Kiwidave4

Got to the point where I could not delay assembling the tracks any longer! First I sleeved the road wheels and idlers with styrene tube. I had the poly cap wheel retainers split on the first Chieftain I built in 2001 and have replaced the hub caps on all subsequent builds. This also ensures that the wheels have no 'wobble'. This build will have resin hub caps, but I have used squash moulded styrene as well. The Takom tracks just click together which is quite convenient but makes draping them over the sprockets and idlers a bit more difficult compared with the 'workable' type that use a pin. Got out my trusty hi-tech track jig and away we went. Fortunately there was very little clean up needed on the links. With the tracks assembled I was able to do a bit more work on the base to get the tracks to follow the contour. I have yet to fit the track pads which I will only use on the visible sections of track, and as usual I won't be bothering with a top run which will be behind the bazooka plates. The base then got a coat of brown primer while the hull acquired a card pattern for the turret ring blanking plate while I work out how to make it. The pattern has a join because my preferred pattern making material is business cards which are not big enough for this! I am also working away at modifying kit parts ready for assembly. The drivers hatch has benefitted from some extra detail. The commanders cupola is posing a bit of a problem. At present I have a selection of new and used parts that I am trying to adapt but it is looking like I will need to resort to some scratching as the cupola does not appear to have much in common with the gun tanks, although the hatch does seem to be the same.

I bought a nice sweater from a factory seconds outlet….... Its not perfect but you’d never notice that one of the sleeves is slightly longer than the other two.

Although I have gone bald I have kept my comb. I just can't part with it.

Slow progress due to life getting in the way plus a bit of brighter weather that allowed me to start painting the Conqueror Mk2. Mostly worked on the base. I usually tie my models to the base with wire run around a road wheel and through the base. With the terrain involved on this one I opted to build a couple of hard points into the base so I can use metal pins through the road wheels. With the anchors on place I could then finish of the basic shaping using Claycrete, and add some 'trim' to the outside of the base to pretty it up a bit. Hull work continued with the Mk5 style transmission deck. This involved creating a four part deck with a raised centre. Just happened to have some resin centre panels, which left me having to cut down the kit side panels to size and getting the bits all stuck together and installed. Once the deck was in place I could then join the hull upper to the hull lower, and add some sheet styrene to the underside of the track guards to fill the voids. Now I can work my way around the hull adding and /or modifying details as necessary.

A homeless guy is travelling down a country lane, tired and hungry he comes across a pub called the 'George and the Dragon'. Although it's late and the pub is closed, he knocks on the door. The innkeeper's wife sticks her head out a window. "Could I have some food?", he asks. The woman glances at his shabby clothes and obviously poor condition and sternly says, "No!" "Any chance of a pint of ale then?" "No!", she says again. "Could I at least sleep in your barn?" "No!" By this time, she was clearly getting very annoyed. The down and out says, "Okay then might I please...?" "What now?", the woman interrupts impatiently. "... might I please have a word with George?"

Another wooden ball! I do wish the makers of avocados would include a different toy.

The highlight of my holiday was a trip to the zoo. Spent some time watching an antelope. - I'd never seen an insect get married before.

Is it coincidental that the word 'diarrhoea' looks like you have lost control of your vowels?

Thanks for that. Not sure when the Wedge entered service, though the example I am building was a converted 3RTR gun tank before being 'retired' and converted. Wedge was primarily used for training drivers of non-gun tanks, - ARV, AVRE, AVLB, - and those were in service well into the nineties. The Willich AVRE were built in 1987, the Vickers variants in the early nineties. Dont know about the AVLB and ARV but assume a similar time frame, and they all served well into the 90's so crew would be in 80's - 90's gear.

