Voyage to the Centre of the Lee - F..F..F..F..F..FINISHED!!!

[Bertie McBoatface]

50 minutes ago, Marklo said:

why not cut out the panels, make the underlying frame and have the armour plats as demountable units?

 

Do you really need me to tell you why that's impractical in a three month full interior build? 😱

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Hey, first thread onto page two!

[Marklo]

8 minutes ago, Bertie Psmith said:

Do you really need me to tell you why that's impractical in a three month full interior build

Oh I don’t know, a three month full interior build isn’t that practical a proposition to start with. It also depends on your model making speed and time available.
 

Actually I’m reminded of Douglas  Adams concept of the speed D which while not having a numeric value was a speed that was clearly far too fast.. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

7 minutes ago, Marklo said:

your model making speed and time available.

 

Today I made this:

 

 

I was working at the reciprocal of D. 😂

[Hewy]

Yep ,scares the bejesus out of me too , mini art ,interior, cut outs , maybe led's, brave brave bertie, even you're scruffy dog looked a bit perturbed 

[Bertie McBoatface]

7 minutes ago, Hewy said:

Yep ,scares the bejesus out of me too , mini art ,interior, cut outs , maybe led's, brave brave bertie, even you're scruffy dog looked a bit perturbed 

 

It's true. You have found out my secret. I am that scruffy dog (one of the pups took the photo).

[Bertie McBoatface]

That was just another manic Sunday, aaaah-aah!

 

Goodnight all.

[PlaStix]

Page two already Bertie.....why am I not surprised!! Welcome to the GB. Great to have you here and with quite an ambitious project! I'm looking forward to following your progress. 

Kind regards, 

Stix

[Bertie McBoatface]

5 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Page two already Bertie.....why am I not surprised!! Welcome to the GB. Great to have you here and with quite an ambitious project! I'm looking forward to following your progress. 

Kind regards, 

Stix

 

Thank you Stix. It is ambitious for sure. I currently give myself a 75% chance of finishing on time. The painting will be a lot simpler than usual because my fictional museum exhibit most fortunately has been fully restored and so, apart from shadows and highlights (simple washes and drybrush), I won't be weathering.

 

That's 25% of my normal build time saved.

[trickyrich]

On 3/13/2022 at 10:09 PM, Jasper dog said:

I say old chap, any chance we can we have a translation into English please..

 

trust me you could hear the collective groan from here!!! 

[roginoz]

Yeah, bit like Dick VD doing cockney, wasn't it !!

[Bertie McBoatface]

17 minutes ago, trickyrich said:

 

trust me you could hear the collective groan from here!!! 

I hoped you would forgive my clumsy cultural appreciations. 
 

I never been to Australia but all my kids have so I kind of love the place by inference

[Bertie McBoatface]

My youngest pushed a wheelchair across the Nullarbor raising money for veterans. I’m very proud of him ☺️

[ColonelKrypton]

4 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

It is ambitious for sure.

 

Understated at best.

 

This journey will be most interesting to tag along on.

 

cheers, Graham

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

47 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

 

Understated at best.

 

This journey will be most interesting to tag along on.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

I will do my best to make it so.

[Bertie McBoatface]

Very unusually, I haven't 'cheated' beyond attaching ident markers to the 63 sprues in my kit. Am I turning honest in my dotage?

 

Not really. I've just been busy with the early administration of this new group build proposal:

 

 

The proposal seems really well suited to armour modellers. We are the weathering champions and few of us haven't done a wrecked vehicle at one time or another. In fact, the whole idea grew out of a conversation on @Cerberus's WIP thread where he's building one of those Sherman tanks left abandoned on a tropical beach for decades. Please check it out, you might find it interesting.

 

Sorry for the thread hijack @Bertie Psmith. 😄

[Bertie McBoatface]

On 3/15/2022 at 10:19 AM, Bertie Psmith said:

Very unusually, I haven't 'cheated' beyond attaching ident markers to the 63 sprues in my kit. Am I turning honest in my dotage?

