Every Vally Shall Be Exalted - The Valentine Tank Family Vol.1 - Finished

[Bertie McBoatface]

Contents

Valentine Prototype (Conversion from Tamiya Mk.II)... ... ... ... Page 1

Archer on the Range (Diorama with Tamiya Archer Mk.I) ... ... Page 6

Austin 10HP Utility Vehicle (Tamiya) ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . Page 17

AEC Mk.1 Armoured Car (OOB simple build)... ... ... ... ... ... ... . Page 23

Turretless Cypriot Mk.2 with improvised armour... ... ... .... ... . 

 

And in Volume 2, whenever that may be:

New Zealand Water Bowser?

Rocket Propelled Obstacle Jumper?

Scorpion Flail Tank?

Indian Army Driver Training Vehicle?

Bridgelayer?

Flamethrower Tanks?

Mortar Carrier?

Observation Post?

Etc?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

The Valentine Infantry Tank

 

The 'Vally' has been described as the simplest, the most workmanlike, the most versatile, and the most reliable of the British tanks. It was the only one in development at the outbreak of the conflict that was still in service with front line combat units at its end. It was successful as an infantry tank, its intended role, but also as a cruiser. It was employed as  training tank and as the basis for some fascinating variants. It was regarded with affection by those who served in it.  

 

More tanks and their derivatives were produced during WWII on the Valentine tank platform than on any other. Over 8000 Valentines and variants were manufactured  and saw service across North Africa and Italy; through France into Germany; from India to Burma; New Zealand to Guadalcanal and Russia to Berlin. After the war, Valentines served in several armies as late as 1960.

 

 

Despite this glorious history, the Vally has been in the shadow of more famous AFVs for a long time. It's a typically British unsung hero. I only learned of the machine a couple of years ago when I saw the 2017 Tamiya kit on the shelves. Since then I've bought some books and kits, and decided to build a group of Valentines here in a WIP as a long, slow project.

 

There will be gaps between each build when I take breaks to build other things. However, when I'm working on a Vally build, I find that I post updates quite often.

 

Your contributions, suggestions and encouragement are always most welcome. The thread tends to digress quite a bit at times but you can always scroll down to the next lot of photographs if the conversations get tedious.

 

[Model Mate]

You’ll get no bashing from me - I thoroughly enjoy your build threads, however rambling they get, and this sounds like a doozy - looking forward to it immensely!

[PF Naughton]

Hi,

I am looking forward to this.  I find the Valentine to be a fascinating vehicle.

Pat

[f matthews]

I went down the Vally rabbit hole a few years back and built the Bronco Mk. IX, then the Tamiya Mk. II/IV and an AFV Mk. I.  I’m currently building an AFV Mk. II (I did my Tamiya as a Mk. IV).  I’m sticking to gun tanks though and have an AFV Mk. III and a Bronco Mk. XI still in the stash to do.  They’re ugly, but cool little tanks.  In a related subject, I also did some Bronco and Gecko A10s (and a couple of Gecko A9s that are still unfinished) because they had the same suspension pretty much.

I’ll be following your thread for sure!

[Hamden]

 

I'm in for this one having had the privilege of working on/with Bovington's running example in  the past

For inspiration here's a picture of the only remaining DD variant 

 

 

 

Looking forward to watching this grow

 

  Stay safe           Roger

[PlaStix]

Great idea for a project Bertie. I will look out for your New Year update!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Vaastav]

This looks interesting, may I pull up a chair and follow along

[Bertie McBoatface]

On 12/11/2021 at 10:53 PM, Model Mate said:

You’ll get no bashing from me - I thoroughly enjoy your build threads, however rambling they get, and this sounds like a doozy - looking forward to it immensely!

 

So am I, Mate. It's new and interesting territory for me.

 

On 12/12/2021 at 1:50 AM, PF Naughton said:

Hi,

I am looking forward to this.  I find the Valentine to be a fascinating vehicle.

Pat

 

Same here, PF. I like the variations and the fact that it's relatively unknown.

