Cent turret basket

[Ray Brown]

g'day all. my sound is still a bit iffy compared to the armortek trial one but the same as other builders. decided to 'try' and construct the turret basket as a side venture. hope to finish within the week.

[Stephen White]

Hi Ray, that looks brilliant. I'm looking forward to that stage. Have you managed to find the diamond patterned mesh? The Protec paints look perfect too. The Australian Post Office won't ship flammables to UK so I'm struggling to find a match. It would help if Protec would give the Munsell notation but not so far. Mouse House and White Ensign do a copy of Olive Drab Lustreless but it doesn't match the sample Paul Scott kindle sent me very accurately. Good luck with the build and please keep posting pics for us slower builders to enjoy. Stephen

[Kevin Hunter]

Ray, that's fabulous
I'll need a basket for my Mk11 and have been trying to find decent photos, drawings and measurements. Is yours "by eye"? I've found some pics, but if you have some numbers it would be helpful.
How does it attach to the turret, simply welded to the back?
I was also wondering if track hangar, jerry can bracket etc stayed on the turret, you have only the cable reel still. Was that standard?
Keep up the great work
Regards
Kevin

[Stephen White]

I've got to thank Paul Scott here - seeing the interest in the basket, he's very kindly sent me some reference pics. As he points out, there were two types of basket, the standard one with an open diamond shaped mesh and the ones modified for Vietnam, with a stronger, closer mesh, two reinforcing bars on the top and a protective cage for the cable reel and IR searchlight. The reinforcing bars were added in theatre after basket attachments started to fail with the weight carried. You will see Cents carrying large numbers of water cans - not for drinking but to support replacement of the power pack if it needed changing in the field far from water supplies. Thanks Paul.

Standard, as fitted to Paul's tank;



















Vietnam standard as fitted to ARN 169026:























Regards

Stephen

[Kevin Hunter]

Truly excellent
Thanks Paul for the original photos, and thanks Stephen for posting them. With that level of detail even I can find reference points on my model turret from which scaling / dimensions can be derived.
Greatly appreciated
Kevin

[Ray Brown]

g'day. thanks fr the comments and pictures. i printed a 1/25 scale drawing then blew it up approx 350% until the width fitted the dimensions and then laid the brass and bent it where required. i will post the drawing tomorrow.

cheers
ray

[Kevin Hunter]

As a PS..........

regarding the mesh, I havent done any sums yet, but this company offer a 4mm diamond mesh.......... still too small?

http://www.scalelink.co.uk/acatalog/Mes ... illes.html


kevin

[Fabrice Le Roux]

Hi all,

Kevin: the basket dropped into sockets welded behind the turret lifting eyes and the lower edge rested against four small brackets. The AVRE 165 vehicles I have examined also have a threaded bolt which acted as an adjustable spacer, presumably to make it easier to lift the basket off regularly when the turret was traversed to rear for Maxipipe Fascine ops.

Ray: Lovely job. Did you use rod or tube for frame, and what diameter?

Stephen: Fastest photo reference in the West! Very interesting field mods to beef up the basket on 169026. The corner reinforcement plates, the diagonal struts and the webs on the lower support plates as well as the perforated plate mesh. Definitely a step soldering assembly job, but maybe the your RSM will make light of it. Would consider mesh a perfect candidate for a sheet of bespoke photo etch. Do you have dims for the normal diamond mesh? I can work it out if you know the tube diam of the frame alternatively.

cheers, Fabrice

[Ray Brown]

i used 5.5mm brass tubing & used a 6mm tube bender. the real basket tubing i measured was 33mm. and as i posted, best to nail the tubing for stability & ensure it doesn't move during the soldering.

[Fabrice Le Roux]

Hi Ray,
Thanks for that. Aluminium diamond mesh is widely available in different sizes. In the UK you can get 5mm X 10mm (pretty close to scale) mesh here: http://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Raw-Materia ... mm/ITM6557

Two caveats. a) you can't solder it, so quite a lot of fiddly gluing, and b) it is quite fragile stuff and cutting it without distortion takes practice. Upside is that is so cheap that you can practice a lot!

The brass and steel offerings tend to have too small a hole size and plastics are even more prone to distort.

Hope this helps. Someone may have found something better...

cheers, Fabrice

[Ray Brown]

no measurements,sorry. i just measured the printed plan, then the distance between turret lifting points and kept enlarging the plan until desired width was reached. i went to officeworks and it cost me $2.

i then laid the tubing on the plan and marked it just slightly longer so i could trim to fit. i practiced some bending to get the right alignment and then away i went cutting, bending, trimming & soldering.

just make sure you heat the area to be bent first or the tubing will split and/or break.

[sean kerambrun]

Hi ray,

Nice work... I will be starting my basket in the next couple weeks

Cheers

Sean

[Stephen White]

Hi guys, I've sourced a supplier of mesh if you're stuck:

http://www.amaco.com/shop/product-368-w ... -mesh.html

They have a stack of diamond mesh patterns, now to work out which one is closest.

Regards

Stephen