Crusader Mk.l. 1/35th scale. Italeri.

[StephMarb]

Top notch scratch building, great work!

[Bullbasket]

14 hours ago, StephMarb said:

Top notch scratch building, great work!

Thank you very much sir. Much appreciated.

 

John.

[IanC]

Painted over the lamps? A competition judge will mark them down for that one. 😀 

 

Lovely work as ever, John, and very inspiring. I really must have another crack at a Crusader. The last one I did was the Airfix 1/32 Mk III in 1976! 

[edjbartos]

Great update John, lots of detail work going on there, looking very good...

 

Ed

[Bullbasket]

8 hours ago, IanC said:

Painted over the lamps? A competition judge will mark them down for that one. 😀 

 

Lovely work as ever, John, and very inspiring. I really must have another crack at a Crusader. The last one I did was the Airfix 1/32 Mk III in 1976! 

 

6 hours ago, edjbartos said:

Great update John, lots of detail work going on there, looking very good...

 

Ed

Thanks to you both for taking the time to comment. It's very encouraging.

As for the lamps and the judges. I'll just have to prop a photo of the real thing against the model

 

John.

[badger]

Watching your progress is making want to dig my mk III out of the stash.

 

Must resist - have a Trumpeter T62 I'm partway through that I want to get built first

[Bullbasket]

13 hours ago, badger said:

Watching your progress is making want to dig my mk III out of the stash.

 

Must resist - have a Trumpeter T62 I'm partway through that I want to get built first

Go on. You know you want to

Yes, I have that kit also. I was going to turn it into a Tiran 6 until I realised that Trumpy also do a Tiran 6. So I bought that instead. Anyone want a T-62??

 

John.

[badger]

6 minutes ago, Bullbasket said:

Go on. You know you want to

Yes, I have that kit also. I was going to turn it into a Tiran 6 until I realised that Trumpy also do a Tiran 6. So I bought that instead. Anyone want a T-62??

 

John.

That's the problem - I very much do want to  but as my output has been pretty dire recently I'm trying to clear up some part started builds before tackling anything new.

 

I possibly fancy a Tiran 6 at some point (have Tamiya's  Tiran 5 almost built) and have a couple of Trumpeters T-62s. I've swopped out the wheels for Miniart ones as I don't like the seperate tyres very much, and am about to start the fuel lines.

[Bullbasket]

1 hour ago, badger said:

am about to start the fuel lines.

Good luck with that.

 

John.

 

PS. I think that Legend does a Tiran 6 conversion for the T-62.

[Bullbasket]

I assembled the drivers turret without checking my references. The one on the tank that I'm building is different. Apparently, on the prototype it was made with an MG mount in the front, but proved to be unwieldy, so was deleted from production models. As far as I can ascertain, these turrets had three different fronts to them (not counting the prototype). There was the one which comes in the kit, one which had a pyramid shaped block over where the MG went, and the one that was fitted to the one that I'm building.

To produce that, I cut off the left hand side of the front and then glued a piece of 30thou card 9.5x7.5mm in it's place. Using photos of the preserved one in Australia, I then added punched out rivets of three different sizes. On the top where the two doors come together, there is a small latch for locking with a padlock, and I depicted this with some 10x40thou strip. Last job on this was to glue it in place.

And here are the two side by side. The one that I made up in the first place has gone back into the box for the next Crusader build.

 

The kit one and the modified one.

 

A bit grainy, but you can just make out the pyramid shape on this Crusaders drivers position.

 

Next was the BESA gun turret. Although it's not needed for the Mk.ll, Italeri still include the parts for it in the kit, which is very useful. Assembly of this was straight forward. The problem that I had was the gun barrel of the BESA. I thought that I had a brass barrel replacement, but no! So it was back to plan B. This entailed drilling out the muzzle, starting with a .3mm drill bit, enlarging it to .4mm, and then finishing it off with a pointed dental burr, to give the conical appearance to the muzzle opening. Not perfect, but when needs must......

Finishing touches were rivets each side at the front, one on each side of the turret and a couple of small pieces of 10.x40thou strip each side of the bump stop, and then a couple more rivets.

 

 

The last item that needed adding at the front was the spare track links on the RH track guard. I don't have a clear photo of this installation, so I'm basing it on the work that I did many years ago on a Battleaxe Crusader. I have, somewhere, the left overs of a set of Fruils that I'd used on my Mk.lll AA, but do you think that I could find them? Could I 'eck as like. So once again, Plan B came into operation, namely use the ones in the kit. Not ideal as amongst other things, there is an ejection pin mark that I can't get rid of. Maybe the tip of a red hot screw driver if I'm brave enough.

So a length of track, numbering six links, was super glued to the track guard. For the securing bar, I used a length of 10x40thou strip, drilled at each end. Into these holes I pushed short pieces of 20thou rod, cut flush with the top. Corresponding holes were them drilled into the track guard and the bar was positioned over the links, and the rod into the holes. Finally, two bolt heads were added to the bar, above the rods.

 

 

And finally for this update, a couple of photos of the completed front end.

 

 

The next update will be a few days away as the next part requires some surgery.

Thanks for looking and for any comments.

 

John.

[badger]

Awesome progress John. Just retrieved my Mk III out of the attic and have done more on it than I remembered.

