I still managed to jam the cutter more than once. If you look closely, you can see a couple of machining bog-ups where the work holding failed. Back to the trusty Proxxon and elbow grease.





Finishing and surfacing:



Applying the three reinforcing ribs:





Glad I've done it - the ribs are a real Centurion recognition feature:





Now for the outside halves which are more complicated.

Regards

Stephen

[Robin Hinson]

Stephen,

Lovely piece of work as per usual

Rob

[simon_manning]

i've been down working on my kingtiger, then enjoy the sunday evening cent instalment, interesting to follow, forget downton abby, regards simon.

[Kevin Hunter]

As always Stephen, you make it seem effortless, and the results are so effective.
Great stuff
Kevin

[John Fitzsimons]

Great work. Good timing with the springs as I need some for my Panzer IV mudguards. What material did you use in the end?

[Stephen White]

Thanks for the interest. John - I used the piano wire in the end as I wanted them functional. (Third one down from the top on the photo).I got it from the local RC model shop. I'm away at the moment but at the weekend I can let you know the diameter. Once I'd got them turned, I short cut the tempering process by blasting them with a blow torch (too impatient for a slow cook and a worry that if I used the oven, they might end up in a pie). I let them cool naturally. It was interesting that initially they were very soft and without spring, which was good for shaping the ends but they really seem to have hardened up since and now are proper springs. Must learn more about metallurgy sometime.

All the best.

Stephen

[John Fitzsimons]

Thanks for the detail on the piano wire. They look realy spot on for the purpose.

Regards,
John

[paul&robinmargle]

A related question, does piano wire work well for aerials? I assume it's springy enough to move and spring back to vertical. 2 foot length in this scale?

Robin