Richie's Mk1 Restoration

[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..