Started work on the upper hull which needed some surgery. The wading rail had to be removed which was relatively straight forward. The only tricky bit was the portion alongside the engine decks which was close to the gun depression stop rail. To make access easier I decided to remove the stop rail, which also allows me to scratch replacements that will be more accurate. However I did make a bit of a pigs ear of what should have been an easy job and the hull now looks bit second hand. Good news is that the rear side bins will hide the damage once fitted! The transverse section of the stop rail also needed to go, and this was a bit fiddly as Tamiya moulded the outboard sections into the fuel tank access panels. I also cut out the transmission decks in preparation for upgrading to Mk5+ standard, filled the redundant holes on the glacis, and deleted the splash guard aft of the drivers periscope. As a change from the destruction wrought on the hull I started detailing the exhaust box. I have some resin exhaust pipes of the correct shape that will be going on. Have also been doing bits to the base which is quite a challenge for me as I usually make the simplest base I can get away with after I have finished the model. For the Wedge I have had to make the base in tandem with the model to get the tracks/suspension to match the base and to arrange the system to locate and hold the model in place. A package from Oz also arrived during the week! Looks like I have many hours of track bashing ahead of me!

As someone who regularly uses hard target pics as reference for the details that are often hidden on serviceable kit I am impressed with the weathering. You have really nailed it!

Thanks John. Just saw your post, the day started early with live viewing of the Austin MotoGP round and the rest of the day has not quite caught up!! Never heard of Scottcast and a quick search only brought me back to AMS. Main problem with it is my aversion to resin, the second problem is my aversion to spending money! Looks nicely cast, but that is the sort of thing that I would be inclined to scratch if I was really keen. Have had the Centurion ARV on my 'possibles' list for years, ever since I found a Military Modelling article which included a three view drawing, but it has never grabbed me enough to tackle it. Dave

Crazy Horse was a radio controlled Chieftain intended as a mobile target. The 'Armoured Archive' channel on Youtube has a video of it during trials.

Thanks Darryl. Its a turretless Chieftain intended for driver training. Dont know how many were built but its the sort of thing that appeals to me and I have enough info on it to be able to make a fair representation so lets see what materialises!

Kit turned up on Tuesday so it was not long before I had to get into it! This is my fifth Tamiya Chieftain so I know my way around and have some useful parts in the spares box as well. First job as always with this kit is filling the motorisation holes in the lower hull. Then I tackled the front suspension bogie. I needed to droop the suspension which is a little tricky given that the bogies are moulded as one piece. The options are some crude surgery or scratch building new units. As they are largely hidden, even with the front airborne, I saw no point in scratching, so waded in with the razor saw. First one went wrong straight away, but nowt that I could not save. The experience gained soon paid off on the second one which was very straightforward. Reassembly involved inserting a styrene rod pivot, jigging up the desired droop and applying liberal amounts of liquid cement. The shock absorber push rods were replaced with brass rod. Their mounting points were drilled out and the brass superglued in place to add strength to the whole assemble. The end result is at best 'semi scale', but it is barely visible and holds the wheels in the right place.

Our local Subway has a staff vacancy, They need someone to fill the role.

Thanks. My ref pics of Wedge are all from Tankfest, 05EB23. I think I probably have enough pics of it to make a reasonable representation. I have some detail pics of a Willich AVRE that help with the 'commanders' cupola/hatch and the turret ring plating. Crazy Horse may be a future project but this time around I found that the videos lacked definition and did not cover all angles, and my still collection is four shots that appear to be at Bovington. I am not very keen on the SID/PIP/FV4211 because they are too slab sided - and JadgChieftain for that matter. Thats why Challenger has never been of much interest to me either!

