My Beaut Aussie Cent

[Paul Morris]

Hi Stephen.

This is turning into a bit of a master class in model engineering and anyone not following this thread is really missing out!
Hats off to you as ever .. .. .. see you next week.
Cheers Paul.

[Derek Attree]

Hi Stephen
Stunning work.
See you next week

Derek

[Kevin Hunter]

Just amazing, as always.
Look forward to meeting you next weekend.
Kevin

[Stephen White]

Putting it all together for the Armortek Day.

Two mountings complete:



The bottom has a lot going on including the angled mount for the guides which limited the elevation:





Assembling:



Now with the hoods mounted. I've left the mounting set screws full length as I will need to dismantle after the Open Day to fit the periscopes:











To open the hatches, the persicopes had to be rotated 90 degs:





Roll on Bovington Thanks for looking. Looking forward to meeting everyone next week, including the gentleman from Japan.

Stephen

[simon_manning]

with such tempting hatches on display the gaze of the onlooker will be drawn to the inside, oh no interior detail required, keep at it magnifico! regards simon.

[Stephen White]

Simon - one large Australian digger in the driver's seat should fix that!

In Vietnam, the Cents' Larkspur radios were incompatible with the infantry and cavalry US manpacks. The tank crews resorted to carrying a US ARC 25 radio on the turret roof as a lash up to communicate with the infantry. This is the one in Dave's extraordinary Vietnam scene:



The Dragon sets are rare as hen's teeth but one came up on Ebay the other day.





Problem was that it came with "Jake". Anyone for a Force Recon figure minus radio?



Regards

Stephen

[Stephen White]

Two Periscopes AFV No 15 Mk 1 - a seriously complicated bit of kit which could rotate and elevate - equipped the driver's hatches. Paul Scott's photos gave me a great starting point:







Mike Stannard's Tiger periscope sets are a perfect fit and also make a good basis to start:





The upper part of the periscope is mounted on bushes to allow elevation:



and depression:



The bottom part of the periscope was hinged to allow the episcope optics to be replaced:



Mike's driver's scopes provide a hinge but need some modification:





Then to add the fiddly bits (a mounting for the elevation lock, sundry handgrips and plates:



White metal can be soldered with a very low heat and some care:











Assembled, mounted and painted:



















I finally managed to get a paint match for Olive Drab Lustreless after Paul Scott sent me a swatch, which I had matched at a car restorer in Surrey (355 Restorations) - thanks Paul and Andy at 355.

Regards

Stephen

[Fabrice Le Roux]

Stephen
Lovely. Did you work just from photos or have you an exploded view in the parts lists?
Cheers, Fabrice

[Tim Bowman]

Fantastic Stephen!

Tim

[Iacopo Di Giampietro]

A truly amazing job, as always.
Good idea to use the periscopes of Mike Stannard.
My compliments.

Iacopo

[Dave Dibb (Armorpax)]

Hi Stephen,

Excellent work. I can probably use the Figure parts on the Bell Sk-5, drop me an email or PM on cost etc.

Cheers

Dave

[Paul Morris]

Hi Stephen.

Wow just brilliant stuff
Cheers Paul.

[Stephen White]

Thanks for the interest guys. Dave - I've sent you an email. Fabrice - no plans or info from the Parts Catalogue, it doesn't include CES items and I couldn't find one for the Periscope AFV No 15 online. I sized the parts using Paul Scott's photos. I had one known dimension from the Bovvy cut in half vehicle and used that to estimate the other dimensions to establish a conversion factor between the photo and one sixth. You have to do that for each photo. I don't think you have to be slavish about getting the dimensions exactly right. I'm mindful of what I learnt from your favourite guru, Gerald Wingrove:

He wrote of the essence of designing models:

“This is the essence of the design process, for you are not about to duplicate a part from the same set of dimensions, even scale ones, that produced the original. What you are about to do is design and build a part that resembles in miniature the full size object of real life…..Never consider any item in isolation when determining its size.”

This is the principle of relative proportions and it seems to work. I think it's all too easy to get wrapped up in trying to be too precise when what really matters is simply "does it look about right - in its surroundings". That last bit is important. With the periscopes mounted in the hatches, do they look right?

I thought Wingrove's approach really helped take some of the difficulty out of it and made making these bits altogether more satisfying.

Regards

Stephen

[Kevin Hunter]

Fantastic results Stephen, the finished scopes look so real. Well done indeed, and thanks so much for taking the time to place such in depth posts on the forum for us to enjoy and learn from.
Kevin

[mick whittingham]

Here Here Kevin,

Steven your work is fantastic and certainly looks right. That's the way I try to build, making things that look right rather than with mathematical accuracy.

And taking the time to share your work via the forum is time consuming so many thanks from us all for taking the time to do this.

The build is progressing nicely now and all the extra detailing work will be worth the effort in research and building.

Keep up the good work,

Mick