Richie's Little Tank

[Richie]

Bit more done today between jobs on the boat.

Brought along my flat packed steel to pop in the fly press.

Then asked Bill to pop a few plug welds onto the WS19 base frame

And here we are ! Technically the junction box bracket and the variometer bracket mounted onto the side of the hull should be painted wrinkle finish brown, but my thoughts are they would have been flashed over in green during re paint sessions.



Ultimately this is what the setup will look like once completed, this carrier resides in Australia


Difference being hopefully my set will actually be working

[Renegadenemo]

Ah, excellent - was happy to do the welding but had no idea what it was - smart work, Tank Driver Harrison...

[Richie]

Moving onto the battery box, I have put off finishing this for months and months ! The hinges I had made were cast from steel and are literally made out of unobtanium (reference to movie Avatar)

Nothing seems to drill them, So they were shelved.... At the same time I began the POL holder, which I started to fold out of 16ga sheet, only to find the thing was a touch too heavy !

Well I need to get the thing sorted so I did some work on the box, removing the rear most plate I obtained some measurements for the hinge then plotted, punched and drilled the required 10mm holes.. I then had to file the edge of the plate 45deg between the hinge lugs.

All it needs is the unobtanium hinges returned from my pal who will machine them for me, and then four 3/8 rivets set.

I have been told my radio system should arrive before June which is good, as I would like to fit the thing before I go to Normandy !

Starting to collect required wires and junctions boxes etc etc..... Just need three headsets and mic's

Pics to follow once I get logged back onto photo bucket.

[thunderer]

I wish I had seen this earlier, I would have offered to make you some paint msks and save all that hand cutting.....

[Richie]

Thought I would post up some pics from the Normandy trip, all went well and the engine ran flawlessly with the exception of a fuel pump failure which we had to bodge for two days until we could rebuild one properly.

Most of the images will look better black and white, but you get the idea !

[Richie]

All in all a fantastic trip !

[jonwrightk7]

Belting pics there Ritchie..

[sbt]

And when you have watched that, maybe this (Cambrai, from the Tank Museum)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_BnN4cWbo

Moving tank is also a replica, built around an Excavators power-train.

[sbt]

Having watched Guy Martin - watch him instead. Super job all round.

[Richie]

I watched it tonight.

I thought it wasn’t up to much at all. A major manufacturer Like JCB justifying not riveting the plate (we weld we don’t rivet) was very poor. Why go to the effort of reproducing something to meticulous German plans, to then not do it properly ?!

Then they go and fit an engine from a Humber pig (plenty of pucker liberty engines aboutthey could have used)

The tank breaks down at the end and comes to a halt on the road, you can hear the engine overheating then they cut to stock drone footage.

Guy stood for a minutes silence (should have been two minutes silence) with his hands in his pockets and a glakey look on his face. Found it disrespectful. Sorry to be picky and pedantic but it was executed very poorly indeed.

This crap about five months is exactly that. Speaking with people in the game NTM were hunting for engines and running gear over a year in advance of the project.

There are far better replica’s out there that’s for sure.