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14 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Thanks G for the answers. I had a feeling that the first one had something to do with that , but I wasn't sure as it doesn't seem to be able to be lowered. Did you have something to do with these tanks 45 years ago then?

 

John.

Thanks Francis.

 

John.

Spent some time in Israel "coordinating" with the IDF on "issues" in Lebanon. I was a US Marine oh so long ago.

 

G

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10 hours ago, DAG058 said:

I am not quite sure how I have missed this one up until now! Superb progress and I'll be joining you from now on

Many thanks and you are most welcome.

 

John.

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A quick update. Managed to finish the hull before jetting off.

First of all, an apology as I have mislead you all. The set which has the fuel tanks and pipework is NOT as I stated from Blast Models but Legend. The Blast set is for the engine deck, but I didn't use it as it's wrong for this build. I can only apologise and put it down to my age!!

One of the last jobs was to attach the towing ropes. Tamiya supply the ropes in the form of nylon string which I quite like, but Voyager in their etched set supply copper wire and replacement resin end connectors. I used these as they are a lot smaller than the kit supplied ones which are probably oversized.

 

c35aec53-30d2-4ac2-8991-51337399e26a.JPG

 

7b438c15-963e-40a8-b9af-424853aaae53.JPG

 

The other ends of the tow ropes are attached to anchor points mid way along the right hand track guard. These again came from the Voyager set plus some plastic rod. Also to the right of the end connectors can be seen an item that I added from card, stretched sprue and a wing nut from an etched set. Not a clue what it's for, but it's on the Latrun Tiran 5.

 

d8fd34bd-adcb-4c28-9b90-2f19bec9b3b8.JPG

 

Apart from a couple of brackets where the fuel tanks are anchored to the triangular strengthening plates, which will be added prior to painting, that's the hull finished.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

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2 hours ago, Kris B said:

You know my opinion from the previous comments, is still the top build. 

Many thanks Kris, the comments are much appreciated.

 

John.

2 hours ago, Kris B said:
2 hours ago, clive_t said:

Absolutely bristling with fine detail, this is going to be a beast when it's painted! Can't wait for that to start! :)

Thanks Clive. The build will probably slow down a bit as I don't get back home until next week.

 

John.

 

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1 hour ago, PlaStix said:

Yet more stunning attention to detail John. Looking excellent! :thumbsup:

Kind regards,

Stix

Thanks Stix. I'm putting it on hold for a while and starting a mini WIP on a past build of mine.

 

John.

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49 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Thanks Stix. I'm putting it on hold for a while and starting a mini WIP on a past build of mine.

 

John.

No, no, no. Carry on. But if you really have to, how long that break gonna be? 

Edited by Kris B
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1 hour ago, Kris B said:

No, no, no. Carry on. But if you really have to, how long that break gonna be? 

That made me smile:smile:. I appreciate that Kris. I travel back home next Monday, but I have a load of medicals appointments so it will be a couple of weeks at least until I get back to building the Tiran, but I'm going to start another WIP about a model that I built a couple of years ago....an M50.

 

John.

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  • 2 months later...

Well, the couple of weeks break that I intended to have from this build has turned into 2 months! But I've been doing some work on the turret, and believe me, it's a mini build in itself.

The Tamiya turret is fairly well detailed, but I wanted to take it further. I started by removing the moulded on conduit for the infra red lamp, with a sharp scalpel blade and replaced it with some 40thou rod. The bracket for the lamp was beefed up with some card and strip plus I added the wiring for the lamp. Although the Blast Models' mantlet dust cover is good, I preferred the Tamiya one for three reasons. (1) It fitted better. (2) It already had the hole in the top for the .50 calibre mg and (3) It had the indentations for the lifting eye. Plus there was nothing wrong with it.

Instead of using the spare track links from the kit, which Tamiya would have you just glue them in place, even though they have no visible means of attachment, I used left over ones from the Fruilmodel set. The holes were drilled out and 20thou rod inserted. These were then super glued to the turret and attachment brackets added top and bottom from thin card.

The kit's grab rails were discarded in favour of 5mm brass wire bent to shape.

 

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The Blast Models set supplies hatches for Russian, Czech, Polish and East German

T-55's, so you end up with a lot of spares. To fit the loaders hatch for a Russian build, entails reaming out the existing hole to accept the insert. Once this is done, then it can be slid into place and tacked in with some CA glue.

The Voyager set supplies a brass bracket for the loaders 7.62mg. I managed to mess up the kit supplied pintle so I made a new one from plastic tube.

Around the back of the turret, I carved the moulded conduit for the anti collision light off and replaced it with 20thou rod.

 

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Down the centre of the turret, front and back are two square U shaped brackets along with six tie down points from the Voyager set. This is where the sections of aerial were stored in a canvas bag.

I preferred the Blast Models commanders hatch over the kit supplied item as it had better detail, especially on the inside, although, I'm not sure how much of that will be visible once the commander figure is in place. Both hatch covers were left off until after painting to avoid the inevitable damage.

 

ae67e5c4-1949-4bfb-bb02-03a23b8e2757.JPG  f59ce3ea-eaae-4eae-96df-522ce90521da.JPG

 

Along with the 60mm mortar, these photos show some more added etch brass, along with two more spare track links and another replacement grab rail. Thin stretched sprue was added around items like the lifting hooks, and then softened up with MEK and textured to represent weld beads.

 

366c8bf4-5740-440d-9adf-392f9de4a37b.JPG  4733a55f-1ea1-4d31-9ba5-3de9e16bfc69.JPG

 

That's the basis of the turret. Next up will be all of the add ons, and there are quite a few.

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

 

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Well, nice to see the Tiran back ... I was worrying a bit :P

 

Many nice details on the turret, very clean ! The spare track's links are top notch !

 

E

Edited by Etienne
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12 hours ago, Kris B said:

Good job with turret. 

 

11 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Nice to see this back on the bench, lovely clean work

Rob

 

8 hours ago, Carius said:

John, fantastic detailling overall.

You have excellent skills.

Cheers my friend :cheers::popcorn:

 

1 hour ago, Etienne said:

Well, nice to see the Tiran back ... I was worrying a bit :P

 

Many nice details on the turret, very clean ! The spare track's links are top notch !

 

E

Thanks very much everyone. It's good to get this one up and running again.

 

John.

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