VICKERS MK6B's resto

[colin jones]

Done a test fit and all appears to be a good fit. It just seem to be highly over engineered.

[Mike Cecil]

Of course it is over engineered ... it's British!

Mike

[colin jones]

Great, it all fits and the next fab job is the turret stays. I will make a press tool bar to make these as they are about 900mm long, tapered and a 180deg return on each side for strength.

[colin jones]

The stays are 3mm ally and they are tapered 200mm out to 340mm. I made a former for my press brake to get the 180 return on both sides. They are extremely rigid once pressed.

[colin jones]

They are secured by 7 bolts at the bottom and then another 3 at the top of the turret basket. It's seems quite odd but they are not symmetrical every stay is a different angle and a different distance apart. That alone is going to be tricky to mount it to the turret and have it traverse within 10mm from centre Once again, I guess they had their reasons.

[David Dunlop]

Hi Colin.

Are the stays perhaps the best ‘compromise’ for access to the guns and the balance of the turret?

David

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by colin jones

The stays are 3mm ally and they are tapered 200mm out to 340mm. I made a former for my press brake to get the 180 return on both sides. They are extremely rigid once pressed.

"...The best candidate, based on current evidence, for the earliest species in our genus is Homo habilis (meaning “handy man”). ..."

Spend 6 hours making a tool that does 3 perfect passes and is in use for all of 5 minutes. Sounds about right.

[colin jones]

Hi David, I guess it must have been the best idea. Access in these small tanks is very limited and I no doubt they would have tried numerous other methods. As the stays are all different in symmetry, they must be in specific locations for ease of equipment accessibility . I'm sure it will become clear as I progress
Terry, that's part of this job spend hours of prep to get minutes of results

[colin jones]

After checking the centre of my fabrication, I was very pleasantly surprised to see I am within 3-4mm off centre and that is quite a relief. Also yes the inspection plate in the floor is meant to be non central

[colin jones]

Still working on the first turret basket and I now know that the seat mounting blocks and brackets must be done now or I will lose access to those areas once the top is riveted on. Again, they must have thought that replacement of these parts wont require access as they wont last long once in service. It would be totally impractical to attempt to install these things in the tank.
What is really interesting is to see the makers centerpunch marks on these original parts and the part numbers still very easy to read after all this time and as I said before that I'm putting as many original parts back on no matter how small they are.