DML Conqueror Mk2

[FrancisGL]

Good info you handle ... from what I see..., cheers mate

Edited December 15, 2016 by FrancisGL

[Valenstitch]

Got some shed time today, here`s what I did with it!

 

 

I shot some primer on these bits! This is the floor and right hand side of the drivers compartment and the battery box and stowage box that sit behind the driver.

 

 

there are a couple of areas to touch up, but I`m happy so far!

 

 

 

Here is the drivers seat, the back and the beam it mounts on, I`m going to try and complete this during the week. the beam will sit across the opening in the drivers bulkhead

 

 

Here........roughly!

 

 

Here is the left hand side of the compartment, brake and clutch pedals fitted as is the ventilation duct.

 

 

I think there's excess travel on the clutch! Not an issue though, it moves!

 

 

So I`m almost done....................well, in the drivers compartment anyway!

 

 

So here`s the guts of the FCT interior! Turret floor roughed out and the back of the commanders seat, the seat itself runs up and down the rails on the frame that connects the top and bottom of the turret, there`s a bit of work to do here! And all completed whilst running back and forth between kitchen and shed, since I`m "Duty Chef" today!

 

Ta for lookin` no"G"

 

Granto

 

[FrancisGL]

How good the scratch made so far ...cheers mate

[Valenstitch]

Well the "Leg iron" is at work, I know that for definite, I personally delivered her there this morning, so no disturbances! Shed time!

 

 

 

Here is the other side of the drivers compartment with the seat mounting beam fitted, this can now go into the paint booth!

 

 

Here is the drivers seat, the mountings at the rear corner of the seat are for the hinges for the seat back, the four arms attach to the triangular plates on either side of the seat and will, with a bit of luck have four pins to allow the seat to locate onto the mounting beam.

 

 

 I got around to fixing the external cabling, I made up some small bent clips from some photo etch fret which was bent around the cable then I gave it a good squeeze with the pliers, positioned it over the stub of rod previously fixed into the turret and gave it a dot of CA, then to finish it off each clip got  one of these......................

 

 

A.8mm Meng nut and thread (they`re on the other side of the strip!)

 

 

Just a little bit of fettling left to do! I also started to texture the cast portion of the turret with some Mr Surfacer dissolved putty, that`s what all the white is! It`s the first time I've used it but results so far are encouraging!

 

I also did a bit more on the FCT interior

 

 

The Fire Control Turret is exactly what it says, another turret! Here is the turntable or floor, this should end up suspended from the upper external part by means of the commanders seat rail here on the right and two brackets at his ten and two o`cock respectively, there is a whole bunch of gubbins to go in here, cables, trunking, .30 cal box brackets and a separate rotary base junction box bang in the centre of the turret floor.

 

After that I needed a change of pace................I thought I would tackle this!

 

 

 

Louvers! There are only half as many as there should be! Solution?

 

 

Make a jig to cut hundreds of extra louvers from .3mm x .5mm strip! It`s already doing my head in! Now the Chopper MK2 is a good bit of kit, but I need these pieces to be within .5mm of each other and I just couldnt get the buggers consistently accurate! Top right is my first Jig, the Chopper comes with a couple of angled stops but the strip kept sliding under the stop, so I cut some plastic card and made a tighter stop! Didn`t work! Mod 2, I made two fences to keep the strip between and to maintain distance from the blade! Didn't work! Mod 3, I glued a strip of 2mm conduit to a strip of card that was squared, then cut a tiny brass tube and CA`d it into the conduit, the strip and tube is positioned against the dropped blade, on the other side of the blade is my stop set at the desired length of cut, the .3 x .5 mm strip goes through the tube so I can by gently pushing, feed my strip up to the stop, chop and "Hey Presto!" on the left are the first of the extra louvers in place, It`s not a particularly good photo what with white strip and grey styrene, but when it is all done and has a shot of primer on it there will be twice as many louvers as there was before I started! The original kit louvers are approximately 1mm apart and there are just under half as many as there should be, my solution should go 90% of the way to fixing that without chopping out the whole back decks to start over! After that, all the handles have to come off and be replaced!

 

 

 

And finally for this update here is a shockingly indistinct photo of the beginnings of the Loader/Operator`s position, this cabinet holds five .30 Cal boxes and above it is where the radio kit lives! You can see it better in the shot above this one!

 

Ta for lookin` no"G"

 

Granto

[longshanks]

Love the detail...........

 

Ref Chopper I've modified mine and can cut +/- 0.25mm.

 

For some reason I can't get the link to work but if you go to Maritime Work in Progress second page near the top Post MGB658 by longshanks page 25 right down the bottom you'll see what I have done...........