 

On 12/12/2021 at 4:09 AM, f matthews said:

I went down the Vally rabbit hole a few years back and built the Bronco Mk. IX, then the Tamiya Mk. II/IV and an AFV Mk. I.  I’m currently building an AFV Mk. II (I did my Tamiya as a Mk. IV).  I’m sticking to gun tanks though and have an AFV Mk. III and a Bronco Mk. XI still in the stash to do.  They’re ugly, but cool little tanks.  In a related subject, I also did some Bronco and Gecko A10s (and a couple of Gecko A9s that are still unfinished) because they had the same suspension pretty much.

I’ll be following your thread for sure!

 

That's a good idea F, the A10 is certainly worth considering here as a direct precursor to the Valentine.

 

On 12/12/2021 at 6:40 PM, PlaStix said:

Great idea for a project Bertie. I will look out for your New Year update!

Kind regards,

Stix

 

It will be earlier than that, Stix, now that the Mk.V  project is concluded

 

On 12/13/2021 at 3:30 AM, Vaastav said:

This looks interesting, may I pull up a chair and follow along

 

Please do Vaastav, I am planning a curious Indian variant or two, later in the sequence, just wait and see!

 

 

[ColonelKrypton]

This is starting to look like another interesting topic to follow along.

 

The Valentine is another of my many favourites in part as it was license built in Canada. A total of just of 1400 most of which were sent to the Soviet Union. 

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

27 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

This is starting to look like another interesting topic to follow along.

 

The Valentine is another of my many favourites in part as it was license built in Canada. A total of just of 1400 most of which were sent to the Soviet Union. 

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

 

 

I know. It was a Canadian Vally kit that reduced my current account funds to a whopping zero pounds and seven pence a couple of days ago. I’m really hoping it will have the welded nose. 
 

And the Russians loved them, probably for the reliability/simplicity of the design I’d say. Some say that a Vally was the first allied tank into Berlin. And on that bombshell, good night!

[Bertie McBoatface]

I decided to ease into this project as gently as possible with the Tamiya Mk.II/IV gun tank.

 

 

In the top left corner of the box it says British Infantry Tank Mk.III. This isn’t a mistake. British tank ‘families’ of this period were each given mark numbers, the Valentines are the Mk.III coming after the Matildas which were the Mk.II Infantry Tank. Within each family, significant modifications were identified by mark numbers which were identically formatted to the ‘family’ numbers. It’s easy to get confused! In practice, the soldiers just referred to them as Vallys or Matildas etc which is what I’ll do.

 

There are three finishing options illustrated in the kit but of course, the possible variations are manifold. I like that tanks tend not to have conspicuous markings and would rarely bother myself which unit any particular model was supposed to represent. Therefore, there’s not much need for aftermarket decals as with aircraft. I have reference books with many photos and profiles and though they only show a partial view of the tank in question, that’s enough of a guide for me. (I suspect that many three view drawings in kits and books are based on only one view in a picture, with the rest done by educated guesswork.)

 

This particular kit is a delight to build and I’m likely to do a few more of it, in ‘different clothes’. This will be the solid foundation for some of the weirder variants and experimental prototypes. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see how many different paint jobs were applied in the North Africa campaign, and I must have a go at the Malta stonework camouflage. Many Valentines were supplied to the Russians too so when desert hues begin to bore me, there’s a whole other world of greens (and whites).

 

 

#########################################################################################

 

A brief digression here to give proper credit to my reference books.

 

 

British Battle Tanks: British Made Tanks of World War II. Osprey, 2017. The book is by the marvellous David Fletcher of the Bovington Tank Museum (see his hilarious ‘Tank Chats’ on YouTube) but the Valentine chapter is by Bruce Oliver Newsome PhD. This is a general introduction but full of detail, photos and profiles. I’ll refer to this book as BBT

 

 

Into The Vally: The Valentine Tank and Derivatives 1938 -1960 Stratus, 2012, Dick Taylor. This is nearly 200 pages of everything a modeller needs to know about the Valentine. Drawings, photos, profiles, tables, clear text, lovely. It’s a paperback but the binding is stitched so it will take a lot of punishment in my hands in the coming months. I’ll refer to this book as ITV

 

I’ll be using both of these excellent books a lot but it would be unfair to reproduce them at length or copy photographs as they are both still in print.