[Hamden]

 

Nice work on the drivers and hull machine gunners positions, more and more incredible detail being added

 

          Roger

[Bullbasket]

 

13 hours ago, badger said:

Awesome progress John. Just retrieved my Mk III out of the attic and have done more on it than I remembered.

 

13 hours ago, Hamden said:

 

Nice work on the drivers and hull machine gunners positions, more and more incredible detail being added

 

          Roger

 

Ben, Roger, thanks very much for the encouraging words.Much appreciated.

 

John.

[Model Mate]

Great work so far John. Lovely scratchbuild detailing.

[Bullbasket]

Thanks a lot MM. Really appreciate it.

 

John.

[echen]

Developing well.

I think this vehicle demonstrates the fact that the tank designers did not have to use them. Driving a tank into action with ones head stuck in a little metal box cannot have been very user-friendly ( especially when small arms fire hits it the outside. ) Marginally better than having ones head out in the open I suppose.

[Andy H]

Lovely attention to detail - as ever. Looking good! 😎👍

[Bullbasket]

3 hours ago, echen said:

Developing well.

I think this vehicle demonstrates the fact that the tank designers did not have to use them. Driving a tank into action with ones head stuck in a little metal box cannot have been very user-friendly ( especially when small arms fire hits it the outside. ) Marginally better than having ones head out in the open I suppose.

 

45 minutes ago, Andy H said:

Lovely attention to detail - as ever. Looking good! 😎👍

Thanks very much to both of you for the comments, and yes, I agree. You have to admire the courage of those servicemen who went to fight in what was basically, a death trap.

 

John.

[Bullbasket]

Well this bit took a lot less time than I thought.

Before tackling the stowage bins, there is a strip of EB that runs down between the hull and the track guards on each side. These were super glued into place, and then it was onto the bins.

 

 

The kit comes with four stowage bins which is par for the course for the Mk.ll onwards. From what I've read, and photos that I've seen, the Mk.l only had one each side. So this is where caution comes into action when interpreting profiles. The one that I'm working from (see page 1) appears to show two bins on the left hand side. As far as I know, there are no other photos of this tank, other than the one also depicted on page 1, and that is of the right hand side, so how did the artist come up with two bins on the LHS. I'm going with my gut feeling of one bin each side.

First thing was to decide how far I was going to go with these two bins, and I decided to make new lids. This was because although the kit offerings aren't too bad, there's no line around the three sides to indicate the lid. So the first job was to remove the moulded on catches, and the indentations along the top. Fortunately, I have the Eduard set for the Mk.l, as well as a couple of Mk.lll sets, so I should be OK for EB. The indentation on the front of the lower part of the RH bin was almost non existent, so I cut a length of 20thou rod, scraped one side flat, and then glued it into place.

Next a piece of my favourite material, pewter foil, was cut to the size and shape of the lids. Using an old ball point pen, I impressed the indentations onto the lid. This was then glued onto the bin, making sure that there were sufficient gaps all the way round. Then the latches were glued into place. Do all this again for the other side, and I have my to bins.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

John.

[APA]

Corking job on this one John. Loving every minute. Attention to detail is first rate. Great work etc etc 😁👍🏻👌

 

Andrew

[Bullbasket]

14 hours ago, APA said:

Corking job on this one John. Loving every minute. Attention to detail is first rate. Great work etc etc 😁👍🏻👌

 

Andrew

Many thanks Andrew, Much appreciated.

 

John.

[Bullbasket]

The two armoured engine intakes were glued in place, and still needing a couple of grab handles, and one in the middle of the deck.

Between the two intakes there is a block of wood. I cut this out from a thick piece of card and then roughed up the edges by scraping them with an Xacto saw blade. This will go on at the very end, after it's been painted and weathered.

Then it was time to move onto the two air filters. I think that this is one of the mix and match things that occurred with the Crusader, because most Mk.ls that I've seen photos of had the box like filters with a sheet metal cover over them. The type fitted to this tank had the later ones that were still present on Mk.llls.

So the kit items were assembled after a bit of clean up, and then I added the etched parts from the Eduard set for the Mklll. Then the two filters were glued onto the rear of the track guards.

 

 

I discovered after fixing the filters in place, that I'd need to do some filling. Those ejector pin marks stand out like a sore thumb!

I removed the three moulded grab handles on the rear of the engine deck, and replaced them with ones bent from nickel silver wire.

 

Apart from the sand shields, that just about completes the hull. Next up will be the turret.

 

John.

[robgizlu]

Neat work all round

Rob

[echen]

1 hour ago, Bullbasket said:

eplaced them with ones bent from nickel silver wire

@Bullbasket Do you drill holes for the wire handles to fit into?

They look incredibly neat.

Edited May 11, 2024 by echen

[Bullbasket]

1 hour ago, robgizlu said:

Neat work all round

Rob

Many thanks Rob. I appreciate it.

 

29 minutes ago, echen said:

@Bullbasket Do you drill holes for the wire handles to fit into?

They look incredibly neat.

Thanks Ian. Yes, I do drill holes for the handles. I use a .4mm bit, and the wire is .33mm nickel silver. Normally, I super glue them into place, but this time (because they are a tight fit), I just added some MEK. So long as I don't put any pressure on them, they won't move.

I've just noticed something on that photo. The attachment points for the (not needed) fuel tank will have to be removed.

 

John.