Chieftain No. 34

[Charles A Stewart]

Thank you Brian.

Looks like Panther 18 may well be started sooner than expected, well the road wheels & tyres :shock:

I did use it this afternoon on the wading rail, that's when I noticed the date

Still seems to work as rail still stuck

Cheers all.
Charles

[Charles A Stewart]

Evening all.

Hope this warm weather is incinerating/inspiring you folks as well as me. Worked from the garage this afternoon, ahh sanctuary(dosen't apply after November though).

Been away, very reassuring to note the RAF have left some aircraft in this country, counted five in one go

I would like to think this almost pointless(but it is there) detail, once complete will inspire further scratch building around the panniers/bins.

Still rough, needs a tidy.

Also finally managed to wrestle the fire extinguisher transfers into place, whack some vanish on and hope not to visit this again, no disrespect intended.

SMG to help scale, I think.(the flat filed on RHS extinguisher is part of learning curve, not visible when fitted, just to say.

Thought I would put up a Chieftain update, just felt a bit lonely

Hope you all have a good & productive W/end.

Cheers
Charles

[Charles A Stewart]

Evening folks.

Hope this post finds you all fit, well and building.

As has been mentioned on many an occasion, the Chieftain is a kit of many kits. Today I finally bit the bullet and attacked that huge lump of metal: The drivers hatch. Cue milling machine

Let's get started.

Still fits, which is nice.

I was terrified at the prospect of attacking the hull.

The gray is Messr's J & B, I drilled a bit to far

Phew what a relief that's over.

Oh yes, it took an hour to hacksaw the excess metal from the hatch. Looks so much better, well in my eyes anyway. Just need to do a bit more filing, find the green house rubber(for it to sit on) I know its in the garage somewhere. Will also need to fettle a smooth lifting mechanism, lock etc. too

Have a good one.

Cheers Charles

[John Clarke]

Tis a lump and a half, and half you need to lump off to give that realistic look. So much better when sliced and diced, I made a little inner frame in the recess to sit hatch on.
Good Job, scratch that one off the list

[David Battson]

Hi Charles,
You are right, that slimmed down hatch does look much better - well worth all the effort.
Keep up the good work
David

[Charles A Stewart]

Good evening everybody.

Hope you are keep well and not too hot, bit of info really please:-

Anyone got a clear picture of these letters?

Cheers
Charles

[John Clarke]

As with all things Chieftain things are not quite that simple. I've seen three different number sets on this cover plate and plenty of caked on paint covering the letters.
You'll struggle anyway with 2mm lettering on this smaller than normal piece in the kit, so I opted to remake it a bit larger and even then 2mm lettering is just ok. So I kept it to the minimum letters on my cover plate.
(Not with the kit, If you make the tin cover plate, the 2mm letters on the outlet under the tin cover can stay under the tin cover, you'd never fit them in)
There is four extra letters offset CL10 and FV472367-MS7, well, that's what I see.
Good luck in the house of the flying letters

DSCF0485.JPG (131.22 KiB) Viewed 66571 times

[Vince Cutajar]

Hi Charles

Just to add to what John said.
Many moons ago I had drawn up that cover but was never certain of it's correct dimensions. The OD of the cover you are going to see below is 42mm and the letters and numbers are 2mm high. I added the lettering that John suggested. Just for you to see how it would look. The font is Arial and bold.

Vince

[John Clarke]

Looks good as always Vince , but this model has a lot of kickers, at 42mm, the OD of the cover plate would be a bit on big size. Maybe not scale wise but aspect wise.
I think Greg and I made up new parts to 36-37mm OD. It now looks realistic at that size against the side plating. One of the reasons why I'm taking so long building the model is that I keep having to stand back and look Actually looking at the MS7 could it be M57 (bug..r)
(The original kit part 30mm ish, gave mine away after drilling)

[Vince Cutajar]

No problem John. Just trying to help Charles visualise the 2mm lettering. Hopefully one can find stick on lettering smaller than 2mm.

Vince

p.s. You are right. That does look like M57.

[John Clarke]

This is a picture of Greg's 37mm super looking cover plate. I ditched the original smaller cover plate because the lettering would not fit and as I said the aspect didn't look right to me. (I'm too picky for my liking)
I believe you can get hold of 1.0 mm brass etched letters for the model train hobby. I do have one set of plastic 1.5mm letters, discontinued or hard to find for a rainy day. Probably for the MRS box, which will need making too.
You should get a Chieftain Vince, you'd love it.
Hope this helps

[Charles A Stewart]

Thanks chaps.

Very helpful, I will go with Vince's numbers at 1.5mm, although I do have Accurate Armour 1mm brass letters: not necessarily the eyesight to go with it. I can just see it, another rework coming on

Not a massive issue, but inconvenient none the less.

Cheers guys for the info, as always, much appreciated.

Charles.

PS SNEB 34 (You Tube) has a new short

PPS Apologies admin

[Charles A Stewart]

Good evening all.

Hope you are keeping well.

Bit of plagiarism here, which I hope is what the forum is all about-the sharing of ideas etc.

I had a PM from a member who is planning a Leopard build and asked about my workbench set up for the Chieftain, which is basically a motorcycle lifting table. Since extended.

Chieftain up on scissor jack, note windie handle

I recently copied the raise plywood platform with scissor jack in the middle idea, which is brilliant.

Who posted it?

Credit where credit due.

Hope this helps .

Take all
Charles

[Charles A Stewart]

Good evening.

Small update. I wasn't planning this but when we visited the Tank Museum recently, counting nuts and bolts, as you do. I noticed this feature:-

Gun bump rail (What is its proper name?)

Same feature on model:-

Somethings gotta change.

After some butchery, burning, hacking & bashing we arrive at:-

Looking better

All I need to do now is secure the rail to the hull, so far I have drilled and tapped m3 holes, with the rail held in place buy screws, for now. Seems quite firm, which is nice

I hope you all enjoy your week. ahead.

Cheers Charles
PS I am sorry I didn't send you all a post card while on Hols, hope this short clip makes up for my oversight.

[John Clarke]

Very nicely done Charles, but it's a step too far for me, there are so many mistakes on the model Chieftains rear deck, this one I'm going to let slide. When you fix one mistake, there's another one staring right back at you, chucking quietly "not yet sunshine, not yet"

Our deck/gun guard is very similar to the prototype Chieftain guard, running parallel mostly with the deck, some had a lot of weight saving holes, some didn't. The Mk5 on the other hand tapers from the forward wedge shape up lift, having only six holes as opposed to the eleven on the model.
I know, I'm looking too deep. "He's misstra know it all"

As an Great Modeler once told me:
Compromise compromise compromise JC! .
Though he hasn't been doing much of that on the Centurion currently being titillated.

Lovely growl from the Chieftain