00 FD 96 John's Main Contender

[Björn Johansson]

Hi John
Haven´t got the time to read through all those build treads , but sure got som good inspiration
in just read you´r 17 page will read through given time .
Good work on all those details

[John Clarke]

Just trying to make it fun Bjorn.
There's a lot great stuff all over the forum. Such a lot of good people all willing to share and even when you can't make the shows, the members put up the pictures so you can be there in sprite.
Just a brilliant forum.

Just finishing the plunger on this Fuel cap, so much easier than the Hydraulic cap.
Only four letters.

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[Charles A Stewart]

Hi John.
Don't forget the numbers

Cheers Charles

[Charles A Stewart]

PS, In "sprite"

[John Clarke]

Ouch!
Spell checkers and fat fingers don't help the dragged up do they?
Those little letters are so tempting, might have ago.
Busy filling missing material on one of the fuel tank vents. And building up material on the Coolant cap after filing it down for shaping.

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[Charles A Stewart]

John, I hope you don't mind my asking, but what's the goo you are using to build up the material?

Cheers Charles

[Adrian Harris]

I put strips of 48mm Frog Multi Surface Tape on the table top and mix the epoxy on that.

Just peel off and bin when finished. No mess, no clean up

Adrian.

[John Clarke]

Charles. It's an epoxy resin called J B Weld. Richard Goodwin put me onto it. Takes about 6 hours to cure and is quite hard once dry after 24 hours. A type of liquid metal. Unlike 5 minute epoxy there's no rubbery texture when sanding .
You can supposedly drill and tap it too.
I'm now using it to fill in all the gaps on rear hull deck with a layer of thick paint from the syringe for the weld lines.
It's a bit too sloppy and sticky to make the weld line itself.
Adrian, my mixing pallets are little chip board laminated sections that used to make up a tall turntable DVD shelf unit. Now the turn table is just a flat turntable work space, useful when I want to turn something round without moving it.
The little sections, about 30x of them get used for all manner of things and end up being chucked away.
Your idea to tape them up and use them again and again is an excellent idea.
I'll tape a couple up tonight.

[Charles A Stewart]

Thanks John, Richard did mention it when I was talking to him at the Tank Museum recently, makes sense. Cheers for that and thank you.

Charles

[John Clarke]

I've sanded down the JB Weld now that its good and well ard. The fuel tank inspection cover/vent has the machining damage tided up. Again tided up the resin on the coolant cap ready to mod. I suppose the JB Weld could be used to cast small shapes too if required but I'd rather file something up in metal and maybe attach it with the resin glue.

Covered the little wooden pallet for mixing/gluing as Adrian suggested with my cheap skate masking tape, neat idea.

Ready to do some more lettering now. Cheers Charles, yours look great Were they 2mm letters for the FV numbers. I thought I'd have to use 1.5mm letters which look a bit daunting and rare to get. Special occasion stuff

I don't know or have forgot where I might of read it. But when I apply the letters I find it easy to a spike them with a scalpel (From Stephen White) then dip them in a blob of super glue which I put on a thick-ish clear polythene bag. This allows you slide the letter in and out then you can apply hopefully in the right place.
Don't know about you guys but I always need training refreshers

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[Charles A Stewart]

Hi John.
I used 2mm for the number.
Cheers Charles

[John Clarke]

Thanks Charles, makes life a little easier Don't forget duplicated parts can be handed with different numbers
Then there's the different foundry markings

Welcome to the house of the flying letters, one minute you have enough letters, seconds later that plan vaporizes.
Fortunately V's can be made from A's and F's from E's. With so many FV parts to do, I have to be enterpising.

I have most trouble with 1's, they have to be the right way up and right way round and they seem to like to roll when placing, like a crocodile with a tasty morsel.

Still needs a little trimming once dry and that star needs work. Fortunately centering isn't a problem, doubt if the original foundry spent as much time on them. (3x more to do)

There is a gap between the D and star I can make something out, but it might just be bird poo.
I need new glasses

Still working on the Friday night special,

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[John Clarke]

Just finished a marathon ABC session, six filling caps and couple of tracks links. Yes sorry, only two tracks links.
(I'll leave the 180+ track links to the Cat 6's, Yes, you know who you are, enjoy. )
The track colour is almost a match of the Audi metallic grey car I had, Since mine (easy to nick apparently) was stolen, I always wondered what I'd use the touch up for.

Spent a lot of time trying to find the little alphabetic blighters in the house of the flying letters, this time it was more like Another one bites the carpet!
Even got a hole in one with a 3, (I should have been included on the Euro Ryder Cup squad. Couldn't have done much worse ).
Where's Wally is a cake walk compared the jumping 2mm white flea like alphabet crita morphing it's way into the light coloured pile.

To keep the casting mark star uniform, I punched out some rounds of plastic with and old paper punch. I was hoping to get better at chiseling a star as I went on, but I did'nt. Super glue melts the edges slightly helping me out on the fizzy effect, I think there's a tiny "A" on the tiny star, but that can whistle. The museum quality paint job will see to that.

The letters and numbers on the Auxiliary filler caps Coolant and Hydraulic are actually the same size 2mm, but the letters appear larger because I've trimmed the numbers as small as possible and left the letters with long legs where possible. (To me, saves buying silly sized letters).
I'm not sure if all the Auxiliary caps were cast the way these are laid out, but these represent only ones I could find in photograghs.

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[John Clarke]

This week between slouching on the couch, watching Youtube and working nights, thought I'd make a start on the vexing triangle bins mod.

This mod discussed on Greg's Chieftain 36 topic, it try's to dodge the bullet of hours of hard work calving the upper armor plate that Greg accomplished exquisitely.

That would be the proper way to do it. But my excuse is simply. "I don't want to"

The upper armor on the real tank extends quite some way beyond the triangular bin towards the rear with a rolled cast edge, the model to be correct would need an extensive addition to casting which becomes pointless unless your going for Cat6+.

What ever happens with either mod, a modified triangular bin or a complete new one would need constructing, so this mod I'm showing hits both birds with one stone.

To simplify construction, I glued and where possible screwed parts together. That means anyone who wants to try it can do it without a welder.
All you need is a two ton press (small table vice) suitable glue epoxy, some wood strips,hammer to beat it, tin snips, files, drill, small drill bits and a couple of plasters for the fingers (sharp edges).The thin steel plate came from redundant video player boxes and an old tower system.
(My motto: Don't throw stuff like old PC's and Video players away, keep and hoard them in the attic for that rainy day!)

Using the original box as a former makes it easier to form the new bin, it took a couple of goes to get reasonable back plate fit.

I started with the left hand triangular bin first and had to strip off the furniture built previously, then used it as a former to support the thin sheet plate. Lid made to size and hinge fitted. Half round alloy will form the ribs.

Some parts fitted to the tank previously will need moving but I think it'll be worth it.


Where I want to be.

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Estimate cut for rear plate

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Until it's glued up it's tricky to know if its a good fit.

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Front outside edge has a thin skin plate to hide the joint. But I didn't like the cut out at the back at this time, having too bigger gap between the upper armor plate so I cut off and made slightly different version of the back plate.

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That should hold it.

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Easy to see the front edge plate, skinned to hide the joint, no filler needed.

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Seeing the box from the other cut out side.

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Unless you know, looking behind it's hard to tell.

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Reverse tardis. A lot smaller on the inside.

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Getting there, ribs need gluing and shaping.

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[Richard Goodwin]

Great work John thats exactly how I pictured it