Armortek

Simply stunning stuff there Steve, this model has everything.

Bob, Mark thanks for your kind words, very much appreciated. Mark, when do you ever know a model is “finished”? Apart from completeing the weathering, there are a few more things I would like to add: barrel smoke, a sound card with greater memory to increase the custom sounds (Battle of Bihn Ba recordings) and use real gear change sounds (which would then link with Liam Mahoney’s gear change Tx programming) and lastly the holy grail of gun stabilisation. That should keep me busy. Meanwhile, the Comet and Tiger are waiting, not to mention any new delight Kian and !ark might produce. Thanks for looking. Stephen

While the weathering goes on, so does research. I get a lot of satisfaction from researching the subject to "get it right". As a pilot, it was drummed into me "never assume, always check". I should have done that with the turret stowage. I've got a British Army water can. It's black. The Aussies carried a dozen or so water cans in Vietnam, to re-fill the coolant system, particularly if they had to do a pack change in the field. My model water cans are black. Wrong.

Mike Cecil came to visit last week from the States. Mike knows about these things, having "owned" the collection at the Australian War Memorial. They have an Australian water can. It's the same as the British one but for one thing........



It's green. Damn.

Out with the airbrush and, once I'd matched the colour, it wasn't a big job to re-paint and re-weather. But hang on, what's this:



2 Tp, B Sqn, 1st Armd Regt in Vietnam, the same troop 064 served with. You can distinctly see that the water cans in the basket are both green and black. Fortunately, I'd only done some of the cans. So by pure chance, with Mike's knowledgeable intervention, I've ended up with an even more accurate representation of the stowage.

Sad but true. That's why I enjoy this hobby so much. Just when you think you've finished....













Regards

Stephen

Old pony, new tricks. I'll upload the video after TankFest. Stephen

Excellent! Another thing to talk over at Tank Fest, hopefully we will see it as work in progress?
Steve

Steve, after a few dodgy moments today, including dropping bits into the bowels of the beast, I'm relieved to say, it's done and dusted. Why is it that when you start with a fully working tank and install something new, there is always something that wants to sulk in protest? These snags take longer to fix than the new bits. Today it was a plug reversed and then a loose connection. The best thing about development work is the final realisation that you're no longer in a blind alley, as I've been once or twice on this one, but are in sight of a workable solution. This system is relatively cheap and easy to build. The down-side was that I've had to wear a baseball cap back to front, frequent very strange shops and learn a whole new language of vaping. That said, the guys in our local vape shop couldn't have been more helpful and their advice was spot on.

Hang on to your box mods, vape juice, tanks (not our sort), cool tips and smoke on.

Stephen

Not only a beautiful model, but a serious historical journal article in all that research.

If you want to put something together to publish, let me know. I can steer you in some good directions.

Great thread, amazing research and an amazing model!

Cheers,

RPR

Awesome model! I hope the gun smoke becomes a factory feature one day.

Thanks Robert, food for thought. You're not the first to suggest it..
Brian, I suspect Armortek will be looking at barrel smoke one day.

Meanwhile, back at TankFest and Yeovilton, the Cent barrel smoke gets a public run out. It looks much better on video and I'm editing one for my YouTube channel. I've opted to control the duration of smoke on a separate switch in order to adjust the volume of smoke to the wind conditions. It's proved to be a good move. Although the smoke generator I'm using can be programmed to adjust the density of smoke, I've found it's important to control each burst according to the wind conditions, both the speed of the local wind and the direction of the barrel in relation to it. With sound and recoil controlled by a rotary encoder and a spring loaded toggle switch for the barrel smoke located next to it, I've found it very easy to control both together, adjusting the length of the barrel smoke on timing to suit the conditions.

Thanks to Dave Dibb for the video captures from his live Armorpax broadcast from TankFest.

and at Yeovilton:
Regards

Stephen

More amazing stuff Stephen.
With the smoke, and then gun stab, there will be no more holy grails to crack?
Well done
Kevin

The animatronic figure that shouts out to small children that they really ought not to touch the tank, in such a way that it does not cause offence to the parent, and results in no damage to the tank. If you can crack that one, then Stephen, I and others would be amazed!
Steve

Thanks Kevin. I'll try to crack simulated gear changes, as pioneered by Liam Mahoney. I'll also finish the weathering and stowage and make a weathering video. Meanwhile, I've uploaded a video of the gunsmoke system in action.


Link here:



Enjoy.

Stephen

Stephen, Absolutely brilliant job.

Regards

David

Cool video, I love the Aussie voices. Amazing detail - its hard to tell its a model. Fantastic work.
Bob

Ive been studying your video and I'm afraid you have beat me to this one! It's the best HV simulation I have seen to date.
I will stick to my scale live firing using modified rounds for now but I think you have almost cracked it.
The only improvement would be to simulate the HV gases as the round leaves the muzzle but you would need a high pressure blast from a paint ball system using co2 ( in conjunction with the vapour smoke), the cordite smoke leaving the barrel as it vents is just brilliant, just avoid those windy days (or fire down wind).

More video please Stephen regards Phil.