VICKERS MK6B's resto

[Tony Smith]

Corten is the steel used in Shipping Containers due to it's increased salt water corrosion resistance.

It is now being increasingly used in laser cut forms as an architectural sign-writing material to give a rural/rustic appearance. Your laser-cutting steel supplier will be able to provide it in a range of thicknesses.

There minor changes to welding processes when combining it to either mild or stainless, but not enough to be a major worry.

[colin jones]

Well, I won't forget Corten Steel in a hurry, but I am quite familiar with different steel tensile properties.
As much as cnc plasma machines are quite expensive, they are extremely handy doing this kind of restoration work. I did one axle support today and got the other suspension parts off the other one. They seriously took some work to get them to finally let go.

[colin jones]

Again the port power was invaluable getting the wheel stations off. I have put up a couple of photo's of the other bogies I have. They are still quite good for their age.

[colin jones]

I have now got both of the axle channels in place and some repair to the rear curved floor.

[colin jones]

The floor of the other one is also off. it's not too bad to get off once the rivet tops have been ground down. I still need to grind lower than the flat surface as the rivet sits in a small counter sink hole. Hand chisels, Hammer and air chisel do the job. The side return roller will come off tomorrow as I need to make two of them as well.

[colin jones]

They will both be ready for sand blasting next week, then the good part begins.
I won't replace the floors until they are blasted.

[James P]

Mr. Jones, you are doing some amazing work on this Resto-Build sir and for that I salute you , total respect and looking forward to updates.

[BradB]

Originally Posted by James P

Mr. Jones, you are doing some amazing work on this Resto-Build sir and for that I salute you , total respect and looking forward to updates.

He's not even fixing a tank.

He's fixing TWO.

[colin jones]

I have completed the hull repairs and they have had their trip to the blasters, back on my truck and now back in the workshop on stands, ready for the resto process.

[jack neville]

Looking good Colin.

[colin jones]

Hi jack, even better now with a coat of primer inside and out and ready for the new floor.

[lynx42]

Excellent Colin, I see there is still a bit of drilling and cutting to do for the final drive outlets. Keep up the great work.

Regards Rick.

[colin jones]

Hi Rick, no that is how it is. One side is different to the other side as they are both original and I have only repaired some cracks.
Colin.

[lynx42]

Thanks Colin, shows how much I don't know about them.

[colin jones]

I thought I would put up some pics of a 3/8 rivet former I made this morning. It was a piece of mild steel rod and I used a off the shelf bull nose milling cutter for the shape. A bit of shaping on the lathe to suite my air gun and then some heat and quench in oil for a bit of hardness and it works very well. It's always hard to find tools from a supplier when you want one but some are not too hard to make when you need something specific.

[David Dunlop]

Colin, they both look so tidy now, I think I have lost track of which vehicles I am looking at. Hope you don't run into the same problem and end up thinking 'Wombird' and 'Bower Bat' by mistake one day!

David

[Howard]

Magic!

[James P]

Good lord you folks down there don,t do things half ways do you ?? Both your work and Big Ds M8 certainly rise the bar to new heights.

[Mike K]

Low carbon mild steel: normally it isn't suitable for heating/quenching . MS is usually case/surface hardened in an oven with charcoal or casenite powder. For small items a flame and hardening powder is suitable. These days you can buy the modern less hazardous case hardening powder , they used nasty stuff years ago with cyanide or something in it. The TAFE I went to, they had "casenite" hardening powder and a big oven .

The higher carbon steels suitable for quenching have special elements added , its a science on its own and its a complicated topic !

[Lynn Eades]

I made mine from 4140 and 4340. They work harden and have done quite a few rivets

[colin jones]

Hi Mike, Lynn, I'm familiar with Casenite and other products available along with the hardening process, and the different types of steel. As I'm not going into production and it's about 20minutes to make these, I find they serve my purpose very well. I Quench in oil first, reheat and then in water. I did about 50 rivets last night and my former has not distorted at all, bearing in mind though, they are not very bug rivets and I use oxy/acet to heat the end so there's not much pressure required to form the head. It is a very interesting topic as I saw a demonstration of quenching in oil then water and then in salt water and the salt water was better than the other two. Obviously is't not a deep process at all but it is better than just MS. I bet this could start a complete new topic and discussion of what different methods people have used.

