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Hello. I'm surprised at how few entries there are here. I'd like to add this:

 

220702a Box

 

This is the ACE Models (Ukraine) FV4005. According to the only reference I was planning to look at, https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/uk/fv4005-stage-i-ii/, this solitary prototype was completed in 1952. I would doubt that the Brits of 1952 ever called it a "JS-killer" but it certainly seems to have been designed in response to the IS-series of soviet tanks. The 183mm gun was, according to "Tanks Encyclopedia", the largest ever put on a tank. I had thought to do this in the Big and British GB but didn't start in anything like time.

 

I think the ACE centurions are great kits but there's no doubt that they're complicated:

 

 

220702b Contents

 

I have mostly completed one of these kits in the Vietnam GB of 2020 

 and hope still to finish it. I'm hoping the experience of doing that will make this a bit easier and a lot quicker. Not least the RAAC Mk5/1 in Vietnam didn't have the side skirts in place and I therefore spent a lot of time working on the fenders being separate, to let me paint the tracks and running gear better. This time I'm just going to build the whole thing except the side skirts and then add them last. The decals in the kit, on the other side of the photoetch bag, are for the reconstituted turret and hull currently at Bovington. I'm planning to do this instead unmarked as of 1952, and factory fresh. So the painting should be pretty quick....  ....famous lat words.

 

I am looking forward to this having really enjoyed the first/previous effort.

 

Alan

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So. This is an ideal project to do in company time...sort of. I have to deal with a lot of letters and can do that at home these days. However the software to do this takes just forever to load each letter. Between each letter there's time to clean up the bits. This is how far I've got:

 

220704c so far

 

I'm just following the instructions, I should say. Step A is bogies and roadwheels. The bogies are in front and back pieces trapping a spring in between. In my first effort at this I thought I needed to paint before assembly to have the springs a different colour and I think that was an error. I've just constructed them all:

 

220704b Bogies

 

Road wheels have a depression on the inner wheel of each pair to accept a disc on each outer road wheel, but they don't fit. The depressions all need to be bigger:

 

220703a road wheel fit

 

The upper left wheel here is unmodified and the right has had the depression expanded with a No.15 blade: a tedious job on 12 wheels. I'm going to paint the wheels separately from each other and not in pairs, to make easier painting the tyres on the inner aspect of each wheel.  There's a lot of clean-up of flash and mold lines on all the pieces.

 

I'm back on correspondence on Friday and will reactivate this then.

 

Thanks,

 

Alan.

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Hello. I've got as far as I can with cleaning up the suspension.

 

All of the bolts on the road-wheel hubs needed sink marks dealing with

 

220711b Bolts with sink marks 220712a Bolts filled 220712b Bolts finished

 

Then they were stuck to the road wheels and clean-up of their sprue gates completed

 

220712c Bolts fitting

 

Here we are:

 

220713a Cleaned up suspension parts

 

The various return rollers are still attached to the sprue gates which will be easier to clean up once they're stuck to the hull.

 

I've now got to the point where I need to start on the hull, or there will be no where for the suspension to go...

 

Alan

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Hello again.

 

After another week of correspondence whacking...I've got a bit further. I heard once that the great Czech modeller Zdeněk Šebesta worked as an emergency dentist and so could sit modelmaking at work waiting for walk-ins. What a brilliant set up! I only have ~2" bursts while my software is struggling on. I might say also, as a toothache sufferer, that the UK could really do with that sort of dental service.

 

Anyway... 18 months ago, during my first effort at an Ace Centurion, Craig (@modelling minion) said:  "She certainly has the look of a limited edition molding from the mis-matching and mold slippage visible on some of the parts. You are doing a great job on her though and making sure that everything is aligned properly right from the start will save a lot of issues later on." That was what I thought too, but Craig and I were both wrong. I got the bulkheads in the hull all trued-up and then found that the fenders were murder to fit. So, this time I've assembled the whole hull without glue but with the fenders on,

 

220716a Hull line-up 1

 

before applying any glue.

 

220716b Hull line-up 2

 

You can see from the stretched sprue additions to the bulkheads that the problem is that the pieces of the hull are just slightly off. This way has worked well although it still involves a lot of furtle. The fit of the fenders to the glacis is much better this way; that has been a problem in the builds of this I've seen:

 

220718a Fenders and glacis

 

For whatever reason the kit comes with the back plate of the hull as a flat piece which needs to be bent at two points to fit. The first time I built one of these I got the bends in but then really struggled to get three baffles (?) and a small plate behind the back plate on. This time I failed to notice the uppermost bend needed but found that with the baffles attached to the small plate behind it's really quite easy to make the second bend with quite good fit:

 

220719a Rear louvres 1 220719b Rear louvres 2 220719c Rear louvres 3

 

So, here is the hull finished. The top plates aren't stuck on yet because the rear-most of them, with the slots in it, needs to have a radiator underneath which will need to be painted before going in.

 

220719e Hull done and turret start

 

The turret, as you can see is well molded and fits well: Hallelujah!

 

I'm back on correspondence on Monday. See you next week.

 

Alan

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Hi.

 

I'm putting this on hold: yet another KUTA entry.

 

I was hoping to try out with vinyl tracks on a Roden IS-3 before committing to these ones, but unfortunately the Roden tracks more or less completely demolished the suspension of the IS-3, and then things stalled rather.

 

My apologies....a very busy AFV-KUTA ahead!

 

Alan

 

 

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