Armour Dreams

[Jonathan Moore]

And after a bit of welding.
Then of course there was quite a bit of grinding but I am quite happy with the end result.
The next job is to make the cover to go over the hole in the middle.



That' all for now.

Jon

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for the great update, Jon.

Nice work, as always!

David

[Petr Brezina]

Excellent craftsmanship!

[Jonathan Moore]

Thanks both but I am just doing what I enjoy.

Both sprocket flanges are finished as are the two cover caps and hopefully this weekend I will find some time to test fit them onto the final drives.
Then apart from the three vision port covers, associated fittings and the dummy gearbox cover, in theory I have finished making parts and the whole thing needs stripping and painting. That of course ignores the elephant in the room, the track links. In a moment of shear madness I emailed every iron foundry in the UK, attached the wartime specification for Malleable cast iron track links and requested a cost, some luck. Most didn't even bother to respond, some were down right rude and some where clearly taking the P. However one did provide me with a figure of £30,000. That was before the current increase in electricity and material costs, so it's back to fabricating them, oh joy.

[Jonathan Moore]

I found time this evening to have a test fit of one of the sprockets.

[Jonathan Moore]

The only item that I am struggling to find information on or even find detailed pictures of, is this leather MG pouch.
And it is really irritating me. In the later vehicles they used a metal box and the normal infantry MG teams used a small leather case but in early tanks the pictures always show the same case. The nearest that I can find is a post war Czech version, the dimensions appear to be correct by scaling, but the Czech one is made of canvas and has a handle. In the end it may have to do, that is until in the dark and distant future I find a real one to copy.
If perchance anyone out there has any more detailed information please let me know.

[Jonathan Moore]

Only me, I just thought that I would give a quick update. Life's just been too busy since my last update with very little Panzer time involved but lately things have quietened down so I have finished a few little jobs before I started to strip it all down for spraying. I had decided to make a few changes to make life easier in the future, such as moving the ecu and fuses to a more accessible location, changing all the cooper tubing to steel just a name a two but there are more which I will do as I reassemble the whole thing.

One of the two final components that needed making was the small hatch on the rear engine deck.