00 FD 96 John's Main Contender

[John Clarke]

The rear plate convoy lamp box and junction boxes were measured up on the original, giving myself generous 1mm tolerance, a. because hand saws never cut where you want them to, and b. files always seem too produce curved lines. I put it down to veri- focal lens glasses and I'm sticking to it.
All the boxes were cut and filed out of lumps of scrap aluminum.
Originally I was going to use 10 ba screws to resemble the lid retainers but they came out a bit big.

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So I went back to the little screws and nuts for glasses repairs to make up bolt looking retainers, M1.4 Bolt looking pins I used on the wheel hubs. These screws will come in handy to make studs too, to hold down the P clips and interconnecting cabling or trunking.

Making the towing electrical socket and convoy lamp box from same scrap, some round brass solid, chain from an cheap bracelet off the car boot. and sticky backed aluminum for the center of the tow box cap. The cap is not accurate but I found in the past too much detail is often wasted, especially when I'vepainted them.

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The convoy lamp will work with a miniature 12v warm white LED. (All lighting on the model will be 12v it reduces the problems when too many voltages are used).

When I checked positioning on the rear plate. The boxes appeared cramped in against the exhaust box. I guessed the exhaust box is about 10mm to wide. A reliable source tells me that I am pretty close, another little change will have to be made to the exhaust tail pipes as they are retained by three bolts not six. This is a blessing in disguise as I was going to replace the huge M3's with M2's anyway.

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So this weekend I'll chomping at the exhaust box and re-drilling the exhaust tail pipe mount.
I don't get out much at the moment

[John Clarke]

It's chomping time. I've changed my angle of attack for the exhaust box. Hoping to knock out two problems with one action.

I need to split the exhaust rearface plate into the welded section and the bolted section, so have cut further up the plate. Aligning the cut with the bottom of the aux gen exhaust flange. (it's approximate) The side plates will need cutting too and I've decided on a deeper recess of the exhaust box base plate. this will square off the bottom of the box and reduce the size of the piece cut out of the middle of the face plate.

It's a big job for me, needing some cutting, a lot of filing, a bit of filling and some tricky tapping. (Tiny Tapping's always tricky in aluminum)

Oh how I love the "pink" sound of HSS tap just below the surface of the hole to be tapped.

Speaking of which I preferred the M2 hex to mount the exhaust outlet manifold tail pipe, they look right and I'm a sucker for some thing that looks right. Still at least there's only three to do on each tail pipe......I think ......I hope!

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This picture shows after the cuts and filing have been completed.
Looking at it I've removed about 12mm off the height of the box.

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You do get the benefit of the gun clamp gap reduced between the bottom of the box and the jaws and more room to put the little boxes underneath.You can see the original position pencil line.

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M2 's tapped and other holes filled. I added those servo mount sleeves to fill up the 3.5m holes they look ok and act like washers. Ignore the welds round the towing lug thats the first coat.

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I've gone bit a ruthless on the telephone box, hope it turns out ok
Don't for get to keep your scraps, they might come in handy.

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[John Clarke]

I've been bogged down this week with changes to the exhaust box again. Steve Norris quite rightly pointed out the position of the Aux exhaust tail pipe position should be closer to the exhaust box face plate. No big deal it looks good there too. But I don't think I'll be changing the angle of the whole exhaust box on the rear plate like he has, not sure if the exhaust box face plate is perpendicular. Not sure of anything at the moment.
Continuing with a few more details. 20x10 BA holes tapped in the bolted face plate. Making two new one piece spare track brackets.
Finally, modified the telephone box, cladding the original supplied telephone box like Phil has done on his super model.
Making the little door hatch work was a little tricky, I couldn't drill the 1mm cladding to fit the 0.5 mm hinge pin, So I cut and drilled a 3mm plate similar shape and thinned it down to 1mm. Once thinned I could place the little door hatch in place and drill it too, then mounted the "box" on blocks, fitting it to the exhaust box. Going to need a little filler to tidy up, the telephone box is still a little small, but I've done my best with it.
Just need a little hand set now.

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More holes to fill

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Original supplied telephone box.

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After cladding the supplied telephone box and a failed attempt on the hinged hatch and cover plate.

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Getting there.

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[Steve Norris]

Hi John
Very nice details, I have just reached the phone box stage myself and was wondering how to proceed. It looks like you have a good solution.
Regards
Steve

[John Clarke]

Thanks Steve, it's a tad narrow 5 to 6 mm I guess, but after spending a while on the back end, I just want to get on without faffing about with sizes.

Good luck with the hinge, it's a dozey. Three attempts and four 0.5 mm drills later.

The exhaust box size had to be changed for the little boxes, hopefully should be lettering up the exhaust tail pipes at the end of the week.

