Kallisti Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 (edited) My entry for this GB will be one of these: © Andrew Chittock ( http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-a-fv1...w-chittock.html ) Used here only for reference. To do this I will be using these components: AFV Club Scimitar Castoff Models LEP resin upgrade Eduard Etch for Scimitar Fruijmodels tracks Black Dog AFV Crew in Afghanistan Accurate Armour AFC Crew (Modern) and for the Bar Armour I will be using: Photo etch bar armour from Accurate Armour Challenger 2 Iraq upgrade My own scale plans for bar armour layout Accurate Armour beer cans and water bottles and extra stowage Echelon CRV(T) mirrors Some of you may be holding your hands up in horror at what I plan to do with what is normally a very expensive accessory set - the AA Challenger 2 armour upgrade usually goes for £65, but I was very lucky to get this set off eBay for about £25 earlier this year since it has some of the resin armour for the chally missing. I didn't care about that all I wanted was the PE! I haven't yet seen anyone build with the Castoff Models Resin set, but I doubt if I will be the first, but it looks good and should be interesting! So that will be my simple little build... piece of cake! Edited July 9, 2012 by Kallisti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 Looks a good bit of cake Im looking farward to the armour builds some thing new for me . Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaintsPhil Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 Nice to see some armour joining this GB! I'd toyed with the idea of trying an armour build but decided to play it safe! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 9, 2012 Author Share Posted July 9, 2012 The big problem with armour in Afghanistan is the bar armour! I would love to see Accurate Armour produce a generic bar armour set to allow you to mount it on whatever vehicle requires it - lets face it, even the lorries have bar armout on the cabs over there now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 14, 2012 Author Share Posted July 14, 2012 So its the 14th and work has begin. Small steps as yet - starting on the bar armour as this is one of the critical parts of the model. If I can't get this right I will probably have to abandon it and just go for an earlier LEP Scimitar without bar armour, which would be a shame. Onwards and upwards! First was to get a plan for the bar armour. For this I used a variety of photos and had to do some clever photoshopping to adjust for perspective on some to be abel to get measurements. I guess I could take a trip down to Bovington and actually measure the one they have on display there! Anyway, its possible to get a reasonably accurate layout from the photos I have found so here is the scale size for the various pieces: Well thats a great start, so how about making it? As shown in the sprue shots, I've got the PE from the Accurate Armour Chally set. Now the first problem that appears is it looks like the vertical bars on the Chally are spaced further apart than on the Scimitar: So I have a choice: 1) Fill existing holes and drill new ones for the closer spaced bars 2) Use the Challenger spacing and have a slightly less accurate representation of the bar armour. I still haven't decided which to go for, however knowing my history (remember the missile pods on the Aliens Dropship?) I won't necessarily go for the easiest option... sigh Anyway, that aside, lets start building some of the sections: This is letting the CY dry while I give my eyes a rest. I've had to trim pieces to fit and add extra bends. The PE set comes with weak spots already set for bends, which I am using wherever its possible, but the Scimitar sections are of course different sizes so other bends and trims are required. In the photo you see the two spacer jigs the PE set supplies to help get the bar spacing correct. This is the progress so far, going to take a break now. May sit down in front of the telly this evening and start on the Fruijmodel tracks as well. I've still got a few episodes of Mad Men to watch and of course there is always Leverage as well 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngloSaxon Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 That's some work you have ahead of you! Look forward to seeing it finished Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 16, 2012 Author Share Posted July 16, 2012 (edited) Well made some progress yesterday and came to some uncomfortable conclusions... First however, I did manage to complete the Fuilmodel tracks and had a very pleasant evening watching Mad Men and Leverage while doing so Here is a photo: So the uncomfortable conclusion... trying to make the Scimitar bar armour from the Challenger PE is not going to work for several reasons: 1) the spacing of the vertical bars - fixing that is going to require filling in the existing holes and redrilling the correct holes. I tried fitting the bars in the existing holes and it just doesn't look right - see the photo above. 2) there isn't enough bar armour in the PE to do all the armour on the Scimitar. The Chally only has the bar armour on the rear of the hull, whereas the Scimitar has it all the way around the hull and 2/3 round the turret. There is a lot more bar armour on a Scimitar. So what do I do? Well I've been out onto the web and found that Evergreen do plastic strips 1.5mm wide and 0.25mm thick. This should work for the bars and some 0.5mm brass rod should be suitable for the vertical bars. Looks like I'm going to scratch build the whole lot... omfg I must be INSANE!!!!!!!!!!1111!!! In the meantime, I will proceed with the rest of the build while the bar armour materials arrive. There is plenty of resin to play with for the main part of the build! Onwards and sideways... Edited July 16, 2012 by Kallisti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaintsPhil Posted July 17, 2012 Share Posted July 17, 2012 Wow you have the patients of a Saint! I'd have hurled it against the wall by now... Reading down your post I was going to suggest some plasticard strip, or have you considered Albion Alloys they have a good range of brass strip, might be stronger? Keep going though! Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 17, 2012 Author Share Posted July 17, 2012 Don't think strength is an issue here. I went with plastic because it will be easier to drill the holes for the vertical bars and will be easier to glue (I think!) I went into this knowing it was an experiment, so when it doesn't work its just something that happens, you then look for an alternative approach - thats the way it is with scratch building things, there are no instructions you are making it up as you go along and sometimes it just doesn't work out and you have to start again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Good luck with this looks a big job Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 18, 2012 Author Share Posted July 18, 2012 Yesterday was spent working on the hull and roadwheels. The resin requires you to cut away the existing skirt from the lower hull: I added a couple of strips of plasticard to give the joint with the resin upper hull a more positive location. The roadwheels were assembled but I didn't bother taking a photo and I began my research into the colour scheme to use (see another thread on the forum). Then today, several packages arrived, including the 1.5mm x 0.25mm Evergreen strip and the 0.5mm diam brass rod. This means I can have another go at the bar armour! So I started cutting the strip and found that it is very difficult to handle since its so small. I realised that with the strips so narrow, getting the holes drilled in the right place on each piece might be a bit tricky. I also realised from experimentation that getting all the strips to be EXACTLY the same length was tricky and if they aren't all the same length, aligning and fixing the two side bars is very hard! So I decided to build myself a jig to hold all the strips for a particular piece of bar armour together and then build drilling templates for each piece as the spacing seems to vary! So here it is: What you see here is 16 strips which comprise all the horizontal bars for the sides of the turret, the same pieces I tried to make using the brass earlier. They are all stacked and I was able to use a sharp knife to trim the ends to make sure they are all the same length. Above it is the template for the drilling, made from two more strips that have been glues together to be a bit more robust. This then gets laid down above the stack and the drill applied. I've found that its not a good idea to try to do more than 8 at a time because the drill can go a bit astray the further down the stack it travels. I'm going to have to get another pack of evergreen strips - this one came with 10 strips, each about 14" long, but in my experiments I've already used up 4 of them! It takes one complete strip to furnish the 8 horizontal bars in this pice and some of the other segments are longer and have more bars! Well at least it isn't horrendously expensive stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christof Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 looking interesting. Your braver than me to try scratch building the bar armour. I take my hat off to you there. I'll follow this build. Christof Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 19, 2012 Author Share Posted July 19, 2012 (edited) Stopped off at Modelzone at lunchtime and picked up some 0.5mm thick strip to make the outer frames which seems to do the trick - makes the frame quite sturdy and is barely noticable. As a result, here is the first complete bar armour panel: Sadly some for the bars are a bit wonkey, but this is my first attempt with this new technique. Had some issues getting the holes drilled in the right places as well. That will require some considerable car, as well as aligning the bars correctly in the first place. After this I beleive I can do it, but it will take time and patience... oh boy! Edited July 19, 2012 by Kallisti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 Nice work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 Nice one Mate looking forward to this build Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deacon Posted July 21, 2012 Share Posted July 21, 2012 Wonky bars mate! Do me a favour, what you have achieved so far is great, and surely wonky bars would be a result of 'wear & tear'? Looking good sir! Deacon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 22, 2012 Author Share Posted July 22, 2012 Some progress, a decision and some bad news today! First the progress: left the bar armour for a bit and continued working on the main hull. Got the suspension arms onto the hull and joined the upper and lower pieces of the hull. This required a little bit of trimming on the front towing eyes to get them to fit with the updated front segment. Bit of filler was required around the joints, but no more than you'd expect when fitting resin to plastic. The upper and lower hull joint was tricky and I was glad I had the foresight to add guides to the lower hull. There was an up to 1mm gap along the side of the hull joints, which I filled with Mr Dissolved Putty, which did the trick. Next I fitted the two outer stowage bins that sit on the front skirt. I decide not to use the headlights that come with the resin since I have the PE set and that has a very nice set of headlamp cover that go with the kit headlamps. You can see them here: Next was adding the armour panels. Now these are very finely cast in resin, but there is quite a bit of work as you need to open up all the tiny holes in the plate: As you can see this is quite a delicate and intricate process. Its