 

#########################################################################################

 

 

Back to the kit. The engineering of the Tamiya Valentine is superb. It was released in 2017. Their recent models are often described disparagingly as “fall-together” or “shake-and-bake” kits, but I for one have no objection to something that does what it says on the box; it really is a “Ready To Assemble Precision Model Kit” and that’s just what I like. Some care is needed in cleaning up sprue attachment points because the assembly tolerances are so tight, but apart from that, follow the instructions and it’s hard to make a fatal error (but not impossible – see below). It’s worth following the instructions as the build sequence is often critical. It has been cleverly designed and uses many cunning ways to build up the complicated shape of the Vally and it’s easy to sabotage oneself by casually disregarding instructions. There’s still room to do it your own way if you prefer, but you’d have to be careful.

 

This kit is billed as a Mk.II and Mk.IV (British built, diesel engined, 2 pounder gun with BESA coax mg). The Mks.II and IV are externally identical differing only in their engines, Mk.II used a four stroke diesel, and the Mk.IV was powered by a two stroke diesel. The petrol engined Mk.I is almost a spitting image too, with minor detail changes. And the prototype is also similar and so even at this stage in my project, I have many possible ways to finish this first kit, without major modifications.

 

 

The hull was completed in a single session. At one point I dropped a piece and it actually did fall into place and so well that I could barely see the join. It’s a small vehicle with a crew of only three; commander and gunner in the turret and driver in the hull. I should be able to display quite a few of these in my limited display case.

 

 

You see what I mean about the complicated shapes of the Vally

 

My second build session was devoted to the suspension. My advice here is not to relax just because it’s a Tamiya kit. There are still opportunities for Murphy’s Law to operate – “if it’s possible to assemble something incorrectly, soon or later someone will”.

 

 

The spring unit can be mis-installed not only end for end but 180 degrees out axially as well. I made both errors but corrected them before the glue set.

 

 

There is a little play in the attachment of the sub-bogie which holds the smaller roadwheels. Don’t be tempted to align the three stub axles, they can be made to form a straight line when the tank is on level ground but this is WRONG!

 

 

The axle for the larger roadwheel must be higher than the other two.

 

 

Here I choose to deviate from the instructions. I want the wheels and tracks removeable for easier painting. I considered making the bogies removeable too but decided this would be a lot harder to do and would only give me a tiny bit of unnecessary help painting them. If I can remove the wheels, it will be very useful when I paint the tyres, and if the wheels come off, so will the tracks, which I definitely want to paint separately. There were at least three types of track used on the Vally

 

 

I think it looks like a great big mechanical beetle.

 

And come to think of it, with the wheels and tracks off, I have pretty clear access to the bogies anyway. I’ll be washing and highlighting the entire suspension to make the most of that brilliant moulded complexity. This build is going to be a clean one, with just a little dust and some minor chipping. I’m starting simple.

 

My third build session was devoted to prepping and assembling the two part roadwheels. It was a tedious task but there are only twelve in total, which is nothing compared to those big German jobs! The wheels are rubber tyred but for this particular model I won’t be adding signs of wear to the tyres. That’s because I’ve finally decided to start at the beginning with the prototype.

 

The prototype Vally was very similar to the Mk.I. There is an AFV Club kit of the Mk.1 and if I had one, it might have been easier to convert that. However, I don’t have one, Hannants doesn’t have one right now and I don’t have any modelling money left this month anyway so I’ll be converting the Tamiya Mk.II backwards into a Mk.I and then one further step backwards into the prototype. It doesn’t look too difficult but it is my first ever attempt to do a conversion of a tank so it will be interesting. This is my task list at the moment, compiled from ITV.

 

I’ll need to modify the air exfiltration outlet back of the turret. The Mk.I and prototype had a straight rather than curved armoured cover. That is a separate piece on the Tamiya kit and won’t be difficult to reshape.

