Chieftain No. 34

[Phil Woollard]

Love the sound of the running gear Charles, the speed is pretty realistic to, now a Challenger would be a different kettle of fish as they are relatively fast!

Nice work. Steel tracks are definitely the way to go.

[Charles A Stewart]

Next job, clean the lovely steel tracks, we have a nice clay soil here, really sticky

[Charles A Stewart]

Evening all(to quote Dixon of Dock Green).

Not much progress recently, winters here so I stay in the house working on the smaller parts of the tank, a lot warmer than my workshop.

The tracks cleaned up very well after a good scrubbing with a wire brush in the drill and WD 40, the suspension didn't suffer too badly, all six spring units had dropped out of place.

The damage though, so far is minimal. I am currently waiting for some thick rubber (to fit toE0208) and adjusting the spring units, making them a bit longer.

Over a wet weekend the lad and I fitted out the elevation system,

Started work on the cupola with the wipers, nice warm indoor job . There is a bit of work required to fill the gap between the "motors", I noted this from Phil's build, thank you Phil. The periscopes are removeable for now to aid painting.

We have stuck a red led light source under the P/scopes which provided a low glow visible from the outside. If so, under what circumstances would this be correct (or not)?

Keep up the good work

Charles

[Stephen White]

Charles, great work well done. You asked about red interior lights. Great idea but..... We had dimmable white interior lights but if they were on at night, we would pull down little blinds fitted to all the optics so no light was visible from outside. The commander also had a map reading lamp on a stalk, again dimmable but I never used it. I preferred a small torch, with a mask over the lens. You could cup that in your hands and shine it just on the bit of map you needed. We did use red lights when dismounted in order to preserve night vision but you couldn't read a map with red because it interfered with map markings and colour shading. Oh, one other curiosity. If you did use white light at night, you closed one eye. That way you kept half your night vision. So you could make your commander have one eye shut!

So the short answer is interior lights were not to be seen outside unless you had a very slack crew. That said, it's a model, so do your own thing!

[Charles A Stewart]

Thank you Stephen.
I think I may work on it as you say its a model and it can be switched off for the rivet counters.

I do recall from the days when we deployed from Gutersloh folk would insist on fitting the green lens to their torches, shine it your face asking who you are & destroying ones night vision.

Many thanks
Charles

PS have barracuda exhaust stub, any use.

[Stephen White]

Barra exhaust? Yes, the Museum is always after parts. I’ll pm you. Don’t suppose you got the rest of the airframe too?

[Charles A Stewart]

No problem.

[Charles A Stewart]

Hi everybody.

Hope you are all keeping safe & sane.

Due to CGS (cold garage syndrome), I'm sure I am not the only one to suffer this affliction, not done much since removing mud. Anyway, I have done some work on the exterior of the turret roof in the warmth of the house. As this is my first Armotek kit/model in this scale I hope my attempts at improving some of the basic kit features meet with approval.

Some "welding" is yet to be carried out, I have been using the fabric paint method, which I find less fiddly; comments welcome.

I have spent this weekend working on the cupola mountings and can say I am pleased will the result so far (photos to follow).

Cheers all
Charles

[John Clarke]

I'm seeing quite a few subtle changes going on Charles on the Chieftain including a larger Clansman ATU (Aerial Tuning unit Box)

Are you going to remove "The turret crease"? (If you were going to do a Mk10/11 the Stilbrew would hide it).

I'm nearly certain it doesn't exist on the original Mk5 turret, though there were a few different casting during whole production run.

If I'm wrong please shout out, as It's got to go on mine when the time comes.

Fill it, file it or a bit of both

I too suffer from CGS (cold garage syndrome) If I look out and see a cold miserable day, I'm put off before I even get though the door.

Much better to get comfy on the sofa, feet up and watch another "Inside Tanks" with the "Chieftain" on Youtube.

Turret top 1.jpg (112.53 KiB) Viewed 96119 times

[Charles A Stewart]

Hi John
These are the comments I need, I am no professional modeler, but I do enjoy the challenge. You have pointed me in a direction I need to look at thank you. I will stick to pre Stillbrew. ATU correct!

Your insight, re your "Totem" posts has meant that I am looking to provide extra support for the motors. Belt and braces.

Take care.

Charles

[John Clarke]

Chieftain

There's no end to it.

My vision of the Totem's three stages are just a tiny part. I would say the motor gearbox support is clearly the best mod because it changes virtually nothing in design but goes on to "support" long term operations. Youngjae's early reports of loose gearbox retainers indicated a possible weakness. It's easy to blame other inferences but sometimes it can be staring right at you. (Big heavy hi torque motor/gearbox with constant changing motion direction)

Charles, my turret is still in it's box, held tightly closed with Universal Carrier box on top. The turret is not coming out ("let me out") until I have the Chieftain tracks on.
I've looked at "the turret crease" and it bugs me. There's a lot of things I can't change on this model easily, but this one's gonna get it, and it's going to give me lots of pleasure in sadistic way, "Be gone" evil crease "Be gone"

Unless someone knows better

[Charles A Stewart]

Evening all.

Thanks John for pointing out the anomaly on the casting, I had a look at it this evening: You are right, although I haven't started work in this department yet I think some blending(sanding, grinding etc.) may be in order.

That then followed by careful placement of a camo net, yet another chore

Cheers everybody.
Charles

[Richard Goodwin]

Hi John
These are the comments I need, I am no professional modeler, but I do enjoy the challenge. You have pointed me in a direction I need to look at thank you. I will stick to pre Stillbrew. ATU correct!

Your insight, re your "Totem" posts has meant that I am looking to provide extra support for the motors. Belt and braces.

Take care.

Charles

Hi Charles,
If you want some pictures and dimensions of the ATU, I can supply them if interested although they are from a stillbrew Chieftain. Not sure if the ATU was changed when going from Larkspur to Clansman!

[Steve Ellis]

Hi Guys
The TUAAM (Tuning Unit Automatic Antenna Matching) housing was added for Clansman. Larkspur had a similar fitting to that on the opposite side if the turret.
It was the same size on all variants Both pre and post Mk10.

Hope this helps.

[Charles A Stewart]

Richard, Steve.

Thank you the picture and info. I took my dimensions from 1/35 takom kit, but I would appreciate real dimensions if that is ok.
Cheers Charles