Churchill 1: first attempt at scratch building.

[C.Ellis]

Hi guys, thanks for the encouragement and interest.
I do plan on continuing with model making throughout Uni, just maybe not in 1/16 scale due to space constraints.
Ronnie, this thread is a diary of my project as well as a way of sharing it. If I left out the mishaps it wouldn't be right glad you appreciate the building process.

I made a little bit of progress today in the shape of the headlights. I'm thinking about re doing them with better LEDs as the ones I used are not the best.





Here is the finished product. The main body of the light is styrene tube, with some smaller tube for the stem. For the mirror, I used stiff foil from the seal on a Milo tin (The same as on an instant coffee tin for those outside Australia). To give it the concave shape I stretched it using a yellow henglong BB and a piece of tube the same as for the light body.



By pushing the BB carefully and firmly into the foil, you can depress it into the tube. This creates a nice dome shape in the foil which can be cut out and used as required.



I learned this technique as a way of making British helmets for smaller scales. I have tried scaling it up to 1/16, but so far the product ends up too thin and fragile for use.
That's all for today I think.
Thanks for the interest

[C.Ellis]

A little bit more progress.
I have been working on fitting some gearboxes in the Churchill. The rear section of the hull has an angle in it so I made an insert to mount the gearboxes on. The gearboxes have two Phillips head screws protruding from their undersides so I made some cavities in the mounting plate to accommodate them. This allows the gearboxes to lie flat against the plate and as an added bonus acts as locating points to line them up nicely.


Here you can see the screw heads on the underside of the gearbox.


The mounting plate in place in the hull. Note the holes for the screws.


The plate is held into the hull with two screws in the underside of the tank.



I also made the trunk for the rear air intake. It is similar in construction to the side intakes except that it is a bit wider.

That's it for now, thanks for having a gander.

[C.Ellis]

Hi all
I have hit a little bit of a road block in regards to the construction of the suspension for my Churchill. As you may already know there are 22 suspension bogies on a Churchill tank, which will make it a tedious process to create them from plasticard. I decided the best way to mass-produce the suspension units would be to 3D print them. There is good news and bad news when it comes to 3D printing the parts: The bad news is that I do not own a 3D printer or know how to use one . The good news is that the 'Maker Space' at the university that I will be studying at next year has three extremely nice ones .
In the meantime I have started drawing the parts I want to produce on Sketchup, including the suspension Bogies, the tracks, the track tensioners, the idler wheels and drive sprockets.





This is the suspension bogie as it stands today. Each part is a separate group.



The track tension device. The separate parts for it are on the right.





These are the drive sprocket and the idler wheel. The idler is the one with the gaps in it.







A few pictures of the track link and how it fits on the idler wheel. The format of the serial number on the track replicates that seen on the tracks of the Churchill tank at the Major-General Worthington Memorial Park, Canadian Forces Base Borden, Ontario.

That's all for now.

[biertje]

Looking really good.
What type of file does sketchup make?
Because I have tried printing stuff I got from sketchup and the results were mixed.
You could get inventor pro on a student licence even without being a student (that's what I do).

Keep up the good work

[C.Ellis]

Sketchup makes .skp files, which as far as I know are only usable by Sketchup. There are programs that convert the files to stl. Kaczor pointed me to this one:
https://www.guitar-list.com/download-so ... dxf-or-stl
Hope that helps.

[Will01Capri]

Very well done, nice work. A difficult way to go about it, but the results are looking great so far. Keep it up

[C.Ellis]

Hi Will, thanks for the encouragement.

I decided that I would have a crack at making a commander for my Churchill. Using Milliput putty I formed a rough head shape which I shaped further once set with a small knife. In this process I managed to destroy his top lip which is why he now sports a rather fine moustache. His hair was made from paper towel soaked with superglue and his beret is more Milliput. For his body I used a henglong German commander, which I filed the body detail off apart from the upper lapels. I then added pockets and a tie made from thin plastic. I must say that he ended up looking like the victim of one hundred bee stings. Don't know if I'll use him with the finished churchill, as any commander who stuck his head out of the hatch at Dieppe was asking to be shot.





That's all for now folks.

[Exhibitedbrute]

I rather like this build. Could I pick your brain for some measurements I think I would rather like to follow suit here and have a stab at a scratch build. Though I would make mine a Churchill III gIve me the option of British or Russian.

Give my dad the chance to try his cnc cutter

[Exhibitedbrute]

I would also appreciate some for a cromwell if anyone can help

[spee34]

WoW respect that is real modelbuilding ! Never see an churchill bevore in Model. verry rare i think.