 

It would seem not. Woe is me for I have sinned. 

 

 

It's clear what I was tempted to do. That's right, I sprayed all the grey plastic with exactly the same shade of StyNylRez primer. There's going to be a lot of brush painting of small and maybe large components and I'm betting that even after cleaning up, they will take paint better, if most of the surface has a wisp of primer on it. I told myself that this was no more 'starting' than washing the sprues would be and since I didn't do that, it didn't matter. But it is starting really. Sorry folks, I'm weak. 😁

 

I found a few broken bits in the process and attempted to glue them together on the sprue. I know that I'll have to replace a lot of plastic parts with wire etc, that's the MiniArt way, "If you ain't scratchin', you ain't tryin'." There was one thing I noticed today that I definitely did not expect to find on these sprues.

 

 

Who knew that a Lee had elevators?

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

I’m starting.
 

It’s 05:40 on Friday 18th March. That’s 18 hours and 29 minutes early (boo!) or 5 hours and 20 minutes late ⏰, depending on your attitude to rules. 
 

I had arranged to spend today with my daughter whom I see rarely, and crack on like a demon with the invisible Lee tomorrow. Life is unkind and she has to attend a meeting at short notice today and has switched me to Saturday.
 

I’ve made the adult decision that rather than lose a valuable day’s playing with my toys (😂), I will build today and take tomorrow off. I can also turn miserable insomnia 😳 into marvellous moddelling 😃 that way, a good thing!

 

First job - Tracks!
 

[Bertie McBoatface]

 

"Why are we awake so early Boss?"

 

 

"Well Tess, we are up with the dawn because this is so interesting." 

"Grrrrrrrrrr!"

 

I wanted to make a start here because I find workable tracks a bit scary still and I'm likely to put the job off until right at the end of the build, when I'm getting fed up with it, impatient and liable to make errors. Better to tackle the job now, though not all in one go!

 

I cobbled these links together with a lot of fiddling around, finding out what the problems were and how to sort them. In the two tracks there are 680 pieces to carefully glue together and the pieces are small. I can't pick them up with my fingers so solving the perennial engineering problem of how to hold the workpiece was a priority. After that, developing an efficient work flow was today's aim. Production engineering!

 

 

I cleaned the tips of my tweezers because they refused to release the plastic pieces properly due to microscopic sticky or rough patches of contamination. The other thing is a pick up tool which I've only just bought and I wanted to try it out. It's just a blob of that sticky rubbery material on a stick and I've always refused to consider the expense until now. I could always get by with some sort of improvised solution. But why? Why 'get by' when I can afford good tools and enjoy using them?

 

 

I was having the devil of a job keeping the horns/connectors in place while I laid the inner half of the track shoes onto the outer. They would keep falling back and if I was even slightly clumsy, they would fall away and I'd have to prise the shoes apart and squeeze them in. So I started (over) thinking about this.

 

 

My first idea was a tiny blob of double sided tape on the desk which would stop the outer shoe moving. If you do this be sure to reduce the tackiness so that you can get the track off it without busting it. I just stuck the sleeve of my fleece onto it half a dozen times until it was more of a high friction surface than a highly adhesive one. I recommend this.

 

 

The over-thought idea was to build the jig which held the connectors in position with their 'axles' in the shoes' slots. It seemed ok at first, though I was still fumbling a lot and having to reset it all. I thought I'd get the hang of it and prepared to go into production.

 

 

De-spruing that lot took an hour. A sharp pair of flush cutting side cutters reduced  the clean up.

 

 

A piece of wet'n'dry stuck down next to the jig would deal with the odd bit of flash on the connectors of nibs on the shoes. I would just wipe them across the surface, holding them in the tweezers. This was a good idea.

 

 

Almost ready to start volume production. Note how the nibs on the shoes miss each other making perfect clean up unnecessary. 

