)First off, here's a Chieftain Mk. 15 with Stillbrew and TOGS. Well, what's supposed to be a Chieftain Mk.15, that is!
This here's the 1/35 Tamiya Chieftain Mk. 5 kit which I got from a TankNet member. I'm converting it to a Mk. 15, i.e. adding the Stillbrew add-on composite armour and TOGS (along with other stuff). The greyish thingy mass on the turret's face is the Milliput that I'm using for the Stillbrew.
FYI, Stillbrew is an early form of composite armour. Cast produced, it is essentially layers of steel and rubber. Stillbrew is considered a predecessor to Chobham. Stillbrew is bolted on the tank with around 2-3 inches space between it and the turret. Sheet metal was then added to the gaps (Bob Griffin who wrote a Chieftain book says that a nice hollow sound results when you knock at that sheet metal - but the rest of the Stillbrew is solid).
Same tank, with the turret slewed to the left. For this project, I will be replacing the kit's L11 gun with one from a Tamiya Challenger 1 kit (to be provided hopefully by 4Eyes
). Since this pic was taken, I have added more Milliput to get the correct approximate shape of the Stillbrew armour. Mounted at the bustle is a scratchbuild stowage box of sorts. For this conversion, I'll be scratchbuilding the TOGS and using some more parts from the Tamiya Challenger 1 kit. Now, to my main British project. I present to you:
An in-progress shot of II-Bravo. II-Bravo is the track of the commander of the Royal Scot Dragoon Guards. This here's a 1/35 Tamiya Challenger 2 kit being converted to "euroland NATO" scheme, since I'm sick of seeing desert variants of the same tank in forums, contests, etc. You'll notice the weird thingies on the turret - that's tape used to mask some areas for the anti-slip coating application.
The gray stuff you saw is the anti-slip coating. I used Mr. Surfacer 500 from a spray can for the anti-slip coat. Since the Surfacer 500 is too thin from the spray can, what I did to make sure the surface was rough was to spray at a farther distance, making quick passes. Letting each coat dry, the result is that the surface is 'dusted' with the Surfacer, thus ensuring that the Surfacer becomes 'dry' as it hits the surface, not in liquid form. Result is a rougher texture.
Because the Tamiya kit was a desert version only, I couldn't convert II-Bravo to NATO Euro scheme without using some parts from a Trumpeter Chally 2 kit. The donor kit was Trump's first Chally 2 kit - Chally 2 KFOR. All the green parts you see are from the Trumpeter kit - the Tamiya kit didn't have these. White are sheet styrene. I added handles on the front of the hull - the dark rectangular thingies you see. These are strips of metal which I cut from a steel fastener, folded and then placed into the hull front with holes drilled thru the plastic and glued using superglue.
The same method used for the hull mounted handles was used to make the handles seen here on the side of the Challenger 2's hull. Note that the turret's side also has anti-slip coating. According to Stuart Galbraith's (TankNet) friend who serves in the reserves and had C2 training, the anti-slip coating was applied on the entire top of the turret (including the stowage bins) and on the sides. The only areas not given an anti-slip coat (other than the sensors and I assume the mantlet, commander's cupola, and loader's hatch) are the sides of the stowage boxes. One purported reason for anti-slip coating for the sides is that if the tank crew uses glossy paint, at least the rough surface will tend to dull said glossy paint.
The skirts are scratchbuilt using sheet styrene. Again, the Tamiya kit only had the up-armoured skirts, and the Trump Chally 2 KFOR kit's skirts were of the wrong size (compared to line drawings of the Concord book - now, whether the line drawings are accurate I have no idea) and didn't fit well on the Tamiya kit. So I had to make new ones. To do that, I placed sheet styrene under the line drawing with carbon paper sandwiched in between. I then drew over the line drawing, thus transferring the image on the sheet styrene. Cut using scissors, sanded smooth, and viola! Skirts. I then added metal strips for the handles. The sides of II-Bravo where the mounting pins of the skirts were located were drilled to accomodate the brass pins which I used to mount the skirts.
A close-up shot of the sprocket with the Armour Track Models' indy tracks. According to the box, I needed 81 links and the recommended kit was a Trumpeter Chally 2. The tracks came with resin sprockets and idlers, however the sprockets and idler couldn't fit on the Tamiya kit and got damaged when removing the sprue so I used the kit's sprockets and idlers. The kit sprockets needed a bit of inside trimming but other than that, the tracks fit nicely. I dunno how many links I needed, but I have a handful left. I'll take a pic of how the indy track looks like unfinished.
Hopefully I'll have more pix next week. For the completed projects, y'all have to wait for the Nationals 2005 though hehehehe!
