Armortek

Richard, delighted to help. I've sent you some pics by email. All the best. Stephen

Been working on the front fittings, I think that I have a solution to make the light clusters look more authentic.

Good progress Phil, cracking on. I guess you'll only put LEDs in the two outer lights? You wouldn't see anything with the naked eye with the IR lights, not that we ever used them, at least not with IR goggles. When the driver's image intensifier sights came in, some drivers used the IR lights but they actually degraded the II picture at short range and it was not popular with other crews.

I must confess I was thinking of a bit of theater in having a dull red in the infra red lamp, not correct but would be interesting, now am I right in thinking it was just one lamp or were both the inner pair IR? I can remember the early image intensifier, a very bright light green image, the small arms device site was huge by today's standards and weighed almost as much as the weapon with a huge ni cad in the rear.

Either of each pair could be IR, it depended on how the lenses were fitted and the connection to them. You had to remove the IR lenses that obscured the visible light to confirm the bulbs were still servicable in that lamp. The only difference in those light fittings were whether they had a standard or IR lens.
And that two pairs were selectably switchable, one pair for normal and one pair for IR. Swop round the lenses by mistake, or connections to the fittings and you could get other variants.

Occasionally done be enterprising ECE´s to get the desired results. Bugbear to work out later when you took over from them.
Mark

Hello Phil, I am wiring the M3 Grant head lights. I have sent for a Turnigy Rc on off switch. I will be interested to see how you wire your lights. I'm enjoying your attention to detail, makes my head spin. I do follow the builds, some excellent modelling going on....Mick

Hi Phil

The component shop do a 2mm wired micro LED in various colours,

The micro LED's should be pretty good for those tiny side and rear lights too.

I'm going to put red LED's in the infra red lamps for a bit of fun and may use it as the last switched circuit on a sequential switcher I intend to use.
(It gives seven outputs from one switched channel on the transmitter)

A cree lamp should do for the search light. (Blinding Gov)

I always use warm white for head lights, those blue white lights are just pants on the 1/16 tanks, only just seen the plaggy Chieftain by Haya. nice if you like that sort of thing. Price needs to half though.

Mick I will use a simple rc switcher for the lights, that one John has mentioned sounds good, so come on John spill the beenz?
I bit more done today, things slow down when we are detailing some what.

Nicely done Phil

I was a bit pushed for time yesterday so not many explanations but if anyone has any questions then please fire away.

Good work Phil, progress. Sometimes a small detail just doesn't look right and a case in point is the wading rail around the driver's hatch. The Takom kit has it right, whereas the Armortek layout is too smooth a curve. There should be a distinct kink either side, to the rear of which the rail is straight. This pic shows it quite well. If the kit rail is soft, I guess it wouldn't be to difficult to change. Maybectoo late Phil?

Just had another look at this one Phil. There are some very non-standard fittings on the glacis and I don't recall those lifting shackles being fitted in service. The bollards on the other hand were a vital bits of kit. How else would you mount your charger with dignity?

Thanks Stephen always appreciate your input, the wading rail is not totally fixed as yet so I can nip those sharper bends in either side no probkem. That 1/35 kit is very good reference point and I suggest any serious detailer ought to get one. Are you saying that I could add those hand rails to, as I sure would like to? The 1/35 kit has that long piece along the nose, I would also like to add that ?

Lots of fiddly time consuming bits and pieces made and fitted today. I'm loving this build but my God there is so much extra detail that you can add, all this might take a year or two for the part time builder but what a great way to spend your spare time.
I would like to add the fv number to just below the hatch but which number do I use, or do I make one up?

Looking good Phil, nice and tidy build