 

The engine access doors are different but only slightly, the right hand door is not a door but a bolted on piece. It isn’t hinged and has neither lifting handles nor arrangements to hold it open. That mostly means NOT fitting things, and filling some location holes but I will have to scribe the oil tank access cover which was part of the fixed portion of the cover.

 

A very visible difference between Mk.I and prototype is the absence of tools and radio equipment. Again, a simple matter to arrange. Also missing were the right hand side headlight, and the left hand side turret lookout port.

 

The track guards have  a slightly different profile at the rear. I think this can be done with plasticard and fortunately for me, the design used only flat pieces – no curves!

 

The prototype wore the early type tracks which were very fragile and soon superseded. I’ve just ordered a set of Bronco workable early tracks which may or may not fit. I have a couple of Bronco Vallys on hand so swapping the drive sprockets, if needed, might be the way to go.

 

Finally, the exhaust is visibly different. The heatshield is a metal mesh item rather than a solid one. I have two Bronco Valentine kits which contain P/E mesh heatshields despite their total unsuitability for the Mk IX and XI tanks. Nice one Bronco! ITV states that the mesh shield was discontinued because the glow of the exhaust could be seen through the holes and might give away the tank’s position at night. ITV goes on to say that the exhaust had a plain tube exhaust pipe but the drawing still shows the fishtail. I will assume that the text is right because it is a simple mistake to fail to remove the fishtail from a drawing, (copied from the Mk.I?) but mistakenly writing a sentence about the plain tube would take some doing!

 

And the best thing about the prototype is that it was painted a medium bluish-grey. There’s a profile in the book and the colour reminds me of those splendid old lathes and other machine tools from the thirties, many still in use when I left school and went briefly into factory life in 1973. It’s said that the colour was used rather than service green because it made photographing details for reports on developments easier. Or perhaps they just had a lot of grey paint available in 1938. I like it because it’s just so weird to see a shiny grey tank.

 

The next work shift was supposed to be building Tamiya’s link and length tracks but that’s now unnecessary so I’ll be turning my attention to the turret, and the first of the mods.

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

As with so many other things, I have found that making an early and firm decision (to do the prototype) would have made life a lot easier.

 

 

Not fitting the armoured visor was easy but removing and its fittings was awkward to do after the hull had been built up. It also left the frontal armour looking very smooth and boring so I've textured it a little with putty and cement. It's very rough in the photo and I will be smoothing this down when it is fully hard. It's rolled armour not cast.

 

 

Same on the nose. In fact I textured all of the 60mm armour plate, the heavy stuff. 

 

    

 

I don't have much hard information to go on concerning the ventilation at the back of the turret. Good news in a way as it leaves me free to improvise. 🙂

 

 

At first I worked on the curved armoured vent D30 separately, but I couldn't visualise it properly so I stuck it onto the back of the turret.

 

 

 

This was still likely to make me carve it until it didn't fit so I built the whole turret and then worked on it as a unit. A bonus was that it's now big enough to hold easily.

 

 

The turret castings are textured but comparing them to photographs, not nearly enough. That's the sort of texture I'd like to see on the rolled plates with twice as much roughness on the castings.

 

That's not an ejection pin mark btw. It's the location for the end of the trunnion and meant to be there.

 

 

Deleting the radio gear means filling some holes. My favourite way is to stretch conical plugs from sprue. It's less messy than putty and more fun.

 

 

A little glue from underneath and a trim with a sharp blade and that hole is gone.

 

 

It works on elongated holes too.. When I texture this surface, all traces will disappear. 

 

 

I carried on sanding the thing until it looked about right...

 

 

...and then replaced the curve with a straight bar which I'll shape when it's completely hardened.

 

 

Returning to the hull, I removed all traces of the right hand headlight. This was another job that would have been easier before the hull was assembled but I got there in the end. As well as the fitting for the lamp, the cable gland behind it had to go. It's still there on the other side and I'll be making a wiring harness to link it to the lamp. I'm really surprised that Tamiya made no effort to model this prominent piece of gear.

 

And then it was teatime so I stopped work. Hey, two updates and a bit of conversion work? That's not too shabby for a single day.

