Another Abrams

[ALPHA]

Looking good Scalawag...did you remember to free up your cupola so you can add the lenses later? It's kind of a Biotch if you didn't lol


ALPHA

no I didn't, but I am sure I will be able to manage. I am gathering ideas for how to do the sort of red mirrored effect of the iridium coated periscope lenses.

Yes...I did it the hard way...from the outside...you can nip the little plastic buds that hold it down from the inside...or if you're lucky and the HL monkey didn't put too much Glue on them...you should be able to just push them out one by one

ALPHA

[ALPHA]

ooooooooooooo.....It has a busted rubber

ALPHA

Haha! Those fenders were easy to damage. There was an instance during the Thunder Run into Baghdad of one tank colliding with another on the front, riding up to the engine deck, resulting to, among other things a really broken up fender.

A32 above has a replacement right fender hence green.

Yup noticed that Green fender too lol....Some weathering to do...So I got time before photos are needed


ALPHA

[greengiant]

Painless I think the slots in the outer half of the rear drive sprockets were meant to allow mud wrapping around the sprocket a place to escape before the track was pushed off the sprocket rather then weight lightning.

I cut them out in my Abrams plastic ones and it hasn't effected their strength. I think someone doing an Abrams ground them out in the metal ones he got. He asked me about how to do them way back when I did my build.

No one does the outer sprocket face scallops either not even the Plastic HL ones. They seem to not be trying to be correct just cheap on the metal ones.

[greengiant]

Here's a good pic of the of the smoke launcher cable.

I think your thickness is ok but notice there is a stretch coil at its end before the plug into the launchers.

[atcttge]

Painless I think the slots in the outer half of the rear drive sprockets were meant to allow mud wrapping around the sprocket a place to escape before the track was pushed off the sprocket rather then weight lightning.

Correct. I'm hesitant to drill holes in the metal sprockets not because I think it'll weaken it but because I'm not exactly great in centering drilling with power tools ahehehe....

[greengiant]

You started with plastic sprockets and tracks didn't you?

If so cut the drive sprockets outside toothed rings off and use them as stowage items.

Then practice cutting out the holes by first drawing them on the plastic in blackout with a fine tip marker then just start grinding away the blackout areas with a Dremel tool. Goes really fast with plastic but the same result could be achieved with metal sprockets.

All you have to do is have the four blacked out ovals in the right place opposite each other and the oval shape close to correct. With a carbide cutter in the Dremel all you have to do is make a drill hole anywhere in the blacked out sections then grind away the rest of the blackout with cutter so there is no worry about making your starting hole centered.

[atcttge]

Great idea for the practice! I'll do that with the plastic sprockets for confidence building. BTW carbide tip do you have in mind? Can you post a pic of the tip I would have to use? Tnx

[jarndice]

When I need to make a pilot hole in a build I use a pin vise, that way I know I will have an accurate centre.
shaun

[greengiant]

jardice In this case the pilot hole doesn't have to be centered in the area to be cut out, it just needs to be in the blacked out oval and big enough to start grinding away the rest of the area that is blacked out.

Atc a picture wouldn't do much good as Dremel small round wood (hardened steel) and tungsten steel cutters look the same.
The one for wood will work ok on plastic but is pretty useless on metal.

When you see them in their packaging one will say for wood on it the other will say for metal (sometimes the newer packaging doesn't say tungsten on it). There is also a pointed tungsten cutter.

The metal cutting bits will also cost a lot more then the wood cutting ones. Hope that helps you.

[PainlessWolf]

Good evening,
Thanks for the heads up! ;o) Everything is looking splendid on all of the vehicles.
regards,
Painless