00 FD 96 John's Main Contender

[John Clarke]

Hi Steve, Glad you like it, easy enough to do. I wanted ask, did you just file the horrible crease off on the turret top left hand side or did you fill or both.
Cracking job you made of it. (Pictured)
Elevation servo.
One of the aims of the idea was not to change the "Armortek" option too much, so that a return to the original supplied mechanism would be easy to adapt back. A bag of original parts already in the spares box. Plan B, if everything goes Pete Tong.
The gun barrel is not just heavy, but very long too as you know, and I felt thinning it to reduce weight could only weaken it. I don't have a lathe either . The lead counter weight is an extra 1.2kg to the original setup, it's a necessity to take the load off the servo. But then the fat servo itself has a lot less weight than the original mechanism and motor, so you could say it's probably only half the extra weight (600g) that's been added to the original set up.

I remember a discussion years back where some builders wanted to slim down the weight of their Armortek models, I wholly agree to disagree.
Why do we buy these monsters in the first place and not buy an alternative manufactures 3mm fibre glass model.
Up to 90mm of frontal turret armor, that's why. ( I do anyway)

I'm must emphasize I'm not expecting much from the new system, But I've had experience of the screw jack system in Centurion, Comet, KT and watched others, the whirring sound of the robust screw jack and slow speed mimics the hand operation of WW2 tanks very well but it doesn't compare to the actual powered action of an MBT gun elevation. this is my take on it.
The servo system I've fitted is not a very sophisticated system and should only work on the 90' frontal arc. I'm not going for accurate angles of gun elevation or depression, enough to show it works should be enough for most of it's time in use. The manual override control should allow clearance over the rear deck.

At the end of the day the main thing is not to damage anything with that bloody big gun.

[Steve Norris]

Hi John
The crease was removed by a combination of a big file and filler, not to difficult to do but quite messy.
I don’t have access to a lathe to modify the barrel but I was thinking about replacing it with something lighter like a carbon fibre or fibreglass rod . Getting the right size may be a problem but I will see if I can find anything that will do the job.
With the weight of the turret as it is, adding or removing weight may not really make much of an overall difference so I will go the easiest route.
Working on the rear deck at the moment so the turret will have to wait before I do anything further with it.
Regards
Steve

[John Clarke]

Hi Steve, thanks for the info on the turret crease, it is the next job. Hopefully I can do the job as well as yours
The servo reverser arrived today, so I'll be trying that later on the recoil unit.

[John Clarke]

The crease has now gone, Just as Steve said, a bit of filing, a dollop of filler and and a little bit of shaping. Looks so much better and well worth the time spent on it to get those curves back. Next up, the turret roof and turret bustle.

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[John Clarke]

Armed with the best of the 80's on the boom box, I began to put the bustle together and then move onto the turret roof. Even making sure I'd got the corner brackets the right way round, the fit was not as good as expected with a few big gaps to deal with. Holes in the rear side cheeks needed realigning and it became apparent that the turret roof would be offset by about 1.5mm to the left when fitted looking forward. I made up some spacers to shift the side cheeks outwards and reposition the Bustle floor pan. I like to say I centered it all up but the Chieftain turret is anything but symmetrical, the original is the same too. The roof was "centered" by slitting a thin section off the casting recess edge. I'm happy to say the side cheeks line up nicely angled with the cast armor now. Though closing the gaps (well within British Leyland standard spec) between the bustle cheek sides, left another problem, the turret roof didn't fit anymore. And will have to be trimmed to fit.

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[Steve Norris]

Hi John.
I do recall having similar issues when assembling my turret, nothing that was a major problem but plenty of hole pulling and filler.
Regards
Steve

[John Clarke]

The chop shop continues, I wanted the turret roof removable using magnets, and have cut the turret roof across the bustle line to make it easier to fit on the angled section and allowing the alignment with the rear edge of the bustle. I was also trying to get a little "step" in the armor plate as with the original on all the bustle edges. Once cut the roof was glued together (JB weld) with an added strengthener underneath, and a line of epoxy representing the weld line on the original across the upper turret roof.
Because the turret roof used to be part of the structure supporting the bustle, floor pan and sides have been glued with JB weld.
It may sound pointless extra work, but to me it's future proofing, I can paint and fill retaining points with easy access to the mechanicals in the turret.

The turret roof is held in place with magnets. Magnets were glued into the turret casting and steel countersunk M3 set screws were placed up side down on turret roof plate to give them a good surface area on the magnets below. Recessing the nuts holding in the countersunk setscrews on the upper side.
I've made some alignment blocks to keep the turret roof aligned from old dummy periscopes from Centurion that were supplied with the model in a "spares box".
"Never throw your spares away, keep em for a rainy day!"