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Very smart.

Almost looked like you were doing whitewash

Kind of 'grey-wash' !
I dont know what that green paint is that the previous owner put on this thing, but its impervious to known paint removal methods outside of friction
And that would remove all the actually fairly good surface texture that Mr Jukenburg has cast in.

Something gives me a feeling I will be going back onto this thing to alter the elevation/recoil before long...........just a little voice in my head, something isnt right.

Alot of work, but its looking very smart

Good Morning, Herman!
If you disassemble the Taigen Recoil \ Elevation unit, ( very easy to do with a few screws taken out ) ( take pictures of the process so you can get it back together ), look at the small gears that run the elevation unit. See if you can replace them with some sized the same metal gears. ( Lego? ) You will get a stronger elevation which might be needed with that heavy metal barrel. Looking great! Still following along.
regards,
Painless

That big heavy barrel , all the weight is concentrated in front of the pivot point very hard to try and balance a gun with the Taigen recoil unit. Would a plastic barrel not solve the problem? And the gears on the elevation part are flimsy.

PainlessWolf wrote:Good Morning, Herman!
If you disassemble the Taigen Recoil \ Elevation unit, ( very easy to do with a few screws taken out ) ( take pictures of the process so you can get it back together ), look at the small gears that run the elevation unit. See if you can replace them with some sized the same metal gears. ( Lego? ) You will get a stronger elevation which might be needed with that heavy metal barrel. Looking great! Still following along.
regards,
Painless

Good advice Mr Wolf, lego gears eh I will take the stand of wait & see for now. Limited use will extend its life, no club down here at the moment.
The barrel while heavy(very heavy) is fairly well balanced. It has a massive breach end which seems to be evenly weighted against the length of the rest.
There is a fair bit of copper tube that also carries the mass and pivots, & this is set back from the pivot points in the mantlet.
I think that I fluked a close balance.

ronnie42 wrote:That big heavy barrel , all the weight is concentrated in front of the pivot point very hard to try and balance a gun with the Taigen recoil unit. Would a plastic barrel not solve the problem? And the gears on the elevation part are flimsy.

G'day Mr Ronnie, the barrel I got with it just looks like a cheap imitation really.
No disrespect to Mr Jukenburg , but a massive statement of Proletariat force such as these, needs the feel of real steel !!(or alloy in this case)
The 'breach' on this thing is massive (a bit like the ML-20 itself) and so neutralises the mass & length of the tube.
Time will certainly tell the story methinks.

Now the little bits can get going.
The exhaust covers were a surprising problem. The presence of the past owners work in securing the resin parts to the plastic hull has increased the thickness way past the length of the spigots of the Taigen hoods. The left one ended up being directly over the left drive motor
I had to insert a very carefully made tight radius bend out of brass tube that fitted into the spigot under the hood.
That is positioned to miss the drive motor.
Then, to get the size back to one that the smoke tube can tightly fit over, sleeved it with another brass section.
A lot of mucking around for a simple requirement.

The guards have to stay unfortunately.
Risking a loss of integrity in the resin-plastic joining is too high.
Having to handle the thing to get inside for routine battery swaps and the hand position to facilitate this means the guards must stay.
But, I have added gussets from the rear hull deck to the guard sheets that were left off & filled for some reason but the past owners.
I also sliced off a rear guard section that was melted to look like damage.
No matter what I did to alter it, it stayed looking like melted plastic.
So, off it came.
Using a small piece of ally sheet, I formed the radius and folded the edges up on the outside & down on the hull side to assist with gluing to the hull.
Then used a bit of imagination to get the right look of a crumpled guard.
Still need to blend the transition from alloy to plastic a bit more, but its pretty good & much better than the melted plastic !!.
I added a stay across the front left guard as well.
To get it to follow the profile of the melted plastic, a fair old lot of grinding & filing was required !!
More effort to be rough than leave things new looking but it has to be rough or it wouldnt be right !

bloody hell that looks goooooood

Thanks Mr Capri !............its getting there
Today has been about tow cable hitch points and sussing out fuel tanks.
The cable hitch points on the side of the casemate are made from carefully bent brass, with small gussets soldered to a brass rod that will act as the anchor point through the resin wall on each side.
With fuel tanks, the Jukenburg resin ones are very bulky and not very open to customisation.
Their mounts are also not right.
These 152's have the same outer fuel tanks as T34/85's, so its ok to use H/L ones.
One of the period pictures Ive seen shows a machine with tarps all bundled up on it, and a normal 200L fuel drum tied onto the right rear guard, so I might use that as one example of a look I can use.
Im mucking around with the resin tanks to see if they can be 'damaged' without looking odd, but not sure.
If not, I will use H/L tanks and gently heat them to get the right dented look.
One of the 200L drums I have might get the German wording ground off & become a plain Soviet version !