 

 

[HAMP man]

I was hooked with the header said Bertie PSmith, so enjoyed the Liney Lines while they lasted, and your writing follows the same easy to read style. Am now going to the MkV build to in-fill my lack on knowledge .

Crack on fella

Strickers

[Pete in Lincs]

Yep, crack on Bertie old chap.

I'm just reading a book called tank men (link below). Fascinating stuff, with lots of reminicences from tank men of all sides.

Reading this has certainly been an eye opener for me regarding tank warfare.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tank-Men-Robert-Kershaw-ebook/dp/B003VTZSHC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=25FR3673VYUUJ&keywords=tank+men&qid=1639859115&s=books&sprefix=tank+men%2Cstripbooks%2C306&sr=1-1

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, HAMP man said:

I was hooked with the header said Bertie PSmith, so enjoyed the Liney Lines while they lasted, and your writing follows the same easy to read style. Am now going to the MkV build to in-fill my lack on knowledge .

Crack on fella

Strickers

 

Thanks, I hope you like this one too.

 

13 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Yep, crack on Bertie old chap.

I'm just reading a book called tank men (link below). Fascinating stuff, with lots of reminicences from tank men of all sides.

Reading this has certainly been an eye opener for me regarding tank warfare.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tank-Men-Robert-Kershaw-ebook/dp/B003VTZSHC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=25FR3673VYUUJ&keywords=tank+men&qid=1639859115&s=books&sprefix=tank+men%2Cstripbooks%2C306&sr=1-1

 

 

Hi Pete, thanks for that. I think I've read Kershaw before. I've downloaded a sample for now.

 

[Pete in Lincs]

You're welcome.

It seems that the Allies were outgunned until the 17 pdr appeared in the Firefly. The 2pdr was only good at 300 yards range.

The German 88 mm, whether the flak version or in a Tiger, was good at 1 km! The Panther 75mm was equally as lethal.

Once hit, if you survived, you had 3 - 5 seconds to get out.

 

[diablo rsv]

Looking forwards to this thread Bertie, what's not to like about the Valentine? and with your presentation style it will make for a very enjoyable read.

I have built the AFV club Mk.I and the Bronco Mk.IX and thoroughly enjoyed both kits, I still have a couple to add to the collection and could really do with the 'Into the Valley' book but its hard to find at a reasonable price so I will be dipping into this thread when I get round to building them.

 

Wayne

[Bertie McBoatface]

My Bronco early type tracks arrived from Hannants in only two days which is the excellent service I always seem to get from the old firm and Royal Mail too. (Please don’t go off topic with your own tales of postal mayhem.)

 

 

The tracks look nightmarish to assemble and will be as fragile and dysfunctional as the real things were. Very realistic indeed. I’ve met this kind of workable track before where a pair of pins are sandwiched between two track plate halves. That was an M31 from Takom, which was slightly bigger all round, these components are tiny. Keeping the glue under control 150 times will be, how shall I put it … interesting.

 

Bronco have included a set of drive sprockets with tiny teeth. I won’t use these as intended since the Tamiya set are already assembled but at least I know now that the Tamiya teeth are not only too big but too many. The pitch of the early track links is actually longer than the later ones, to my surprise. I plan to deal with this by … er! Or maybe I could … but no, that wouldn’t work. Perhaps … hmm!

 

“I decided to ease into this project as gently as possible with the Tamiya Mk.II/IV gun tank.” I definitely said that, didn’t I? I’ve gone from out of the box to out of my mind. Lol.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Sometimes I feel more like writing than modelling (especially when I look at those pesky tracks), so I declare that it’s time for a bit of a historical digression. This little anecdote appears in both of my books and most of the websites dealing with the Valentine and concerns the origin of the name. I’m guessing that this question “Why Valentine?” dates back to the 1940s but the correct answer, until someone produces written evidence, is “nobody knows” and that’s an answer which is bound to spawn much speculation.

