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The Chieftain rear deck mod coming along and the chops that have already been made.

In the mean time some deliberation has been made to sizes and components on the model.
The Dozer round box. I've had a play with different sizes and have come back to the original piece supplied with the model. Tweeking it a little and to control and add more depth I've added an disk, which is chamfered to look like the weld, to be fettled later. I will add an appendage, unless I include it in the box trunking, again added later.

The other pieces I've looked at are; the fuel tank breather inspection hatches. I'm not doing too much with them, adding some slots changing the fastens and trying to come up with a good looking top for the breather. Which will probably be a domed head set screw one size or another ground to shape and size.

While grinding out, don't sneeze as it goes horribly wrong very quickly.

Looking good John, nice work staying within the realms of a CAT 3 builder

I don't know what happened?

Mr Cockup must have been in town. My cuts on the vents were all wrong.

I like to show some "failures" but not all, otherwise I'd look like a right nincompoop at this game, if you did'nt know already.

But as it turned out turning the sow's ear into a pig purse seemed to make things easier allowing the cuts to be performed in the base of the plate.
So "A result"

I'm nearly there with the finished hatches. Bit of filing/sanding. I'll have to glue the tiny 10ba's with the 12ba hex's head?? (suppliers humm)
Otherwise I could probably end up braking a few drills, been there done that. (not pleasant or rewarding)

I went with the M4 dome head bolt in the end, ground down and glued in position to mount the hatch.

All these things are tiny and seem pale in comparison with the likes of the work put it by fantastic modelers on the forum, but it keeps me ticking over.

Don’t be so hard on yourself, you have inspired this and other Chieftain builders to push detail level upwards and onwards !

Pull yourself together man We all make mistakes, it's what makes us human! Some nice detail going on there....can't wait to see the rear deck!

David. kind of you to say that. No pain, no gain
So as the old joke goes, Don't follow me I'm lost too.

Richard, I'm exhausted pulling rear end together, let alone me. it needs three hands, tooth picks and blue tack and lots of patience.
(The closest thing to developing a third hand is getting the wife to grip the M1.5 allen key inserted in the counter-sinks while I pushed down on the deck to get it in position and pulled up on the M5.5 open ender).

So Onwards, Rear deck mod

Why cut the rear deck?

1) To make it look like a Mk5 Chieftain rear deck.
2) To avoid any turret interference with the rear deck.
3) The removal of tee plate and deck beneath it allows greater access to the model equipment in the rear.
and in addition.
4) to make a support beam to fit under the rear turret tray for extra support of the rear of the turret ring bearing. The Turret is very heavy, so any extra support can only help prevent damage to the turret ring bearing.

So, following the flat rear deck mod, marked up the cuts. (I used a junior hack saw to minimize the loss of metal).

As it was, my rear deck came with the bends in the wrong place, but it did'nt matter as I was going to "knock ten bells" out of it, to flatten it out.

My sandwich plate between the tee piece and deck beneath (now lower) is 1/8 alloy plate, came out pretty well. It's glued and screwed together for strength.
A second smaller thicker filler plate was fitted to fill in the step at the cross of the tee.

I made an "H" cross section alloy support beam, made from two pieces of alloy "T" cross section glued and bolted together, tailored to the gap below the rear turret tray. (about 35mm).

I've fitted a couple of the fuel tank Vent/inspection covers and glued in the bolts.

Nice work on the rear deck John. I remember having to bash 7 colours to straighten mine but at least my bends were in the right place

Inspired by Greg Clement's very nice 37mm dozer junction box, thought I'd give it a go.
I had a 37mm x 14mm disk cut for me, marked out the holes, ground out the edges and added an off set appendage.
Adding 10ba bolts to allow space round the bolt heads. I very nearly got it symmetrical too. A real tank dozer juction box, This one does not have the heavy paintwork as so many have.
The 34mm dozer junction box from the kit tarted up
and the home grown 37mm dozer junction box.
Now with appendage and waiting for lettering.

While the files were out I thought I'd have go at making a working filler cap. Due to the shape of the supplied caps some added material was required to add to the over all shape. Spring came from a clipper lighter, push rod boat stanchion, stock brass 1.5mm wire and a pivot block from servo arm connector. Lettering is a little on the large size at 2mm but I only have one pack of 1.5mm lettering and saving them for a rainy day.
I need to make six working caps, so thought it would be best if the parts were easily sourced. Several filing hours later and a sore thumb.
Hopefully the other caps should be easier to make now I know what I'm doing ish. The finished item locked on to it's locking post.

Ahup, spot the stupid mistake !

Nice work JC! .

John, Nothing wrong as far as I can see, it looks fantastci !

Ahhh that's better.
I was so busy thinking about squeezing in the letters.
At least Coulent will be easier to spieel on the next cap.

Isn't ULCI an American University ?

Adrian.

Yep, University of Life in California Institute. That's the one. Next door to UCLA.

For those who did not serve, A was sprungloaded so that the hatch shut & locked when dropped. B was not a retaining mechanism but a release handle,used to pull A out of engagement & then lift the hatch.
The handle was afterwards normally returned to its stowage position as shown

Mark, you could have used the picture with the correct spelling, I know it's easier to kick a man while he's down, but it's not very sporting.

As for the locking post. I assumed all the caps would all a have the ability to be locked some how, especially in enemy territory. Basing the opinion on the fuel cap and coolant cap pictures below. I did fit a tiny spring to the locking plunger, the boss on the plunger is somewhat bigger than it should be,
but it allows a bit of strength, the swing on the plunger handle and hides the joint within, I may trim it a little when I build the others.

The British seemed to be fond of the padlock or nut and bolt and hasp system, as it can be seen all over the tank, though it must have been an nightmare (or funny to some), if different padlocks were used.

As for universities, I had neither the wit (only half) nor the silver spoon.

My daughter said her first year was intense, not quite sure if it was the partying or the studies, either way I wouldn't argue as she did get her Law degree.