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The parts for my 223 Funk conversion arrived today:

The turret:



The hull front and rear top plates:



A few niggles like holes slightly misaligned , and I haven't even attempted the fret work behind the turret yet

Having picked up another 222 at the weekend, I've realised the turret is 1mm sheet instead of 1.5 , so this first one will be a bit chunky, but it's mainly a prototype for testing sheet folding and silver soldering techniques, neither of which I've done before.

Adrian.

Adrian,
Nice looking parts! What are you making again? What kind of conversion?
Bob

One of these:



Smaller turret, set further to the rear.
No 20mm cannon, just a machine gun.
"Bed frame" radio antenna
Slightly different hatches

And probably quite a few other things I haven't spotted yet

Adrian.

Great! Keep us posted on your progress. That will be a cool conversion. Thanks for the photo! The metal work is looking nice!
Bob

Adrian, Please where did you get the conversion bits from please. I ask as I could be tempted into building something allong similar lines.

Patrick

The parts were cut for me from my CAD drawings.

I've been sitting looking at them since they arrived trying to work out the best way to fold them accurately

Last week I found a company in Reading who are willing to do the folding for me for a nominal hourly rate, once they've seen the actual parts,

Once I have some spare time during the week I'll be taking the parts to them to show them what I need doing but that's not looking likely until the end of the month.

I have run up some drawings with the fretwork behind the turret but I haven't sent that of for cutting yet.

Adrian.

Adrian, as you say the turret looks like it would have to bent perfect the first time as once the bend is in that is it. Being 1.5 mm is also a little extra problem. I think it would be easyier to bend if it was thinner aluminium for the turret, but the body would be left as steel. Please keep me informed as you progress.

I spent the day today working out how to make TurboCAD model the turret in 3D, so that I could check the way the parts fold together.

It turned out to be time well spent as I had quite a few of the angles slightly out so, although the paper turret went together OK, the real thing would have needed quite a bit of filing to get it to fit.

Hopefully I've now corrected these and the panels should meet up OK for soldering. Looks OK on the screen now



Adrian.

Adrian, that looks very good and very complicated. If you can get the turret bent as per the drawing you should have a winner.
Were there any 222 variations which did not have a turret which would be easier to convert/build?

> Were there any 222 variations which did not have a turret which would be easier to convert/build?

I believe the Sd.Kfz 261 was the only one of these vehicles to be turretless but I'm not sure what other changes there are between that model and the 222.

Adrian.