 

At first sight Valentine seems out of place in tank nomenclature, especially now that we have had decades of Cruisers, Centurions, Conquerors, Chieftains, Challengers and Charioteers. Ignoring the initial letters for the moment, you can’t help notice that most of these names are at least faintly martial or heroic. But Valentine? Isn’t that a bit ‘hearts and flowers’ rather than ‘bullets and shells’? One imagines the Supermarine Sweetheart not becoming quite so iconic as the Spitfire. There are four widely touted ‘explanations’ and I’m going to add another one of my own in a minute.

 

The first and most boring is that Vickers and other manufacturers tended to use alliterative names for their products at that time. (Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Vickers Valliant…) Perhaps Valentine was just the next random V word in someone’s dictionary?

 

The second is that the name is a tribute to John Valentine Carden who was Vickers’ Technical Director and Chief Designer until his death in 1935. There is even a precedent. The Vickers Wellesley and Wellington were supposedly given ‘W’ names in tribute to Barnes Wallace who designed their geodesic construction. Yet perhaps that’s just another myth, because Wellesley and Wellington were both famous British Generals (the same one actually) and very warlike with it.

 

The third of the theories is that Valentine is an acronym of Vickers Armstrong Limited. (Engineers). Newcastle on Tyne. There’s a bit of a procrustean hatchet job done on the River Tyne to make it fit. I like the inventiveness of this one but it’s too contrived to convince me. Wouldn’t this have led to all Vickers’ tanks having the same name?

 

Number four. The name was suggested when the tank was first shown to the British Army on Valentine’s Day 14th February, 1938. Unfortunately the meeting happened on the 10th February and I’ll wager the name was in use for months beforehand.

 

My (fifth)speculation draws on the first and boring one, that the name sounded good with Vickers, but also adds a little etymological research done by my son. This isn’t the Saint Valentine tank, but simply the Valentine. It has nothing to do with hearts and flowers. The meaning of the name Valentine comes from the Latin word Valens, which means "strong and healthy." It does sound a little lame to my ears but again, there is precedent. The Matilda, which the Valentine was to replace, also a Carden designed Vickers product, wasn’t named for a sweet old fashioned lady, but comes from the Old German female name Mahthildis, which derives from maht meaning mighty and hild meaning battle. It’s ironic that these two tanks with would be fielded against the Axis were given a German and an Italian name!

 

Maybe more than one of these guesses is right. Personally, I like to think that one, two and five are all correct but of course, nobody really knows.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#

 

I found the time for some Vally work this week. 

 

 

I’m now fairly satisfied with the turret vent and the filled holes and slots for equipment that the prototype didn’t carry. I used my sprue plugs, putty and UV resin. As usual, the putty wasn’t brilliant. I always end up with a rough surface. I really don’t know why I bothered, as I applied resin on top of much of it to get a smoother finish. With grey putty, black resin, white plasticard, grey sprue and brown plastic, it’s really hard to see whether the results are ok until I get round to priming.

 

After the turret I had a look at the louvred engine covers.

 

 

 As always, this turned out to be more complicated than I had anticipated. Filling the holes for the handles and hold open device on the right hand side ‘non-hatch’ was easy enough  Then I noticed that the mid-line opening had to be continued around the top set of louvres, a detail missed by Tamiya. This was easy enough to fix, simply a panel line really. I notice some more work is needed in places. This is stuff I simply can't see, even with my magnifier, until it's enlarged on the big screen. Maybe I shouldn't worry about things that I can't see, even if you can.

 

Then the oil tank access panel had to be engraved and a hinge and handle made from plasticard. I see that it was all nothing particularly complicated, now that I come to write it down, but it seemed to take ages.

 

 

At this point I discovered prominent hinges that had to be removed from the louvres and the hull. 

 

 

I filled oodles of location holes and removed tool storage clips from the left hand fender. I know the tools weren’t carried and I’m assuming that the mountings weren’t finalised at this stage in the development. I decided to retain the fire extinguisher, for safety reasons. Again, these weren’t difficult little jobs, but time consuming. However, as consuming time is one of the the purposes of any hobby, I shouldn’t complain really. I just want to get onto the painting. Impatience isn’t going to help me much, is it?