 

For extreme accuracy I glue the stop slightly oversize and then insert thin shims/packers, I have plastic card down to 0.1mm thick

 

HTH

 

Kev

[FrancisGL]

Wow!,often scratch work!..., cheers mate and HNY for your and yours

[Valenstitch]

Welcome to a gopping portsmouth saturday! I didn't mess about, I was on a mission! Here is the result!

 

I got a few sub assemblies in the spray booth, In no particular order.........................

 

 

I shot some stynylrez onto the Mr Surfacer texture I had been experimenting with...................

 

 

 

I`m F#####g happy with that! The images don't do it justice, I had to run in from the shed and show the "Leg Iron"! (She was like "Whatevs"! ??? WTF? Was Mrs Einstein like "Whatevs" when he came back from his shed and showed her his Atom bomb? I doubt it! She was probably all over him, twerking and everything!) The texture is spot on for cast steel armour, deffo win column for this!

 

 

 

Clockwise from the top, Drivers compartment left side, battery box, drivers hatch (not happy with this, the overall shape is ok and the texture is good, it got a coat of Mr Surfacer, but the cast dome shape needs refining, so I will be altering it tomorrow) Operators .30 cal stowage rack, Drivers spare periscope stowage box. 

 

 

Drivers compartment floor.

 

 

Drivers compartment right side.

 

 

Drivers compartment roof,the sight is in place as are the hatch locks and the horn button and cover.

 

 

Progress on the louvers!

 

 

And first shots of the inside of the FCT! this is the turntable with the Rotary Base Junction Box and associated trunking sat in place, the Commanders seat and it`s rails which connect it to the exterior cast portion. 

 

 

And from a slightly steeper angle!

 

 

And again with the top half! None of the interior is glued in place yet other than the RBJ, everything is just positioned to give me an idea of where it will all go eventually.

 

 

And this is the underside with the Rangefinder and sights, I have to drill lots of holes and wire all this up! And on top of all this I have to eat Pizza and drink beer tonight too! Shocking!

 

I might even get another update in tomorrow as well!

 

Ta for Lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

[longshanks]

Made some good progress here...........

 

The surface texture is looking good

 

Great scratching

 

Kev

[Valenstitch]

Thanks Longshanks! I've been following your "Dog Boat" BTW, Nice!

 

Granto

[Hamden]

 

Drivers looks the dogs do-dahs with paint on. Brings it to life

 

  Roger

[Bullbasket]

Still trying to work out if you are modeller or masochist, but whichever, there's some really good work going into this project. It does prompt one question though. How much of this lovely detail will be visible when it's all buttoned up?

 

John.

[FrancisGL]

The driver's compartment, already with the gray paint, makes it look "as bought". very real...

Cheers mate

[frankie]

WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Valenstitch]

36 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Still trying to work out if you are modeller or masochist, but whichever, there's some really good work going into this project. It does prompt one question though. How much of this lovely detail will be visible when it's all buttoned up?

 

John.

I`m both John! A modeling masochist! If there wasn't an element of masochism in any of my projects it would just be "assembly"! As for visible detail when I close it all up? I don't know, I`m going to have the Drivers seat in its closed down position so quite a bit will be visible through the hatch or through the bulkhead opening if the turret is removed. The FCT will be removable as well and the Gunners and the Operators positions will only be detailed as far as is visible through the open hatches. I didnt plan this at all, it "blindsided" me and once I started I couldn't stop!

 

Granto 

[Valenstitch]

Here we go with Sundays update! Foggy and dank in Peeortsmarf! However the shed was tropically hot!

 

 

I got the back on the drivers seat!

 

 

I think these are the third set of etch fret rails I have made, the others went to feed the carpet monster!

 

 

There`s a couple more pieces to go on here yet but there is light at the end of the tunnel!

 

 

Can you tell what it is yet?.........................................................Yeah exactly!

 

It`s laminated blocks of card! Only roughed at this stage I need to cut them down so they look like this......................................

 

 No.19 set and No.31 set AFV! 

 

 

Although not in this configuration!

 

 

And here is the FCT turntable as of today, conduits in place for the wiring.

 

 

With the seat rails in place you get a better idea of things!

 

 

There are mesh guards that go around the FCT from the two to ten position that prevent the Commander getting graunched by the traverse monster, inboard of them go three brackets for .30 Cal boxes two other stowage brackets and the Commanders control box. It`s going to be a bit tight in there! Inbetween all this I have also been plugging away at the louvers on the back decks, five at a time!

 

Back on lates this week at work, so I hope to get some more done each day, I might even get some paint on top of the Stynylrez, who knows!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto 

 

 

 

[Etienne]

6 hours ago, Valenstitch said:

If there wasn't an element of masochism in any of my projects it would just be "assembly"!

