Post by loyalist on Nov 22, 2016 1:57:49 GMT
Before he vanished from the forum in early March 2016 Pz3 was in regular communication with me about mods to improve the appearance of some BEF models. He'd messaged me numerous renders of potential track replacements for the BEF armoured vehicles; just after we finalized the design and I'd ordered multiple track sets and some modified Kitchener turrets from his printer he went silent.
Pz3 had also been working on an artillery tractor based on the Imperial tank chassis, with an open topped crew compartment in the turret location, and on a better looking turret for the Kitchener tank. Having been given three tank chassis without turrets I'm starting to build his artillery tractor design using sheet styrene but will be adding a roof with hatch to the crew compartment.
Today I started to modify the turrets for my Kitcheners. Pz3 and I thought the turret should have a ring for rotation, not the square block it has in contact with the hull; the corners of the square base would jam on the front cupolas if it tried to rotate. We thought the turret was too high as well. Pz3 sent some renders and we worked out the turret mods.
What I did today was cut off the square turret bases, starting with a razor saw and cutting along the line of the bottom of the rear turret extension. A Dremel tool with fiberglass cutting wheel was used to remove most of the resin, then the base was carefully filed and sanded flat to the lines cut by the razor saw. The turret was placed on #320 wet and dry paper and carefully wet sanded to reduce the height by about another 1/2 millimeter. Turret height was reduced by about 5.5mm.
I don't know why a tank would have doors on each side of its turret plus 2 crew hatches on the roof, so I decided the doors had to go. With the square turret base removed it was easy to remove the side doors with a craft knife, a Swiss file and wet and dry paper (#400).
Now I needed something to use as a turret ring. Going through my spares boxes I was lucky to find a short piece of 3/4" diameter PVC pipe, which was a perfect fit to the bottom of the turret. Using a tube cutter I cut off turret rings 3.5mm thick for each tank and fine sanded each face on the #320 paper. The rings were ca glued to the bottom of the turrets and look far more realistic to me than the original square base. The turret could be rotated now without fouling the front cupolas.
The height reduction of the turret is 2mm at the front but more than 3mm at the rear. That's because the underside of the rear turret extension sloped upward and that line became the new horizontal turret base. The reduction in height doesn't sound like much but the difference in appearance is significant. (Photos will be taken tomorrow AM when I have better light - it's dark by late afternoon these days.)
The conversion was easily done, took about 40 minutes per tank and imo made a nicer and more realistic looking Kitchener.
Pz3 had also been working on an artillery tractor based on the Imperial tank chassis, with an open topped crew compartment in the turret location, and on a better looking turret for the Kitchener tank. Having been given three tank chassis without turrets I'm starting to build his artillery tractor design using sheet styrene but will be adding a roof with hatch to the crew compartment.
Today I started to modify the turrets for my Kitcheners. Pz3 and I thought the turret should have a ring for rotation, not the square block it has in contact with the hull; the corners of the square base would jam on the front cupolas if it tried to rotate. We thought the turret was too high as well. Pz3 sent some renders and we worked out the turret mods.
What I did today was cut off the square turret bases, starting with a razor saw and cutting along the line of the bottom of the rear turret extension. A Dremel tool with fiberglass cutting wheel was used to remove most of the resin, then the base was carefully filed and sanded flat to the lines cut by the razor saw. The turret was placed on #320 wet and dry paper and carefully wet sanded to reduce the height by about another 1/2 millimeter. Turret height was reduced by about 5.5mm.
I don't know why a tank would have doors on each side of its turret plus 2 crew hatches on the roof, so I decided the doors had to go. With the square turret base removed it was easy to remove the side doors with a craft knife, a Swiss file and wet and dry paper (#400).
Now I needed something to use as a turret ring. Going through my spares boxes I was lucky to find a short piece of 3/4" diameter PVC pipe, which was a perfect fit to the bottom of the turret. Using a tube cutter I cut off turret rings 3.5mm thick for each tank and fine sanded each face on the #320 paper. The rings were ca glued to the bottom of the turrets and look far more realistic to me than the original square base. The turret could be rotated now without fouling the front cupolas.
The height reduction of the turret is 2mm at the front but more than 3mm at the rear. That's because the underside of the rear turret extension sloped upward and that line became the new horizontal turret base. The reduction in height doesn't sound like much but the difference in appearance is significant. (Photos will be taken tomorrow AM when I have better light - it's dark by late afternoon these days.)
The conversion was easily done, took about 40 minutes per tank and imo made a nicer and more realistic looking Kitchener.
