Armour Dreams

[Jonathan Moore]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Fascinating work as always, Jonathan.

Its not until you actually end up in a tank for a while that you truly start to appreciate how incredibly important teamwork and trust are among the crew members.

David

Evening David,

Just the thought of someone actually having to go into combat in a tank such as this fills me with horror. When you realise how cramped it is and how difficult it would be to abandon ship, especially if it caught fire, it sends a shiver down ones spine. I think those who had the courage, from which ever side, to ride into battle in such death traps deserve a great amount of respect.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

Evening all,

I had a very nice message from a member enquiring how things were going, well in truth, very slowly. I seem to have lost all my energy and drive, my joints hurt and I blame the Covid injection that I had on April the 1st. I have always been physically hard on my body, so I have the odd aches and pains but after the injection, every joint hurt and at 55 you should be able to get off the bog without pushing yourself off the seat. Thankfully it's calmed down now and I am only having problems with my left knee but I feel knackered. That said I have made some progress with the tank but I find myself making silly mistakes which has entailed doing things twice to get it right.

Whinge over.

As mentioned last time, I have been making the drivers vision telescope. It's quite a complex little item and it took me quite a long time to decide what does what and how it all works. The pictures that I have, at first glance, hold very little information but if you stare at them long enough it all becomes clear.

[Jonathan Moore]

Basically there's a main casting, of course mines a fabrication.

The casting is attached to a top plate that slides into the location rails and is attached to the vision hole blanking block via a threaded bar.

In the location rail there are two location holes, one positioned so that when the periscope is not required the blanking block covers the vision holes and one that aligns the periscope with the vision holes. To release the assembly, so that it can be slid one way or the other, you press the lever on the side of the casting in, this lowers a sprung loaded plunger. The assembly can then be slid across and the plunger will then locate into the relevant hole.

Because our eyes are not the same distance apart, person to person, there is an adjuster that would allow the vision tubes to be adjusted to suit the user. This is attached to the lower part of the casting and contains a thumb screw attached to a threaded bar, one end is threaded with a left hand thread and the other with a right hand thread.
If the thumb screw is turned one way the adjusters move apart, if turned in the opposite direction, the adjusters move closer and when the vision tubes are assembled into the casting, this adjusts the distance between the eye pieces.

[Jonathan Moore]

Attached to the front cover of the assembly, there is a split boss with a tightening screw.
When the vision tubes are assembled into the casting there is a brow rest that fits into this split boss and the screw is there to lock, said rest, in place.

The last items of note are the two curved plates on the inside of the front cover, these act as springs and they hold the vision tubes in place when they are assembled into the casting.

That's all folks.



Jon