My Beaut Aussie Cent

[Kevin Hunter]

Hi Stephen
Really liking your recent new details - loaders sight, pistol port and now the turret basket.
Having already attempted the latter I cannot blame you for avoiding chaos with so many clamps. My own parts were propped up "Heath Robinson" but I got there. Sadly, your realization about the partition has painfully highlighted the fact that mine is wrong! I knew there was an offset but somehow still managed to fix it (logically?) on the frame. Damn!
Have you removed the rear turret lifting lugs? My own basket seemed to fit inside the kit lugs, but your seems a bit wider.
Regards
Kevin

[Stephen White]

Thanks chaps, feedback appreciated. Now for the last part of the basket structure, the mounting plates for the IR searchlight:













Just the eye bolts to do. Then it's the mountings and stand off plates for the basket itself and finally the 100mm diamond pattern mesh.

Regards

Stephen

[Stephen White]

Sorry Kevin, you must have posted as I was writing. Yes, I guess with British tanks, you should never assume a logical design. I can just hear the Chief Designer at Leyland saying "what do you mean, it doesn't fit? Well shift the partition then, the MoD will never notice....". Mike Cecil spotted the problem (or solution to my problem, so thanks Mike).

Re the turret lifting eyes, yes I have moved them. I made the mistake of putting them on before I'd measured up the basket, using the dimensions Paul Scott sent me from Australia. The lifting eyes are crucial to mounting the basket so their positioning is critical:



All the best.

Stephen

[davidwilkins]

Stephen,

Brilliant work on the basket I have been looking forward to seeing how you would build this and fit around the lifting eyes as I have always felt that they were slightly out of position.

Regards

David

[Stephen White]

TankFest 2016. Apart from an over-enthusiastic smoke system blowing smoke out of the driver's cab, a successful run out. Definitely "Through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond....", well certainly the first and last.

















Regards

Stephen

[Stephen White]

Tankfest 2016 over, time to update.

Finishing the structure, the last parts are the retaining bolts for the searchlight mount:






With the structure of the IR basket complete, next step is to make the mountings. The basket had to be removable to allow uninterrupted access to the engine decks for some major component replacement jobs. The front of the basket was supported in blocks welded to the turret lifting eyes. Fore and aft movement was prevented by a clever system of pressure pads and retaining brackets into which engaged adjustable bolts. It seems like a flimsy system but on the model, it was surprising how firmly everything is held once it's all tightened up.



This one pulls:





and this one pushes, locking up the structure:



Brazing the blocks, using Lumiweld:







Brackets:










More to follow.

Stephen

[martin pitcairn]

really nice neat job, well done, keep the master class coming.

Martin

[Iacopo Di Giampietro]

Congratulations, Stephen: your tank is truer than true!
In some photos it is really hard to understand that it is a scale model ....
Chapeau!

[Stephen White]

In Vietnam, the IR baskets were overloaded due to the need to carry fuel, water (for engine replacement) and rations. They underwent progressive strengthening, including a stronger mesh and welded angle iron supports between the top and the turret roof. Although 064 was fitted with a later pattern mesh basket post Vietnam, contemporary photos show it with the finer mesh in theatre. The mesh was a 100mm diamond pattern.





Amaco is a very useful source of modelling meshes:

http://www.dickblick.com/products/amaco-wireform-mesh/

They make a diamond mesh which scales perfectly to 100mm at one sixth but is aluminium and very fine, ruling out soldering. I used a combination of lockwire and medium strength cyano.

First the interior partition:





Then the basket mesh:









Regards

Stephen

[Stephen White]

The Aussie Cents periodically changed troops and the radio callsign boards needed to be easily changed and swopped. They were hand painted and secured to the basket with wire. In many photos, the numbers appear yellow but this is the effect of weathering and they were in fact white on black. I took this opportunity to practise using oils for weathering.



First make a scale template:



Transfer shape to aluminium board by cutting:



Hand paint:



Apply dots of appropriate oil shades (having soaked away on card the surplus linseed oil, to allow faster, matte drying):



Blend with a flat brush, barely moistened with odourless turpentine:



Repeat until you're happy. The great thing about oils is that until covered by a varnish, you can always go back and refine. In this case, I thought the weathering was overdone and toned it down a bit for the final appearance:





Getting there.

Stephen

[Stephen White]

Thanks Martin and Iacopo. Job done:









(before toning down the callsign board)





Onwards and upwards. Thanks for looking.

Stephen

[simon_manning]

thats like the cherry on top of a great cake, lovely job, regards simon.

[Dave Dibb (Armorpax)]

Brilliant work!

Best regards

Dave

[Graham Hough]

Lovely piece of work. Great details.

[Stephen White]

Thanks for the feedback. Continuing with details on the turret, the Cent Mk 3 was fitted with a 2 inch bomb thrower combined with the loader's sight on the turret top plate. Turrets produced 1951-54 introduced modifications, repositioning the loader's sight to the turret front armour and introducing a pressure relief valve with armoured ring protection (to the left on the pic below):





Centurion modifications were not introduced in discrete capability upgrade packages. Piecemeal modifications can be seen, as first the PRV and bomb throwers were deleted and covered with blanking plates (note the channel cut to allow water to drain:



Then, when the IR upgrade was introduced, the searchlight cable was fed into the turret via a terminal in a new housing. Where the turret retained the old PRV housing, the IR cable housing was simply bolted on:



You can identify the drawing to which a Centurion turret was built by the drawing number cast on the turret side, although this doesn't help much in identifying features of a particular tank, given the evolution of the build standard.



ARN 169064 was built in 1955, by which time the turret was to late version of the modified 40796T standard, in which the old PRV housing was deleted altogether and the IR cable terminal was bolted directly to the turret roof, in a milled rebate:



Anyway, after that digression on Centurion development, here's the bit:









Regards

Stephen