 

 

Finally, I’ve had a go at those tracks. It’s all so tiny, much smaller than my glue brush and keeping the glue out of the moving pins while sticking the track plates together is very difficult. I can only handle the parts with tweezers and only see them through my magnifier. Already, I’ve found that the carpet is likely to absorb a worryingly large proportion of the bits, which are apt to ‘ping’ out of the tweezers due to the wedge shape of the guide horns. Oh well, I only have to make 300 links…or do I? You see, I have a cunning plan to reduce the number that I’ll need.

 

My first go at a set of linked plated was a fail in that Tamiya extra thin was sucked into the movement and although I was able to work this pair of links until the glue set, leaving me with some movement, it took far too long. I can’t work at a pace of ten minutes per link. Second attempt used Tamiya Quick Setting, but that was an immediate fail as by the time I lined up the pieces, the miniscule amount of glue has already dries and nothing stuck together. The third attempt was an exploration of a paradox in that, for this most delicate of operations, I used my strongest liquid cement – neat Xylene. With a little of this I could instantly melt the mating surface of one side of the track link, wait until the solvent had evaporated and then almost dry-fit the pieces together. A little pressure seems to make a strong enough bond to hold while there’s nothing liquid to migrate into the pins. I’ve only done two sets of two links so far but I’m fairly optimistic that it will work. Using Xylene for hours at a time will be unpleasant, and I’m wondering whether I can work inside my spray bay. It will need a bit of rearrangement of the furniture to get comfy but it I think will be ‘a good thing’ to avoid poisoning myself.

 

That's the last update before Xmas, so I'll wish you all a happy holiday and see you at the end of next week. 

 

 

 

[JeroenS]

At least you'll be able to enjoy Christmas in "high" spirits. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

45 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

At least you'll be able to enjoy Christmas in "high" spirits. 

 

And New Year's AS a spirit!

 

On 12/19/2021 at 3:43 PM, diablo rsv said:

Looking forwards to this thread Bertie, what's not to like about the Valentine? and with your presentation style it will make for a very enjoyable read.

I have built the AFV club Mk.I and the Bronco Mk.IX and thoroughly enjoyed both kits, I still have a couple to add to the collection and could really do with the 'Into the Valley' book but its hard to find at a reasonable price so I will be dipping into this thread when I get round to building them.

 

Wayne

 

I have three Broncos scheduled for this; Mk.IX, Mk.XI and a Bishop and limber. They look very complex indeed, virtually full interior kits. At this point I don't know whether I'm looking forward to them or frightened! Maybe both!

[Bullbasket]

Nice work Bertie. Definitely watching your progress with these builds as I have the Miniart Mk.lV (Russian), but it will end up as a N.Africa version. Good luck with those tracks. I had a set for the Sherman and gave up as they were too fiddly and fragile.

Have a nice Christmas.

 

John.

[diablo rsv]

13 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

They look very complex indeed, virtually full interior kits.

I found them to be quite straightforward really, there is enough interior to make it worth leaving the hatches open but nothing like your Mk.V. build.

Wayne

[Bertie McBoatface]

7 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Nice work Bertie. Definitely watching your progress with these builds as I have the Miniart Mk.lV (Russian), but it will end up as a N.Africa version. Good luck with those tracks. I had a set for the Sherman and gave up as they were too fiddly and fragile.

Have a nice Christmas.

 

John.

 

I think I have the measure of them now but whether I can hold out until the end is another q. Definitely smaller than Sherman tracks.

[Bertie McBoatface]

7 hours ago, diablo rsv said:

nothing like your Mk.V. build.

 

Thank goodness for that! One possible conversion is an Indian army driver training vehicle with turret and driver's roof removed - a convertible sports Valentine just right for taking ladies to Lover's Lane. That would make good use of the details in the front. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

I'm gaining momentum! That's odd really because actual progress is measured in millimeters at the moment, millimeters of track.