not helped by varying thicknesses of the resin and you are limited in what you can do as the resin is so thin and there is a raised outer edge so you can't sand it easily. I found a combination f a sewing needs and some thin wire did the trick, although I did have a breakage in one panel. This is that they look like when attached: and you can see the breakage. It was at this point I discovered the bad news... it looks like I don't have all the pieces in the resin set from CastOff. I appear to be missing the large side panels that are moulded onto the stowage bins on the back portion of each side of the hull, PLUS one that is in the middle of the left side. I've checked back to the photo at the top of the page and these pieces do not show up there - they would be quite large so quite obvious. So I've written to the guys at CastOff asking if they can send me the missing pieces. This means I'm stuck at this point of the build, can't progress the hull any further. This means I WILL be returning to the bar armour soon than I thought. Finally, the decision... a trip to Bovington is in order, so I can see close up a bar-armoured Scimitar. Most importantly I want to see how the bar armour is attached. The photos I have collected don't show it very clearly, so I though the obvious thing to do would be to go and visit one in the flash as it were! Its a 2 hour trip either way (so says Google Maps) so I could easily do it in a day and have plenty of time at the museum to look at other stuff. I haven't visited that place since I was a teenager! I think I might strike while the iron is hot and go tomorrow... fingers crossed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Nice work, shame about the missing pieces. I would love to get to Bovington again it's been a while Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Hope you have a good trip looking forward to the pic`s Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 22, 2012 Author Share Posted July 22, 2012 (edited) Well that was a fun trip Sunny day, drive through the countryside and a visit to a tank museum at the end of it! I'll post some photos later, still sorting through, but it was a very useful visit. I took my tape measure as well so got some essential measurements. Thank god I did as well because I discovered my plans were wrong. My plans showed different spacings for the vertical bars on different panels, whereas in reality they are constant at 11 inches. Funny thing is, next to the Scimitar is a Warthog and the spacing on its bar armour was 14 inches, so it isn't totally standardized! Another interesting thing is the Scimitar at Bovington in the Afghan section isn't actually a Scimitar - the top hull looks like a Scorpion - ie it has bolted engine covers rather than the covers with handles that appeared on later Scimitars, see here: It also doesn't have the Up-armoured armour plates, just the bar armour bolted onto the hull. That sort of makes sense as I can imagine that stuff not being cheap and so why waste it on a museum piece! However, it was still a very useful trip as I got so see how the bar armour is attached to the hull so will be able to reproduce that when the time comes. Sadly the wallet took a bit of a pounding as I used up half a tank of petrol and also bought the AFV Club Centurion Mk 5/6 from the museum shop... oh dear I shouldn't have done that... Edited July 22, 2012 by Kallisti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted July 22, 2012 Share Posted July 22, 2012 Good Recon then Bud looks if your going to have fun Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) Not much progress to report I'm afraid, been a bit distracted by other things. However on Monday I did spend the evening drawing up the new plans for the bar armour only to discover right at the end that I'd got the measurement wrong in a fundamental part. The corner panels are 14" wide on the outside but 11" wide on the inside because the two vertical edges are bevelled at 45% to go around the corners. So I drew the panel as 14" wide, then used this panel as the basis for the other pieces, forgetting to shrink it to 11" wide before I did! So that was an entire evening's work wasted! I started again this morning using the correct 11" wide panels and will complete that this evening when I get home and maybe get some building done! Sadly I still haven't heard anything from Cast Off about the missing pieces. When I read the reviews of this set there was also mention of some PE along with the resin and I don't appear to have that either maybe they are on holiday or something... just got to keep my fingers crossed and get on with building the bar armour I guess! Oh I almost forgot, I did upload my photos of the Bovington Scimitar and you can see them in my Gallery here: http://www.mardona.org/gallery/v/afghan_sc...ngton_scimitar/ Edited July 25, 2012 by Kallisti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) At last, something to report and show! Another session in front of Photoshop drawing up the plans. This time I think I've got them right, and to prove it I printed them out and mocked it up with the paper. First though, here are the scaled plans and click here for the full size one which should print out at the right scale I thought it would be a relatively easy thing to do, just draw it up in the full size as I measured it and then scale it down by a factor of 35. Well it didn't quite work out that way, however with some trial and a considerable amount of error, this is what I got: So now I'm back in the position of being able to fondle some plastic again... Edited July 25, 2012 by Kallisti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 Now that's clever... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 There`s a lot to this Armour lark, good luck Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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