[Steve Norris]

Hi John
Do you happen to know what lettering is on the exhausts, I have been trying to decipher it from the few photos I have of the tops of the exhausts.
Regards
Steve

[John Clarke]

Best picture I have of the tail pipe lettering. lettering on the left side tail pipe seems to be underneath so that's a Slaters holiday in my book.
If in doubt make it up, I don't think the'll be many that will care, as long as there's a few numbers/ letters no one will know. I can only think of one person who might know and I'll just avoid him if I see him coming over with the magnifying glass

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[John Clarke]

Got a few jobs done this week. Soft aluminum 2mm wire wrap makes up the conduit. Thin aluminum shim used to make up the P clips supported by 1.4mm studs. Filed a lump of aluminum to make the sprung loaded gun clamp latch. Spring coming from a disposable lighter, dress makers pins holding it together.

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[Richard Goodwin]

Looks mighty fine John; think you've raised the bar another level Must have taken quite a time. Hope mine looks almost as good as this when I eventually get to doing it

[John Clarke]

I've continued a bit with the exhaust box, It's becoming a model all of it's own. Each time I look at it there's something more I could have added/changed to make it that little bit better. (coulda woulda shoulda).The worry comes that so many changes to the aspect of the box could change the aspect of other parts. The gun clamp and spare tracks for example. I'm never sure what I could mess up down the line.

I've already reduced the height of the exhaust box by about 11mm, thinned out the gun clamp and re-positioned the spare track brackets.

Making the exhaust box any smaller is not an option, or is it?

Having only pictures to go on, the original exhaust box vent plate appears slightly lower than the engine deck, so with this in mind I decided to replace the models exhaust box 6mm top plate with a piece of 3mm plate. This intern lowers the exhaust box vent plate in relationship to the engine deck and hopefully more visually correct. The down side I loose the "edge" around the bolted on top plate. I could file the recess edge down 1mm. maybe later

10BA hex head studs are to be added to exhaust plate for extra detail. Looking at different tanks they could be recessed socket head studs or surface hex bolts, I prefer the hex head on the plate for better detail definition. 24x10 BA holes to tap out and two though holes hold the plate down.
Got to order more 10 BA studs, they'll look good else where too. Especially on the deck hatch covers (22x on each)

Then I get this Nag in the head. Why are there five slots on the model vent plate when the original has only four?.

Another mod to do then.
I've cut out the original vent slots and shaped at the end of the slot. Just need to fit and glue the three partition plates.

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[Vince Cutajar]

Good progress John. Keep it up.

It's becoming a model all of it's own. Each time I look at it there's something more I could have added/changed to make it that little bit better. (coulda woulda shoulda).The worry comes that so many changes to the aspect of the box could change the aspect of other parts. The gun clamp and spare tracks for example. I'm never sure what I could mess up down the line.

Been there. Done that.
Sometimes it feels like one part is getting you bogged down to get the details right.

Vince

[Steve Norris]

Hi. John
That’s looking very nice.
I know what you mean about it becoming a model on its own, I find myself thinking “I’ve gone so far I might as well add that next bit of detail” even if it’s not really noticeable.
Keep up the good work.
Regards
Steve

[John Clarke]

It does make you appreciate Phil's guideing work and the other Chieftains builds.
The amount of work required to put it together is certainly not novice.
There's the physical aspect too.
It's heavy and awkward, I've just spent a couple of hours wrestling and filing the front casting on the floor until it submits.
It now fits in the hull, but it will take a while to get it to fit well though.

It's all good fun.

[Steve Norris]

Hi John
That front casting takes a bit of work, been there myself. What I ended up doing was adding vertical fasteners down into the side plates to pull every together. I will post some photos when I have the hull the right way up.
Regards
Steve

[John Clarke]

You can say that again Steve, The KT boys don't know how lucky they are having to tickle front plates by a few thou.

Chieftain demands, googles, gloves and hefty swipes of a course grit angle grinder.

Found a dozen 10 BA bolts to check to "look" on the vent plate. Partisans fitted (that'll do pig)

Back to the front casting, 2 mm sticking out both side, It's either take a mallet to the fenders or get the grinder out.

Get the grinder out

Several goes at it and I'm down to less than 0.5 mm, I can work with that and the fender bender was averted.

The exhaust tail pipes are coming along, hopefully fitting the lifting lugs on the biggies tomorrow. The original tail pipe end rings have been replaced with rings mounted slightly further on like some on the original tanks. Why? Just to be different I suppose.

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And one for Richard G, you never know some git is going come around with a mirror. If you look carefully you'll see the "taddy" little letters on the exhaust tail pipe.

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