In recent years I have been questioning if my modelling days are over. Last year I finished off my Conqueror Mk1 build during lockdown some five or six years after I had started it, then this year I have completed the equally lengthy build of the Mk2 that is now awaiting the right weather conditions for painting. The last time I actually sat down and built a 'new' model from go to woah was the Gas Turbine Conqueror in 2018. So with the Conqueror sitting in its pre-paint box awaiting the day when I can start slopping paint on I started to wonder if that was finally it. Apparently not! I have a soft spot for Chieftains and recently I accidentally found a You Tube video on Crazy Horse. That started me thinking that maybe I could build one, but when I researched further I also found some pics of the Wedge, and in fact found more views of the Wedge than I had of Crazy Horse. That got me thinking that maybe a Wedge might just be the thing to keep me modelling a while longer. Found a Tamiya kit online at a model shop at my end of the Island and ordered it. When it did not turn up I chased to shop and eventually discovered that it had been sent to the wrong address....as in a different town! So while it is touring the lower half of the North Island I thought I would make a start on the base. Because of the shape of the base I want to use I need it before the build so I can 'droop' the suspension to fit. The base must also provide a secure means of attaching the model so I need to have the base before I build the running gear to get everything lined up. I used a piece of veneered MDF as the base, then built up a form with 80 thou styrene which will also give me a strong anchor for the model. I filled the voids with expanded polystyrene which will eventual be covered with Claycrete paper mâché. Having got that far I really needed to sneak preview of what the finished article might look like so needed a Chieftain. Fortunately I just happen to have one that I had prepared earlier! These pics show the need for the suspension tweaks. I have ordered a set of individual link tracks to facilitate the suspension droop, but have yet to work out just how I will modify the Tamiya suspension units which are each moulded in one piece. Some delicate surgery may be required. The tracks are coming from Oz so may be some time yet...they have already spent seven days at Melbourne airport. So looks like I am back in at the deep end!

When I told my flooring contractor I didn’t want carpeted steps, he gave me a blank stare.

I bought an alcoholic ginger beer last night. He wasn't happy.

The local petrol station has banned me because they said I was playing 'The Who' too loudly on my car stereo. Well, I won't get fuelled again.

Somehow managed to plod on with the resin tracks even though I really felt like throwing the lot in the bin. Having got the individual links cleaned up I made the short sections that wrap around the idler and sprockets. Relatively easy to do on the idlers but a bit tricky at the sprockets. The Cromwell track has different dimensions to the AA track so the sprocket teeth do not align with the track holes. That was in fact the least of my problems. The AA sprockets are not round, the two halves do not align, the teeth are of varying thickness and the distance between inner and outer faces varies around the circumference. Much huffing and puffing ensued and eventually I got a usable track. the idler section is attached to the run as it can be slipped in from the front, but the sprocket section is separate until final assembly after painting. Most of the small detail parts were safely stored awaiting this stage of the build. The exceptions were the AA PE headlight guards and the tow cable clips which were still on their fret. The guards were straight forward, but I had a bit of a senior moment with the clips. For reasons that are not immediately obvious I removed the unbent clips from the fret prior to annealing. Not a major problem if I had done what I usually do and annealed them by holding each one individually in a candle flame. Instead I got out the small propane torch my son-in-law had given me. Confusion set in as I watched the first clip disappear before my eyes as it melted and brazed my tweezers closed. Of course that's the sort of mistake that one only makes once - so when the second clip vaporised I realised it was time for plan B. But first I had to find some suitable brass strip to make two more clips from! The rear left corner of the model is a good example of its mixed parentage. AA upper hull, scratch built side skirts, Cromwell Models pioneer tools with some scratch detailing, and Amusing Hobby spare track links, also with scratch enhancement. Hung all the parts together for a photo shoot and now I will box it up awaiting painting weather. Still have the base to sort out, so far its just a bit of primed MDF - not sure if I should do something creative and maybe add a figure or two. So hopefully my next post will be in RFI!

After a long struggle with Diarrhoea and, then with Hypercholesterolemia, I finally won the village spelling contest.

Thanks John. These days my geriatric digestive system can't cope with curries. My wife tells me it was Peter Gordon recipe, 'Fish poached in creamy leeks, ginger and saffron', though she uses turmeric as it is somewhat more affordable. We have it often and it is very nice with a local Sauv Blanc!

Finally got all the track links cleaned up and started gluing together the links to go round the idlers and sprockets. I have quite a bit to do on the underside...tracks, bazooka plate fitting, refit the road wheel I broke off, etc, .... so decided I could do with some way to hold the hull. A dig around in the workshop turned up a bit of scrap wood and some miscellaneous bits that were good for starters. Then I raided the pantry and found a tin of coconut milk that was just the size to complete the ensemble! SWMBO obligingly produced a dinner menu to use the tins contents and I was in business. Used in conjunction with my machine vice it will hold the hull vertically, either side or end.