Chieftain Mk V scratch build

[midlife306]

I’m going for plan “B”, the track covers will stay fixed to the lower hull, but everything else will come off in one piece (hopefully), the upper hull will hook on at the front & be held in place with magnets at the rear.
As for the glacis I stuck some 2mm plasticard on & sanded that to create the domed effect, I’ve thrown some filler on & we’ll see how it looks tomorrow.
Cheers
Wayne



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[AlwynTurner]

Hi Wayne, I'm not sure how well that approach that will work out in terms of the sturdiness of the upper hull but I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Meanwhile the scratch build gremlins have been quietly waiting to catch me out and they got me good! There was I carefully scaling up from 1/35 and everything was going just fine. Unfortunately the only thing not under my control was the scaling on the turret, and sure enough when I put the turret in place there was insufficient clearance on the rear deck to fit the necessary furniture and fittings.





My repertoire of anglo saxon curses received full use for a while but eventually I figured out a solution. I modified the turret spacer to lift the turret by about 4mm and it did the trick.



This did leave an unacceptable gap under the turret but the wizardry of 3d printing enabled me to print a filler which should restore the look of the turret and my sanity. It's printing now so pics and code for the scad files to follow.

Alwyn

[AlwynTurner]

Problem solved!




Hopefully that's the last of the gremlins sorted.

Alwyn

[Lert]

Great build of a great tank!

[midlife306]

Hi y’all, I just wanted to state this publicly....
I’ve lost days & days printing time trying to print the tyres with TPU flexible filament.
This stuff is so bloody flexible that as soon as anything started printing, the back pressure from the nozzle & the force from the feeder mechanism would send the filament off into the 1/4 inch gap between the two. PLA is rigid & doesn’t suffer from this problem.
Alwyn went well out of his way trying to find a solution to my problem.
This morning he sent me a link to a stl file on Thingiverse, it’s a tiny part that clips in between the feed mechanism & the nozzle feed tube, it completely fills any gaps that the filament cud take, leaving it no option but to go out through the extruder, magic!
In my book Alwyn is an absolute hero & legend!
Thanks Alwyn
Cheers
Wayne

[midlife306]

First tyre done, 23 more to do lol

Cheers
Wayne


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[AlwynTurner]

That is really great news and I was delighted to be able to help. The good news about that part is that it also makes it easier to change any filament, not just tpu.

Happy printing.

Alwyn

[midlife306]

With the settings I’m using the tyres take an hour each, second one done, that’s it for tonight.
Oh and I’ve got round my cockup with the removable upper hull, I’ve use a single sheet of 3mm plasticard from half way down the turret platform to the rear of the tank, it’s held in place each side with 4 pairs of neolibdibollocks magnets each side, I clamped the top to the bottom so that everything was aligned and central then drilled 8mm holes through the 3mm plasticard & the track covers, I then superglued the magnets into the holes, now when I put the top within an inch of where it should be it snaps into the perfect position & repeats perfectly every time, I’ll put a few more near the front when all the sanding is done & everything is glued together.
Cheers
Wayne

Cheers
Wayne


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[midlife306]

They’re called gynaecologists hands don’t cha know lol


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[AlwynTurner]

Great recovery there Wayne, you may have some clever thinking to do though with the track bracing on the front chassis, you'll see what I mean when I get the braces designed and printed.

Meanwhile I have been busy with the milliput, the height change to the turret is now unnoticeable thankfully.




Plenty more to do

Alwyn