 

I can just agree with you ... and about the interior details, the main satisfaction is probably not in the result but in the process 

 

However here, the result is very impressive ... your patience and scratchbuilding skills are realy amazing !!

 

E

 

[longshanks]

21 hours ago, Valenstitch said:

Thanks Longshanks! I've been following your "Dog Boat" BTW, Nice!

 

Cheers Matey

 

Happy days, got my daily dose of scratch modelling 

I know that feeling of getting carried away, who cares if can be clearly seen after completion. We all know it's there...

 

 

Kev

[Valenstitch]

No thundersnow in Pompy, well I couldn't see any from the shed window anyhow! So I just carried on chipping away at the Conky!

 

 

The Commanders seat now has the seat fixed to the rails and the backrest is having a trial fit! The backrest was hinged on the actual vehicle to enable the Commander to park his A**e and still look out by flipping it to the horizontal!

 

 

 

So this is almost done now!

 

Back decks.................................

 

 

Here are the back decks, I have been doubling the louver count by inserting .3 x .5 mm strips into the excessive gap between the moulded louvers, it`s a tedious job, but it`s coming along. However there is a nasty moulded handle on the right hand engine cover!

 

 

 

 

 

Cant be having that! So out with the chisel blade!

 

 

Rough cut.........................

 

That`ll do!

The louvers are getting there, the problem now is that the sidewalls of the louver leaves narrow towards the hinges! So I need to pop a shim on my cutting stop and cut the remaining louvers to finish it off! Then the lifting handles need removing and holes need drilling to take wire replacements.

 

 

Here are the handles on the Stanley barracks guardian, they`re all over the shop!

 

 

And over the road in the Tank museum here are the back decks of their MK1! Note the captive handles! The louver count is very evident here, 42 I think! I think I`m going to be 8 off, but it`s better than being out by more than half! 

 

Well that`s enough fun for today, I`m off to work, S`laters Dudes!

 

Ta for lookin` no"G"

 

Granto

 

[Tony C]

I do like this, it appeals to my OCD...

[BulldogModels]

Unreal! Can't believe the level and attention to detail here ... bravo sir!

 

Subscribed and watching with interest

[Blaubar]

Brilliant work there!

Pulled a seat.

/STefan

[Carius]

Excellent progress.

[Valenstitch]

A Swift one on a Sunday evening, F`nar f`nar! Despite ideal modeling weather I didnt get much accomplished this weekend, so this will have to suffice!

 

 

Louvers is dooed! ( Hahaha, spell check says Doomed!)

 

 

This should be more apparent once it`s got a coat of stynylrez on it! Still to do are, fuel fillers, replace the knobbed handle that I removed, remove all the moulded handles and replace them with wire and shave off and replace the bolts that act as hinges on the louver leaves!

 

 

Backrest frame is in place on the rails and RBJ cover is going off prior to being filed and sanded to shape. The bent wire was to ensure that I could get wire through the conduit! I could! Bobbins!

 

Drivers hatch is corrected, just a coat of Mr Surfacer to go!

 

 

 

This is the Commanders control box roughed out, slight chamfer to the top 1/4 and the blanks for the top and bottom fasteners glued in place, these will be much reduced during the fettling stage!

 

 

And this is where it will go ..............................................approximately!

 

 

Buggerrrrrrrr! Broke the drivers seat back off!

 

 

And somewhere on here is the Gunners sight...................................................Time to clear up I think!

 

So it`s goodnight from Portsmouth, happy blue monday to everyone!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

 

 

[FrancisGL]

I would say that yes, the workshop is a little messy ... lol, it happens to me too, when I wake up, I do not have space ...

Cheers mate

[Valenstitch]

Well it`s not raining, but why take the chance of getting wet? Shed instead!

 

Slow slow tedious progress! Mojo wavering, why oh why did I decide to build the inside?

 

 

I finished the louvers a couple of weeks or more ago, but there were a couple of issues still to deal with......................Nasty molded on handles on the leaves, a filler cap with an equally nasty molded handle and the clip at the top of the picture. Not to mention the the lack of hinge pins! Just nasty! 

 

 

So now there are captive wire handles and pins with washers! The louvers will receive a once over with a scalpel blade prior to a shot of primer, I`ve still got to crack on with the bent handle and the coolant cap handle but I might get that done tomorrow, who knows!

 

 

 

Inside I repaired the drivers seat and fitted the lower suspension arms to it, upper pair will be fitted once these are solid. To the left of the seat is the base of the FCT with its basic wiring, I need to put these in place before the cage sides go in, the patterns are to the left of the FCT .

 

 

 

And finally for this morning, this cog will become part of the drivers seat mechanism! Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto