Armortek

I have no words: work really great!
Congratulations, Stephen .... you do not ever finish to amaze me with your creations.

Hi Stephen.

Just brilliant my friend this is going to be another absolute classic, well done looking forward to the rest.
Cheers Paul

Thanks for the kind commments. I hope there's something of interest, payback for all the techniques shared on this forum.

The hull side plates extend beyond the rear plate and have a distinctive chamfer which is relatively easy to do with a couple of extension pieces, milled or filed with some M3 set screws to pin in place:











Regards

Stephen

The gun crutch base is welded up from three steel plates and is raised above the line of the hull side (the picture from the Illustrated Parts Catalogue doesn't quite show the base plate shape accurately):







I took the basic Armortek block to the milling machine and came up with this:









Also finished the second hull rear chamfer and then stripped the whole structure for final priming:



Regards

Stephen

Hi Stephen.
Excellent this is going be another great model, but where on earth are you going to find 1/6 cable ties??
Cheers and thanks again for the info.
Regards Paul

Russell Crowe has finally managed to acquire a more fitting L1A1 SLR:



Just needed to remove the SUIT sight and change the buckles on the sling, for a Vietnam period piece:



The T shirt will have to go.....



Stephen

The upper rear hull plate will have to support the weight of the 100 gall external fuel tank, so I chose to reinforce the mounting plate by increasing the retaining bolts to M5 with a lock nut:



Finished off the priming of the hull plates and final re-assembly, and finished the plate welds, a long job without much to show for it but it all went together beautifully, testimony to the accuracy of the kit:











Next is the deflector grills at the back end and to raise the hull top plate (sort of reverse of the Tiger engine deck saga:

Regards

Stephen

A bit at the front and some at the back.

Firstly, the toe plate had two reinforcing brackets, where the idler mountings fit:



Simple job, cut four triangles and stick them on. No, nothing on a British tank is simple, the geometry is never straightforward. The brackets are at different angles to the idler bracket, they need a bevel to account for the inward sloping side plates and they're different sizes:









It's a similar story at the back end with the rear transmission deck grills. I re-made the spacing bars and made the three panels which reinforced the rear plate and acted as baffles for cooling air. Loose assembly here, some further fitting to do:









Regards

Stephen

I've also received some great close ups of the mantlet cover from Paul Scott in Australia, who noticed the posts about making one. They might help with pattern cutting. I'll happily post next weekend.

Regards

Stephen

Quality work, as seems always to be the case. Really good to watch your progress.
Kevin

Outstanding as always, I look forward to the start of each week with all the updates being posted.

regards

David

What better way to start the Bank Holiday weekend than to share some of Steve Winstone's magic? Parcel arrived today with his Centurion bollards and bin latches. The quality of the casting is quite outstanding and the fit is spot on. Just the casting numbers to complete. There must be a huge amount of work in the catches but they are exact, working one sixth gems. Thanks Steve.











Regards

Stephen

Having completed the rear deck grills, the rear hull looks empty. The Cent had a complicated series of baffles to deflect and extract hot air from the radiator fans out of the top and bottom of the rear hull:







The baffles are made from .010" brass. A resistance soldering kit was a great help in allowing parts to be soldered without the heat spreading to previous joints and the whole lot falling apart. The first one took ages but the production line is up and running. A lot of work but worth it to fill the void in the rear deck area:



















Regards

Stephen

Re the bollards - Steve has certainly done a wonderful job but couldnt have done without your masters. I have a set and on behalf of all of us, thankyou.
I also have a set of bin catches - looking forward to seeing how you mount them
Your baffles look great too
Kevin

Thanks Kevin. Completed the fittings for the rear hull.

This is the mounting for the fording panels which were used to close the rear hull for wading:





This would have been difficult to assemble with a conventional soldering iron but with a resistance soldering kit,using calipers like this, heat is applied very locally and other joints don't become unsoldered. The American kits are unreasonably expensive and I found an affordable one in UK made by John Redrup at London Road Models:

http://www.scalefour.org/LondonRoadMode ... omponents/

It's excellent, although I did add a US "American Beauty" calliper for fine jobs:



Finished the fourth set of baffles and painted the assemblies:





Final dry test installation:







Regards

Stephen