 

Last time, I told you that I'd established what glue to use and roughly how to use it - not roughly at all but very precisely in space and time, as the Xylene has to have evaporated off the surface but the surface must still be sticky. I think that's about a 5 to 10 second window. If I get into a rhythm, I can handle that but we can't have any ill trimmed components putting me of the pace. Today, I worked out how to minimise that.

 

 

Step one was to remove the, the, what are we going to call these bits? The part of the track that will touch the road surface? The lower track shoes (LTS). Step one was getting the LTS off the sprues without attachment pips, and step A of step one was getting the whole bunch of them off the big frame.

 

 

Step B of step one was.... Oh this is getting ridiculous! NEXT, I took the outer rail of sprue off leaving me with a chain of LTS which was slightly wobbly.

 

 

And that was what I needed to allow me to make precise, supported cuts at each end of the LTS. When I was detaching sprue sections, I let them ping to the side of the bench and when I cut LTS, I braked them with a finger of the left hand and then edged them into a pile. Success. they needed no further clean up. That's fortunate because they are so small and fiddly, that I couldn't do much more anyway. And they have that annoying shape so that when they are upside down on the bench, you need a scalpel to turn them over. They are like tiny limpet shells. Remember that grid is one cm squares.

 

Am I being ridiculously obsessive in finding the perfect way to cut components off the sprue? Yes, if there were ten of them, or twenty, but there's 68 links per side so I think some forward planning and experimentation is justified. It's also satisfying and even fun for anyone with an appreciation of production engineering. Also for me it's such a novelty planning anything that it's almost exciting! 🙂

 

 

I don't think that method will work with the Upper Track Shoes (UTS). The sprues approach them from the other direction so I cant make long chains. I could make many short chains but the UTS would twist and I'd make unpredictable cuts. Hm! Another method is needed. (Are you enjoying this?)

 

 

I cut them off like this with flush cutting side cutters and then made the required, slightly angled cuts to remove the pips with the UTS flat on the bench. 

 

It was a nightmare! They were so fiddly and they had to be turned 180m degrees between cuts and alignment of the scalpel blade was a bit iffy too. You can see on the photos of my glue tests above that I've hacked lumps out of them using more or less this way of doing it. 

 

So I invented a better method. Which I completely forgot to photograph for you. D'oh. But no problem for you intelligent readers because I used exactly the same system for the track pins (TP) as you will see below. (See what I did there? It's a rhetorical trap. You can't complain that I didn't supply you with photographs without seeming to be unintelligent readers. Cunning eh? It gets used all the time.)

 

 

I actually went back to that short chain idea. Chains of two links long but six wide. Then I could get the TPs flat enough on the bench, with that other piece of cutting board as an anvil once again, to make a cut at the right place and angle.

 

 

And for the first cuts I didn't even need to hold onto the TPs to stop them pinging. This would turn out not to be a completely good thing because when I made the next cut I fired a couple of them into infinity and beyond because I'd trained myself not to hold on. 😧

 

 

There were some quality control issues. That pip would be far to big to allow track assembly. This one I caught but there will inevitably be a few others that will get through. I'll just have to deal with them individually at assembly stage. You will also appreciate that I'm making a single straight cut to part off a round section pin. If it will fit and turn then it's close enough for human eyes. If you want them sanded round - come visit me and bring your own sandpaper. 😉

 

 

Plenty good enough.

 

 

Three random samples and seeing them this size, I reallly want to go back and tidy them up more. Maybe the next five sprues will be a little better. 

 

 

Any non-armour modellers out there will now appreciate why we get all worked up about tracks. But there's a lot more pain yet.

 

 

You've already seen the link gluing process. This was the first one I did today, joining the two double links from last time. I've blutac'ed one end down for stability. I can't manipulate these pieces with my fingers. I tremble too much (excitement perhaps?). The tweezers are the only way. I did a few more links building up to the magnificent total of nine before giving up. My fingers will remember it tomorrow and do better, like learning guitar chords. Happy with even this tiny progress, I cleared away.

 

 

I'd used too much blutac or left one link a second too long before making the weld and was suddenly back to two sets again, but they were sets of four, not two, so I'm 100% better today, no?

"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better..."

 

They do look good though, don't they?