Chinese Eye Chieftain

[Phil Woollard]

That's better and it looks like they are folded over the fender, that's going to be tricky.

[Stephen White]

John, Phil, you were talking about modifying the idler assembly to conceal the Armortek shaft retaining nut. This might help:

I'm also noting the 45 deg chamfer on the side of the toe plate, which I'll be adding to my list of machining operations.

[Phil Woollard]

That recess below the adjusting nut needs milling out to. That raised number/lettering is that the foundry mark or the vehicle id?
That front plate weld looks interesting, can we see more of that please boss?
I've not been in the tank shop today as I have just moved house, I am now 40 yards from the workshop instead of 10 yards

[Stephen White]

Phil, the embossed characters refer to the drawing number in the style FV******. I’ll dig out a photo of the weld but I can tell you offhand that it measures 44mm across, ie 7mm in one sixth.

[John Clarke]

How about this Phil, same casting, different id position.

and if your feeling really ambitious

[Phil Woollard]

Very interesting indeed, is the fv number the individual vehicle number or the fv vehicle type? Now is anyone mad enough to add the numbers to each and every track think?

[John Clarke]

Flipping Vexing numbers are everywhere.

But I'll make an effort on the parts that please.

Would anyone notice if one was to make the numbers up.

[Phil Woollard]

Na!

[Stephen White]

The toe plate to glacis casting weld:

Phil, as I made clear above, the embossed numbers found throughout the vehicle refer to the Design Authority production drawings for Chieftain. These bear no relation to the ERM of the specific vehicle, other than the drawing number changed in some cases between different marks. The vast majority of Chieftain drawings are numbered with the letters FV followed by a six digit number beginning in either 4, 7 or 8. There are some exceptions for what is termed GFE ie Government Furnished Equipment, which are standard equipment used more widely or in one case, the main armament, produced by another manufacturer. The 120mm L11 drawings are in the series beginning FL. I'll hazard a complete guess that FV represents "Fighting Vehicle" and FL "Fighting Ordnance".

[Phil Woollard]

Thanks boss great weld detail, that is one huge single weld bead, we are talking mega amps . The numbers are great for that little extra detail.

[Stephen White]

One of the secrets of scale modelling is to focus on the bits of a vehicle which give it its character. On Chieftain, the nose is one such area.

The intersection between the toe plate and the glacis casting is iconic. There is a very pronounced shape resembling the bow of a ship. It was designed that way to maximise the ballistic protection of the armour against kinetic rounds. There are a number of steps which can enhance the kit to reproduce this distinctive feature. It's not straightforward, given the different geometric planes involved and it's taken bit of study to work out what needs attention.

The first step is to replicate the correct shape of the toe plate, which has a straight top edge when viewed normal ie perpendicular to the surfaces. Viewed head on, it looks like it has a V shape but this is misleading. I showed this in a previous post. The next bit of the jigsaw is to put the toe plate into a powerful brake press and increase the angle of bend to 8 degrees (4 per side).

Before:

This then creates the correct profile for the toe plate but creates a spectacular gap with the glacis casting. This defeated me for a while until I worked out the shape needed to extend the nose forward to meet the toe plate.

After:

I added two fillets. The machining was tricky because no two sides are parallel so it's not easy to hold in the mill. In the end, I resorted to tapping two M4 set screws to use to align and hold the work while the various faces were machined.

The fillets are held in place with UV sensitive glue, which is far stronger than cyan or epoxy and capable of holding while the fillets were shaped with a power file, a burr in a Proxxon drill and a small grinding disk.

After shaping and a bit more gap filling with UV glue, it's getting close to the correct shape:

There's more shaping and surface finishing to do and the rebate for the massive weld between the toe plate and glacis has to be milled but this has now given the model the characteristic big nose. It's been a slow start and it took a while to get to grips with the geometry of a deceptively complex shape but one of the first challenges is almost in the bag. Entertaining and frustrating in equal measure.

[Vince Cutajar]

Entertaining and frustrating in equal measure.

I know the feeling, but hey, that's the fun in any hobby.

Vince

[Phil Woollard]

Wow, the thing that I really noticed...........all the used power file belts in the background, just like my workshop! Great work mate you have had a sixpence half crown moment or two with sorting that lot out.

[Greg Clement]

A quick question if I may Stephen.

What UV glue are you using and - I know this might sound stupid - are you using UV light to cure it or relying on some secondary process?

[Stephen White]

Greg, it’s all here:

http://www.armortek.co.uk/Forum3b/viewt ... f92af8af7a