[jack neville]

When I rebuilt my Marmon Herrington gun tractor the entire chassis was disassembled, sandblasted, repaired and rerivetted. I didn't have a lathe at the time to fashion tools but I did have an oxy to heat the rivets and a son who is a builder and very good at sustained periods of hammering.

Colin, yes refitting could be another chapter in my book- 'Mr Jones and why I wished I lived closer to him'.

Carry on with the fine work Sir.

I do have a small lathe now and I get that your tools only require limited use but would certainly last long enough and are cheap easy to replace. Could you detail a bit more about the process of hardening you have used on a new thread so others can get on board and we all might become tool makers.

[colin jones]

Jack, I'm sure your lathe would get quite a bit of use as mine certainly does and I'll take pics of my heat process next time I need another rivet tool.
I need to make two of these return roller brackets. The original two I have are cast so my choice was to fabricate them. It took me all day yesterday to make one and 3 hrs to make the second one after I got frustrated and cursed a lot trying to workout the concave and convex curves in one piece which I decided was way too hard. Individual pieces was the go. A bit of extra welding and grinding but so much quicker.

[colin jones]

These brackets are relatively hidden behind tracks and wheels but they fit well and look the part.

[Howard]

Just... Wow

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Howard

Just... Wow

No.... Wizardry.
Makes me just wanna... i wanna.... just.... Oh, I give up. Sheer magic.

[Mike Cecil]

Hi Colin,

Outstanding job.

I'm curious about the underside view of the original return roller bracket - is the axle bearing supported at the hull-end? If so, how have you replicated this in the fabricated versions - internal bracing? Seems to me the axle bearing would need more than just the outer end supported, hence my curiosity about what 'lies beneath'.

Are you able to put up an image of the underside, please?

Mike

[David Dunlop]

Colin. I love watching how you think your way through the various challenges of these two restorations, and how that morphs into a practical (and bloody marvellous) application!

If I recall correctly, you have one complete original engine to work with and were considering options for the second vehicle. Barring another original engine ever turning up for you to work with seems you would need to look for an older or newer replacement.

Just tossing this out there, but would the dimensions of the original engine be large enough that a modern engine of similar style and power, but smaller, would be available that could be fitted into a case designed to replicate the look of the original engine externally?

A few years ago, a company in the USA built a limited number of Me-262's using modern GE engines. The engines had to be detuned somewhat to avoid overstressing the original airframe design and the builders wanted their Me-262 to match the original in terms of performance. But the second problem the builders had was that the GE engine was a lot smaller than the original Jumo engine. I believe they solved that problem by designing an engine mount/adapter the GE could be placed in and which looked externally like the Jumo.

The concept may not translate at all to your project, but I thought I would toss it out there.

Keep up the amazing work!

David

[colin jones]

Thankyou for your comments. Mike they are supported by gussets underneath and I'll take a photo today so you can see the fabrication of it. As mine are not cast, I am more than confident they are more than strong enough to support the rollers.
David, ( 'Wombird' and 'Bower Bat' ) now that would be funny. I have already got a Perkins engine that is of similar size and was considering using that. I thought that full hydraulic would be very user friendly as I have no drive train at all. If I used a pair of hydraulic motors to each hub it would operate like a skid steer and very easy to drive. I would connect the valves to the original tillers so it would look totally original. I guess when that time comes, I will see what my options are. In the mean time I still have to make two 1400dia full ballrace bearings and a couple of turrets, seats, 3 reduction hubs and a few panels. Oh, and two traversing gearboxes of which I have drawings of. All are a challenge but exiting ones at that.
Colin.

[Mike Cecil]

Thanks Colin, I appreciate you going to the trouble just to satisfy my curiosity! I had no doubt there was something like that, and that your replication would indeed be strong enough - just couldn't see it on any of the progress images, and am interested to know and see what it is.

You mention you are a drive train short - hell, Colin, just make one: you've done everything but that already!! I can see by the posts we are all marveling at your capacity to 'just make it', so I don't think it would surprise any of us if you decided to do just that!!

Best

Mike