Richie's Mk1 Restoration

[RichardT10829]

It wouldn't be MLU without a thread hijack

[Lynn Eades]

We haven"t finished the hijack yet Richie. That is a very big T number for 1940. The year has to be wrong. More in keeping with what Ben has suggested, or even later, like 43 to 44

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

We haven"t finished the hijack yet Richie. That is a very big T number for 1940. The year has to be wrong. More in keeping with what Ben has suggested, or even later, like 43 to 44

Probably a typo on the TM website, 0 in date should have been a 3

[Lynn Eades]

Thank you Richard for clearing that up. Now is it a MkII or MkIII?

[RichardT10829]

Well it's been ages since I posted anything up here.... Most of my pics end up in my carrier album on Facebook... I have been busy today with the air intake ducts... The originals from my carrier were cut to bits with a gas axe wielding maniac.. A few years back Shaun took me to a certain bushed area and we managed to dig up some carrier spares including a pair of ducts !!!!!!!

They have sat shelved for a while waiting for some work.


Here is the gunners side duct after some gentle cleaning....as you can see it has rotted out in the usual places. My dilemma was do I replace the rotted bits out with new material ? I had a ponder about it for a week or so and decided that I was going to maintain as much original fabric as possible and utilise the remains of my ducts that came with the carrier, coupled with the original ducts Shaun and I found.


Here is what is left of my ducts to work with


So I got to work cleaning up all the bits I had.... The left duct I had previously stripped to pattern the plate work for future builds. This was before I bought Nigel's vol.3 (doe)




I decided to offer up what material I had left then had to decide where to make the cuts etc


Having decided where I was going to make the cut I had to mark up and lose the gas axe wrecked edges


Followed by trimming in the original rail from the buried duct


Once happy I 45'd the edges ready for welding followed by adding some other plates to check my clearances


So basically I have retained about 98% original fabric! I just need to graft in a small square of 5mm sheet...... Unfortunately I don't have any original 5mm scrap lying about as it was all used to fill in the centre bulkhead and glacis plate.



Rivets to follow..

[tankbarrell]

Originally Posted by RichardT10829

A few years back Shaun took me to a certain bushed area

I think that's a Norfolk thing...........

[RichardT10829]

Hahaha "My you got a purdy mouth".........

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by RichardT10829

Well it's been ages since I posted anything up here.... Most of my pics end up in my carrier album on Facebook... I have been busy today with the air intake ducts...

Richard,

Great work on preserving and re-using as much of the original metal as possible

But as MLU is THE place for Carrier enthusiasts, I do wonder why the passers-by on FB are treated with more pictures than we are...

Hanno

[RichardT10829]

Nothing personal it's when I photo the job on my phone it goes onto my album... Plus my project has taken so long I presumed folk would have lost interest in its progress :-)

I will sit down and drag some photos over from the past years efforts.