Challenger 1

[tomhugill]

Hey folks, been struggling a bit with my modeling mojo recently. But this week I made an effort to get the Challenger 1 started.

The kits a challenger 2 conversion from Armoured Models which comes with a completely new turret, new back plate, chobham add on armour and plenty of other details. It's a mixture of resin and fdm printed pieces. The quality is really good even on the fdm pieces.

So far the kits gone together really well, I'd saying about 8-10 hours in and it's pretty much complete.

I'm planning to add head lights, side light and lights to the rear clusters. It's going to be getting the same lower hull make over as my op Telic challenger with metal wheel, suspension (and mounts), Haya metal tracks, metal bracing and a resin pour to stiffen up the lower. It's going to be running a tk60 control board too.

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[BarryC]

WOW!

That's awesome looking Tom.

Barry

[43rdRecceReg]

Looks like a real cracker, Tom, and a very savoury one at that

[HERMAN BIX]

Hell of a lot going on there Mr Hugill !
(I can see where your Mrs makes you eat down on the right corner of the kitchen!!, poor lad, one day you will make the table if you stop putting tanks on her bench )

[yan33]

wow that's impressive work

[Jimster]

This is why I love this forum. Great banter going about. And I was trying to think of some wise crack about the savory crackers but was too slow.
Nice tank of course. Wait! They’ve spelled savory wrong

[tomhugill]

Made a start on the chassis, first order of business remove the plastic suspension mounts and replace with the metal ones.

This is pretty tedious as the plastic ones are glued in. You need the snap them off and hope as many of the mounting lugs come out cleanly as possible. I've found a short sharp pry with a flat headed screwdriver works best. This time I managed to get quite afew out with 2 or more lugs intact.

This helps with the next job, redrilling the holes for the metal mount lugs. The less plastic ones snapped the easier this is! Once done the mounts (with arms attached) are test fit to make sure they sit ok and the mount holes are properly aligned. The centre hole for the bolt which secures the suspension arm is then drilled out. Next the mounts are glued using JB weld and the securing bolt goes through and is fully tightened.

The next stage the return rollers are removed, they are very well secured to I use a dremmel cutting disk to cut into the part which protrudes into the hull. The heat created allows you to pull them out. They were replaced with metal versions.

The ends of the return rollers were ground flush with the hull, any supports in the way were removed and the aluminium angle is bonded into the hull using JB weld and left to dry

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[43rdRecceReg]

JB Weld for metal is fantastic stuff, and it's also one of the best two-part epoxies for metal/metal, and metal on a variety of plastics (ABS, Styrene and so on...)
Looking bulletproof already, Tom.

[tomhugill]

Mocking up the challenger to see how the tracks for. Using spare plastic wheels until the metal ones arrive, no gearboxes in yet.

Hopefully I'll get most of the bits I need this week to get her moving.

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[BarryC]

Awesome looking!

Barry