 

You'll see there's not much clearance between the guide horns to get the inner shoe down there. I'd consistently knock them aside. No matter how much practice I had, this continues to be a problem.

 

 

As the top bit came down, held in the pick-up tool so nothing stuck out at the sides, it was the track shoe inner that knocked the horns aside.

 

I had to rethink my ideas. I disposed of the jig, stuck another piece of tape on the desk and tried the original approach. 

 

 

With the tape holding the bottom bit down, when the top part was lowered into position it lifted up the side pieces and most times they popped right into place. Occasionally I had to nudge them in with one pair of tweezers while the other held the shoe together. I could feel the tiny little collar on the end of the stub axles clicking home. Brilliant. Now I'd got a system I could use.

 

 

I am using exactly that much Tamiya Extra Thin to stick it all together. I blob the cement into place and then pick up the inner shoe, wipe the sides on the sandpaper to clean up small nibs, or trim big ones with a scalpel, and by the time that's done, the cement is no longer liquid so there's no fear of capillary action taking it into the working parts. Instead, it has become two sticky patches of melted plastic. I press it down hard with my tweezers against the bench, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat...

 

I only have to move the track from the sticky tape every five links or so, by which time the first link, the one actually on the tape has set pretty well, I still prise it off carefully from underneath though.

 

 

Three and a half hours of fussing about has produced this much track. Twenty five links is about a quarter of a side. However every link is free to move, and remember, that's two on each shoe. Most of the length was produced in the last half hour of the morning's excitement (hehe!). I aim to do half a side per day, interspersed with less demanding/more interesting jobs beginning with the engine, I think, this afternoon.

 

I've done a very detailed update for this work because I know there are some others like me in the GB who are a bit nervous of their tracks. If you are doing a MiniArt kit or using their tracks, something like this method might be worth trying.

 

 

[edjbartos]

28 minutes ago, Bertie Psmith said:

 

"Why are we awake so early Boss?"

 

 

"Well Tess, we are up with the dawn because this is so interesting." 

"Grrrrrrrrrr!"

 

I wanted to make a start here because I find workable tracks a bit scary still and I'm likely to put the job off until right at the end of the build, when I'm getting fed up with it, impatient and liable to make errors. Better to tackle the job now, though not all in one go!

 

I cobbled these links together with a lot of fiddling around, finding out what the problems were and how to sort them. In the two tracks there are 680 pieces to carefully glue together and the pieces are small. I can't pick them up with my fingers so solving the perennial engineering problem of how to hold the workpiece was a priority. After that, developing an efficient work flow was today's aim. Production engineering!

 

 

I cleaned the tips of my tweezers because they refused to release the plastic pieces properly due to microscopic sticky or rough patches of contamination. The other thing is a pick up tool which I've only just bought and I wanted to try it out. It's just a blob of that sticky rubbery material on a stick and I've always refused to consider the expense until now. I could always get by with some sort of improvised solution. But why? Why 'get by' when I can afford good tools and enjoy using them?

 

 

I was having the devil of a job keeping the horns/connectors in place while I laid the inner half of the track shoes onto the outer. They would keep falling back and if I was even slightly clumsy, they would fall away and I'd have to prise the shoes apart and squeeze them in. So I started (over) thinking about this.

 

 

My first idea was a tiny blob of double sided tape on the desk which would stop the outer shoe moving. If you do this be sure to reduce the tackiness so that you can get the track off it without busting it. I just stuck the sleeve of my fleece onto it half a dozen times until it was more of a high friction surface than a highly adhesive one. I recommend this.

 

 

The over-thought idea was to build the jig which held the connectors in position with their 'axles' in the shoes' slots. It seemed ok at first, though I was still fumbling a lot and having to reset it all. I thought I'd get the hang of it and prepared to go into production.

 

 

De-spruing that lot took an hour. A sharp pair of flush cutting side cutters reduced  the clean up.

