M1A1HA, 9/18/23 update. Delay of Game, two week penalty!

[c.rainford73]

Hi Barry here the light guards I have on my Abrams. They appear to be the solid angular style

[BarryC]

Hi Carl,

Yes the HL piece "looks" like the angled style in as much as the horizontal bar has the stepped shaped and the vertical bar has a slight forward angle. you can see in your second pic that the horizontal bar is parallel to the front of the hull and headlight but should have a very noticeable angle forward as seen in my last pic.
I give them full credit for an honest attempt at making it "look" correct and at the same time made it possible for them to make the Lift Ring, Headlight and Brush Guard a single molded piece.

I am having a go at mine now, waiting for the glue to set on the vertical piece before beginning work on the stepped horizontal piece.

OCD is my only excuse!
Barry

[c.rainford73]

Barry I would have never noticed this minor detail until you pointed it out to me. Now it's quite noticeable when you look at it.

[BarryC]

Like I said Carl, it's my OCD or Alien DNA!

Here are a couple pics of a finished Headlight assy. less lens.




Pics of my first attempt at the Brush Guard. I think the horizontal bar needs to be both thicker and wider by about .020" for both. I tried bending styrene but no luck, I may try thermal molding else I'll have to use brass. I have not worked out the final angles but got it pretty close, I think.





TAFN, thanks for looking in!
Barry

[nexusys]

Hi Carl,

Yes the HL piece "looks" like the angled style in as much as the horizontal bar has the stepped shaped and the vertical bar has a slight forward angle. you can see in your second pic that the horizontal bar is parallel to the front of the hull and headlight but should have a very noticeable angle forward as seen in my last pic.
I give them full credit for an honest attempt at making it "look" correct and at the same time made it possible for them to make the Lift Ring, Headlight and Brush Guard a single molded piece.

I am having a go at mine now, waiting for the glue to set on the vertical piece before beginning work on the stepped horizontal piece.

OCD is my only excuse!
Barry

Barry, was gonna say you have quite an extreme OCD there hahaha. Mannn, i would never pick up faults on any of em. Well maybe some but not your kind of detail.

I feel like my Abrams conversion is like a make shift job compare to yours.

[c.rainford73]

Yes I agree his alien background has him spending time here on earth masking his true intentions with the old OCD " and we humans just eat it right up"

Yes I think Barry is his own worst critic We would all love to fail and be half as good.

Lovely detail on those headlight guards. Every thing is true to scale so fantastic!

hmm......

[BarryC]

Nexusys and Carl, thank you both for your kind words.

Nexusys your Abrams is looking Great!

I use an old modelers saying;
This is MY hobby and it is just the way I like it. In the event of visitor perceived errors or critical judgements, please notice the Mistletoe hanging from My shirttail!

After much "noodling" I have ordered some .090" and .060" brass bar stock and will make the lift rings and the brush guards pieces out of brass. I determined that using a brass bar for the horizontal piece between the plastic lift ring and plastic vertical piece would never survive a good knock. I may forego the brass lift ring if I can get the vertical post mounted in such a way that it will absorb impact.

So while waiting on the brass I have started the long awaited journey of reworking and detailing the turret. I will have enough accomplished in the next few days to post some pics.


Cheers,
Barry

[HERMAN BIX]

Drop Mr C a line to :

- Hanger 18
C/o Area 51
Locked Room 186

He will respond in a code you cannot read without the same huge eyes

[BarryC]

Drop Mr C a line to :

- Hanger 18
C/o Area 51
Locked Room 186

He will respond in a code you cannot read without the same huge eyes

Mail delivered by Men in Black, you can not send through normal mail system! ..

[BarryC]

Well I have made some progress on the turret but first: A nice day at the local airfield.
The Collins Foundation has their B-17, B-24 and TP-51 visiting here so the wife and I took a drive out to see the planes.









Now on to the tanking around!

I began the turret work by removing most of the molded on detail as you can see, I also removed the Blow Out Doors in favor of more detailed ones. I am using the Trumpeter as a After Market detail kit. I will be using a lot of the turret details from it to spruce up the HL turret.



I have marked in red some recessed areas along the upper edge of the turret. I am unsure why HL chose to mold them into the turret, they are not on the real turret?
I filled them in using styrene stock.




Some of the Trumpeter details.




TTFN,
Barry