Armortek

Thanks for the kind comments.

Dave Dibbs' excellent resin ammo liners will be great for the turret stowage. I needed an open liner for the commander's MG. A bloke in the Philippines is selling them at a price but I decided to save myself the money and do the job myself, using some perfect reference photos from Mike Cecil. Thanks Mike.

The can is made from 010" brass, using resistance soldering, which really makes this sort of job feasible. Thanks to Fabrice le Roux for putting me onto it.

Firstly the pattern for the liner itself, which has a seam at one end. The rim is stiffened by a fold and the bottom is dropped in and soldered, as per the original:







Lid pattern. It has a stiffening rib at the top and an insert with its own stiffening rib. On the real thing, the space between the insert and the lid contains a rubber seal:







First part of the catch:



I made the hinges with brass rod and tube, soldered to flats. It works well and it overcomes the problem of finding piano hinges of the right size. I simply solder a length of tube to a flat and then use a Proxxon grinding wheel to remove the spaces. In this case, to allow the lid to be removed, I soldered a continuous length of rod into the other side and then removed the unwanted bits. Fiddly but it works:



Remaining bit of the catch, with the two prongs which engage on the fold on the base part, with an over-centre lock:



Finished article with the folding handle on top;
















Tricky but satisfying and a lot cheaper than buying it in.

Regards.

Stephen

Wow!
Frank

Hi Stephen
You are getting quite good at this metal bending stuff

Its a work of art

Regards

Derek

Hi Derek,
thanks for the master class, simply fantastic work ! Have a Merry Christmas and keep the photos coming.

Martin

Hello Stephen, enjoying every post, brilliant, happy restful Christmas, best wishes Mick

Phenomenal work once again

> and a lot cheaper than buying it in.

Only if you count your time as free

Adrian.

Stephen, absolutely stunning work. I am taking notes on bits that I have missed or have not done yet because I could not see how they where made and fixed on and with your detailed update it is now a lot clearer. Thanks for sharing such work.

David

Hi Stephen,

the patience you put into the details is unbelievible and the result is excellent.
For these details I have changed my preference from brass to copper, I think it is easier to work with and to simulate damages is easier too.

Cheers Bodo

your getting too good, happy christmas, regards simon.

Thanks for taking the trouble to comment, always helps to keep the blog going. Much appreciated.

A couple of pics of the liner painted, filled with 200 rounds of .30 linked belt and mounted. I still need to do the stencils. They were done by stamp originally, which Dave Dibb recommended I try, so that'll happen in the New Year. I managed to decipher the correct text and lot numbers from this photo of David Hay, 064's operator at Binh Ba:









Next the part number plate and maker's plate on the MG mount:



The technique is easy to do. First, you need a good reference photo:





I then imported it into Powerpoint, reduced it to one sixth scale and printed a trial run. If the text becomes illegible at the smaller scale, it's easy enough to enlarge it again and go over it with a text box with no fill, to enhance the text:





I then printed the plates off on decal film using an ink jet. Once printed, it's important to spray the decals with a couple of layers of a clear lacquer to seal them and make the decal a bit less flimsy:

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/EC120



The ink jet sometimes doesn't have sufficient saturation to make the decal work, in which case you either need to use the laser printer film or try another method. I found a trial run of the yellow stencils for the liner just didn't show up but I'm going to use a stamp anyway.

Finally, I put the decals onto brass plates and stuck them to the mount:






Regards

Stephen

Just a couple of details added over the holiday.

.30 calibre ammunition supplied to Australian tank and cavalry squadrons in South Vietnam from American sources came in one of three natures, all ball, all tracer or a mix of four ball, one tracer (the so-called Four BIT loadout). The "all trace" load was particularly favoured in the wet season, while the most common was FourBIT. I thought I'd better mark the tracer rounds properly, with the correct red tip:



Next the steadying arm for the commander's MG, which was used to stow the MG:



Happy New Year

Stephen

Damn!
Never seen a similar level of detail: Congratulations!
It 'a real feast for the eyes!
Ciao,
Iacopo

Good morning Stephen,

When looking at the close-ups its hard to tell which is your work and which is the real thing. fantastic work.

Regards
Dave

Thanks Iacopo and Dave.

A rather good interactive 360 deg view of the inside of an Australian Centurion Mk5/1 turret at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra:

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitut ... 9999999997

Regards

Stephen

Thanks, Stephen, nice view with loads of detail visible.

The tank is registration number 169110, filmed in the Treloar B storage area (I can tell by the roof visible through the loader's hatch). 169110 was refurbished to the mid-1970s standard prior to being assigned to the AWM. The tank had an interesting career, including service in South Vietnam as call sign 2 - the troop leader's tank of the troop that included the tank you are modelling - 169064.

Viewers will note that the turret is traversed to the rear, that is, with the barrel over the rear deck.

Mike