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M31 Recovery Vehicle


Andy Moore

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Sorry for the lack of updates. It's been a hectic week, but I have managed to squeeze in a bit of work. The rear stowage bins are finished and ready to be mounted on the hull. I sliced off the moulded latches on the lids and replaced them with thin strips of styrene. I cut a slot in them and added a loop of wire onto which I threaded some PE padlocks I found on an old photo etch sheet. The padlocks looked a bit 2 dimensional, so I stuck a small square of styrene on the back of the lock section to thicken them up a bit

 

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Looking at the pictures now, it looks like the sprue gate has left a bit of a scar which will probably need a smear of filler

 

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I've had to rework the rear roller bracket, as I'd originally mounted the supports for the crane frame too far inwards. Fortunately, the supports snapped off without damage, and I've re-attached them closer to the ends of the bracket

 

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I've also started to build up the crane itself. The initial assembly is quite fiddly to get together, as the two arms are only held together by a few small bars at one end, and a single cable wheel at the other. Once you get the cross braces on though, it gets sturdier

 

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The kit supplies some spare sprocket faces to mount on the top of the crane arm, but there's no real way of attaching them, other than to just glue them directly to the arms. A quick check with some ref pics showed that the real one had several pins welded to the cross braces to hold the spare sprockets in place.

 

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That was an easy enough modification to do. I just drilled holes in the braces and glued some short lengths of wire in them. The sprocket faces now simply drop over the pins

 

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One other thing I've been working on is the crew door. The M31 had the main gun removed and a fake barrel added in its place. The gun mantlet was then replaced by an entry hatch. The hatch in the kit isn't designed to be posed open though

 

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I thought it might be fun to mount the door slightly ajar. I won't be able to fully open it since there's no interior, but having it just cracked open would add a bit of interest to the model. The door itself will need some modification though. The flange down the opening side should actually be on the hull, so that needs cutting off. The hinge tabs will also need removing, and replacing at a different angle. All the moulded bits on the back need removing too

 

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The real thing looks like it had some kind of frame around the back of the door, and a fire extinguisher mounted there too. I've got a suitable extinguisher, but since the door will only be open a crack, it probably won't be worth adding it

 

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I sliced the flange part from the door, and attached it to the hull. Looking at the photo of the real thing, it should really be set back further from the edge of the hatch opening. I've had to attach it closer to the edge as that's where it needs to be the line up with the edge of the door. I guess that Takom got the proportions of the door or hatch slightly out. Probably wasn't seen as important since the door wasn't designed to open anyway. I'm not too bothered about it either. It'll hardly show up at the end

 

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On the door part, the hinge tabs were cut off, and the detail on the back removed. I'll re-skin the back with styrene sheet to hide the hole for the barrel and tidy up the finish. Again though, not much of it will be seen.

 

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As for the barrel itself, Takom supply a new one with this kit, but it looks pretty much the same as the regular one that comes with the M3 kit, and has a taper towards the muzzle. Looking at various photos of real M31's, it seems like some had tapered fake barrels, while others had straight ones. You also see some that have quite large dents and knocks on them, so they were probably made from pretty thin tube. I think I'll swap mine for a straight version, since I think it would reinforce the fact that it was a fake. That way I'll be able to make it from thin-walled styrene tube and add some dents to it as well.

 

Andy:cat:

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1 hour ago, Nigel Heath said:

How exactly did you add the cast texture and weld beads?

Both are fairly simple to do Nigel. The texture is Mr Surfacer stippled on with an old brush. I gave it a light sand when it was dry to remove any peaks and rough areas.

The weld beads are stretched sprue, cut to length then glued in place with Tam extra thin. I give it a few minutes for the cement to soften the stetched sprue then press the tip of a needle file into it to give it the weld texture.

 

Andy:cat:

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13 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Coming along just fine. I'd leave that blemish on the lid of the stowage box and call it damage, and just wipe a little bit of rust onto it once it's painted.

Thanks John. To be honest, the scar isn't really visible to the naked eye. Just a bane of the macro lens

 

Andy:cat:

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Just a quick update.

I've been waiting for some copper sheet to be delivered to make the lids for the stowage boxes, and it finally turned up yesterday. Since I was off work this morning, I thought I'd have a bash at making them. I'd originally ordered some 0.5mm sheet thinking that it would be amply thin enough to bend to the shape I wanted, but that turned out to be stiff enough to make a diving board. Copper's a lot harder than you imagine.

Anyway, I ordered some more, this time 0.1mm thick, and that's what arrived yesterday. This sheet's turned out to be perfect for what I'd got in mind. I cut two pieces about 1.5mm larger on each side than the top of the styrene boxes I'd previously made. I scored lines to mark the actual box dimensions, then cut out the corners. Then it was just a matter of using a hold and fold to bend each side in. I was expecting all this to be quite tricky, but it went far smoother than I'd imagined. It only took about 10 minutes to make the two lids

 

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The lid on the front box fits perfectly, but the one on the top box is a bit tight, which is causing the sides of the lid to splay out slightly. I was going to have one of the lids removed anyway, so I'll either do that with the top box or just make a new lid that's slightly larger. I'll probably give the lids a few dents as well

 

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Andy:cat:

 

 

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4 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

Just a quick update.