 

 

A piece of wet'n'dry stuck down next to the jig would deal with the odd bit of flash on the connectors of nibs on the shoes. I would just wipe them across the surface, holding them in the tweezers. This was a good idea.

 

 

Almost ready to start volume production. Note how the nibs on the shoes miss each other making perfect clean up unnecessary. 

 

You'll see there's not much clearance between the guide horns to get the inner shoe down there. I'd consistently knock them aside. No matter how much practice I had, this continues to be a problem.

 

 

As the top bit came down, held in the pick-up tool so nothing stuck out at the sides, it was the track shoe inner that knocked the horns aside.

 

I had to rethink my ideas. I disposed of the jig, stuck another piece of tape on the desk and tried the original approach. 

 

 

With the tape holding the bottom bit down, when the top part was lowered into position it lifted up the side pieces and most times they popped right into place. Occasionally I had to nudge them in with one pair of tweezers while the other held the shoe together. I could feel the tiny little collar on the end of the stub axles clicking home. Brilliant. Now I'd got a system I could use.

 

 

I am using exactly that much Tamiya Extra Thin to stick it all together. I blob the cement into place and then pick up the inner shoe, wipe the sides on the sandpaper to clean up small nibs, or trim big ones with a scalpel, and by the time that's done, the cement is no longer liquid so there's no fear of capillary action taking it into the working parts. Instead, it has become two sticky patches of melted plastic. I press it down hard with my tweezers against the bench, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat...

 

I only have to move the track from the sticky tape every five links or so, by which time the first link, the one actually on the tape has set pretty well, I still prise it off carefully from underneath though.

 

 

Three and a half hours of fussing about has produced this much track. Twenty five links is about a quarter of a side. However every link is free to move, and remember, that's two on each shoe. Most of the length was produced in the last half hour of the morning's excitement (hehe!). I aim to do half a side per day, interspersed with less demanding/more interesting jobs beginning with the engine, I think, this afternoon.

 

I've done a very detailed update for this work because I know there are some others like me in the GB who are a bit nervous of their tracks. If you are doing a MiniArt kit or using their tracks, something like this method might be worth trying.

 

 

 

Good work Bertie and thanks for the detailed info which will really be useful when I tackle my tracks. Have to say I know it's a bit of a pain but the tracks do look good though...

 

all the best

 

Ed

[Blade2009]

Great start Bertie, I wasn't going to start my build with the tracks but looking at how much work has to go into putting them together I may do the same.  

 

Stu

[Ted]

That track looks great. I used to collect AFV rubber band tracks for Dragon Shermans to avoid individual link tracks. The Dragon tracks have their own challenges. Looks like these Miniart tracks take longer but give a better, more workable result.

 

Looking forward to this build.

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, edjbartos said:

 

Good work Bertie and thanks for the detailed info which will really be useful when I tackle my tracks. Have to say I know it's a bit of a pain but the tracks do look good though...

 

all the best

 

Ed

 

Yes, I think it's worth it for movement like this.

 

 

Those end connectors are busy with detail and the whole package will look great under paint.

 

I'm happy to be helpful. 🙂

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Blade2009 said:

Great start Bertie, I wasn't going to start my build with the tracks but looking at how much work has to go into putting them together I may do the same.  

 

Stu

 

They aren't that bad Stu. Bear in mind that I went round in a great big time-eating circle this morning. 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Ted said:

That track looks great. I used to collect AFV rubber band tracks for Dragon Shermans to avoid individual link tracks. The Dragon tracks have their own challenges. Looks like these Miniart tracks take longer but give a better, more workable result.

 

Looking forward to this build.

 

I'm very happy with these tracks. They go together better than some and do look very tasty. I'm going to pose one side with a few extra links so it will be really saggy. I've seen museum exhibits like that and I think it looks cool. (Real tankers turn away now!) the other side will be just the flat part under the wheels, the rest being absent so that I can cut away the hull side, and maybe a bogie and  some of the wheels too.

 

Back to work now!