Churchill 1: first attempt at scratch building.

[Model Builder 4]

Very nice work so far, look forward to your progress, great to see some more British armour

Cheers, Lee.

[HERMAN BIX]

Hi guys, thanks for the help.
Mr Rainford, Do you happen to know the width of those heavier pz3/4 tracks? From your pictures they look alright.
MichaelC, do you happen to know if the churchill's tracks can be purchased separately from the model? These would be the best option. I had a look on the website but I couldn't find any further information.
Thanks again for the suggestions!

My H/L PzIV ones are 25mm wide.
Got them from Tankarmy in Melbourne.

[MichaelC]

Hi guys, thanks for the help.
Mr Rainford, Do you happen to know the width of those heavier pz3/4 tracks? From your pictures they look alright.
MichaelC, do you happen to know if the churchill's tracks can be purchased separately from the model? These would be the best option. I had a look on the website but I couldn't find any further information.
Thanks again for the suggestions!

Almost all of Carson's stuff are custom pieces so I am sure he can get you a set separately, but you will likely have to get the sprockets as well. Just drop him a note and see what he says. The body has the track catwalk/sponson molded as one piece so I am not too sure if you can do a Mk I with his upper, but it might be worthwhile to use his lower chassis as well. I have the kit sitting on my shelf, trying to decide which kit to start in 2019.

[C.Ellis]

I guess pz4 tracks are out of the equation then since 25mm comes in at a centimetre shy of the width of the Churchill's tracks . I'll try to contact the guys at DKLM/OKMO about getting tracks and sprockets separately. If the OKMO ones are too pricey or I can't get them I think I'll use Henglong walker bulldog tracks as they are the right width (and also cost peanuts ). Thanks for the support and ideas guys, this is a big help!

[biertje]

Hi there

I happen to have a box full of 3D printed Churchill links.


maybe they can be a bit of help for you.

Greetings tim

PS. I'll Have a look at the sprocket wheel two, because i want to build a avre anyway

[C.Ellis]

Alright, back at the Churchill again.
Progress has been fairly slow as I'm waiting for styrene sheets to arrive so I can start on the hull. I've made some changes to the turret. The loaders hatch was removed and has been replaced by the hatch from a Dragon Cromwell turret which was sent to my by Mike ( sassgrunt) . I also transplanted one of the radio ariel bases from the Cromwell turret and made a second one from scratch. After looking at more pictures from the Dieppe raid, I noticed that the Churchill tanks were not fitted with their turret stowage bins. I removed them from my turret and added the mounting points using small plastic tube.

As you can see both hatches now open!

Removing the turret bins meant I had to model the access hatch in the back of the turret. I assume this was for installing the 2pdr during construction. I will add bolts to the hatch when I find some that are small enough.

I also made a fire extinguisher to mount on the turret, however I can't seem to find any pictures of them mounted on the Dieppe Churchills. almost all the pictures of the raid were taken after the fighting by the Germans, so is it possible that fittings (like fire extinguishers) got looted?

I have decided on the particular vehicle that I want to replicate. "Burns" was hit in the track by an anti tank gun and ended up nose down in a ditch, meaning that the crew could not hit anything with either of the guns. At least she wasn't immobilised by the shingle on the beach like so many of her fellows.

Those tracks look mighty interesting biertje although they are the later type , they are better than anything else on the market.

Wardog, if the turret made you think of a sponge cake, this pic that I found when looking for Dieppe Churchills makes me think of a wedding cake.

It's even got a little bride and groom at the top lol.

[C.Ellis]

Got a bit more done on the Churchill today!
I made the mounting for the 3 inch howitzer. The sight moves in tandem with the gun horizontally, but I couldn't get it to move vertically as well. I might experiment some more with the mechanism in the future but for now I'm going to Keep it simple stupid.

The pivot point for traverse is 2mm diameter brass tube which spins freely in two holes in the plastic above and below it. It is superglued to a plastic rectangle that holds the the gun and the sight.

The "gun" is just plastic tube with smaller tubes inside it to give the bore the right diameter. I might change it later if I find something better to make it from but it'll do for now.


I'd also like to apologise for the poor quality of my photos. They are taken on my iPad, as I don't have a proper camera (and it makes it easy to upload).

[C.Ellis]

Jeez its been a while.
Hi everyone, I've had to have a bit of a break from tanking over the past couple of months but i'm back now. This is because I was finishing my final year of high school and had to focus on study instead of fun . That's not to say i didn't get any progress done on my Churchill, I was just limited in the time I was able to spend on it. That's all over now though , giving me a couple of months free to do whatever I bloody well want to before I head off to University. I've got no excuse now, and construction is progressing at a rapid rate.





I got the hull to this stage in early July. The driver's vision port opens and he 3" howitzer can move horizontally and vertically. Unfortunately I neglected to take pictures of the various bits and pieces as the build progressed, but here are some pictures of where it's at now.





The Churchill as it stands today.



A shot of the rear engine deck, showing the exhaust system. It is all hollow, hopefully allowing smoke to flow through although I might struggle to find a smoker that can pump smoke through all of that and the 'Y' shaped extensions.



One of the side air intakes with hooks for attaching trunking.



The driver and front gun crew positions. As you can probably see, there are a couple of cracks in the hull roof. This occurred after some clumsy oaf dropped it on the floor and trod on it. I managed to glue it back together fairly well and reinforced the weak points underneath with some more plastic. The orange colouration is a result of the same clumsy oaf sticking their dirty fingers in the glue while it was drying .



Here is the lash up that I created for attaching the turret to the hull. I used the turret gear from my Tiger for sizing, which only just managed to fit the width of the hull after I carved out some hollows in the hull wall.







The air intake trunks for the side intakes. I am yet to make the rear one.





These are my attempts at the exhaust extensions. They are made using styrene tube and bent by heating with a heat gun. The first attempt went badly wrong after I squeezed the tube to see if it was still soft . I managed to get it right on my second attempt (the one on the right in the lower picture), and matched it fairly well for the other pipe. They are not perfect, but i'm not gonna faff about with them again so they'll have to do. In my opinion they look a bit like an American football goal post.

That just about gets this thread up to speed, hopefully i'll be a little bit more diligent with my picture posting now that I have more time on my hands.
Thanks for looking in .

[43rdRecceReg]

Your scratch-building is improving in leaps and bounds and, I might add, it's a bold and mature modelling enterprise for one so young Most of the scratch builders here probably went through the school gates decades ago.
Good luck with Uni. when it comes along. Do try to keep in touch with model-making when you do go.
I went as an immature student and, sadly, while today's the mirror doesn't lie ( I'd banish mirrors from the house if I could ), I'm still fairly immature to this day. Yippee!
Model building is great way of being repatriated to those youthful aspirational days.

[ronnie42]

Like this build, the bits where it almost went pear shaped and then fixed are much better than an edited version where it all just flows . Found a tip somewhere on bending styrene tube is using solder or a cable inside tube then some heat stops it going oval or creasing.