I've been waiting for some copper sheet to be delivered

Anyway, I ordered some more, this time 0.1mm thick, and that's what arrived yesterday. This sheet's turned out to be perfect for what I'd got in mind.

 

Hmm, interesting, might need to look out for some copper sheet :hmmm:

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17 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I'd go with what you have fella, the open top box is convincingly placed and it kinda leads the viewer to want to know what might be in other, drawing them in.  B)

 

Too late, I've already made a new one :D I'll probably still leave the top one off though, so it hasn't made a lot of difference.

 

5 hours ago, Foghorn Leghorn said:

Hmm, interesting, might need to look out for some copper sheet :hmmm:

 

The sheet I used was pretty cheap from ebay, and a reasonable size too. It's thin enough to cut with scissors but rigid enough to hold its shape after it's been folded.

 

Andy:cat:

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That's a beautiful build Andy, though it looks like a lot of work.

 

10 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

Copper's a lot harder than you imagine.

This may be a silly question, but ... Did you try annealing it?

 

The other questuion is where do you get your copper?  The place I use offers C106 strip 0.3mm thick

 

{edit}Just saw you have access to thinner metal{/edit}

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16 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

The sheet I used was pretty cheap from ebay, and a reasonable size too. It's thin enough to cut with scissors but rigid enough to hold its shape after it's been folded.

 

Yeah, I found similar on ebay when I had a quick look, dirt cheap too. As it comes in a roll is it easy to get it to stay flat?

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1 hour ago, Foghorn Leghorn said:

As it comes in a roll is it easy to get it to stay flat?

I was initially a bit worried about that when it arrived, but it turned out not to be a problem for the box lids, as they're small enough not to be affected. The folded corners helped remove any slight curvature too.

It might be more of an issue if you need to make a large flat panel, but even then some light rolling in the opposite direction should get it to lay flat.

 

Andy:cat:

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It's starting to come together a little more now. I've got the first bit of rigging on the crane, although it required some modification to the kit parts to fit the cable

 

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There are two plates that are glued to either side of the jib and they have small moulded pins which trap the cable ends whilst still allowing them some degree of articulation (as long as you're careful with the glue). I wasn't that keen on this approach though, as it would mean installing the cable at the same time as the plates which all seemed way too fiddly. There are also two other pins moulded on the plates to trap the crane support arms in place, so they would also need to be attached at the same time.

I decided it would be easier to chop off the moulded pins and drill holes where they had been. That way I could glue the plates on, then once they'd set add the cable ends and secure them with short lengths of wire pushed through the holes I'd drilled

 

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The support arms will be pinned on in the same way through the second set of holes. I'll then block off the holes with bolt heads

 

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At the other end of the jib, the cable has to loop around a pulley. Trouble is Takom have you assemble the pulley completely before telling you to thread the cable through it. The cable is a bit too thick to push through though, plus it has to be threaded inside two guide pins. In hindsight, the best way to do this would be to add the cable while the pulley is being assembled.

What I did here was cut off the two guide pins and ream out the gap at the back of the pulley so the cable could push through more easily. Once the cable was threaded around the pulley, I drilled holes through the top and bottom plates where the guide pins had been, then pushed some thin copper wire through them. Like the pins at the other end of the jib, I'll finish these off with some bolt heads

 

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The hull and turret are just about done now. There are a few small details to add here and there, and I'll need to decide what additional stowage I need to add now before painting, and what I'll add at the end. I'm leaving the hatches off for now as I've got some Miniart figures on the way and I'm not sure where they'll be going yet. The gun hatch is just temporarily attached at the moment but this is approximately where it will be, just slightly open

 

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The replacement fake gun barrel is just a length of styrene tube with a drilled styrene disc on the end. I've added a large dent to the side, but it's hard to see in the photos

 

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I've lightly drilled out a row of holes where the door hinges would have been, then roughly filled them in. Hopefully they should just be slightly visible under the paint

 

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Shouldn't be long now before I can start getting some paint on it.

 

Andy:cat:

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Hewy said:

Your nailing this, nice work on the jib, and i like the dents in the box lid, and fake barrel 

Thanks Glynn. Hopefully the dents will show up better with a bit of paint and some retrained chipping

 

22 minutes ago, Hockeyboy76 said:

Great work Andy. What did you use as the cable?

It's actually the one that comes with the kit. I normally find the cables included with kits to be a bit poor, but this one's pretty good. You get a piece long enough for the above bit plus the main winch cable, but it'll only reach to the end of the jib. I want to run the winch cable further down and hook it to the towing eye, so I'll have to use some aftermarket cable for that.

 

Andy:cat:

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