This is the third build up of this door, they get a bit better every time thanks to Frenchy with his countless photos and Matte Black for his measurements. If anyone has very close up shots of the actual latch mechanism it would help a lot. I have three generations of turrets as well but I'm just nicely home so they will be up soon.
Constructive criticism is always welcome.





Thanks for looking
Bill

nice work.

Good job Bill
Well i have a question to you since there is 4 doors


Why do you work only on the 2 front ones and copy your doors with RTV silicon and resin maybe it will be more easy for you no ???

I hope that the front doors are similar to the rear one


Cheers
Seb

Looks great, Bill!

Heck, you could sell those to a resin aftermarket kit maker and make a nice profit .

Bill, your doors look great. We may have to make some sort of deal...
Which turret are you going with? You mentoned some problems with the resin conversion. Do you mind sharing those?




Unfortunately the front doors are quite differently shaped.

Mu mushkele.
Front:

Rear:

My only suggestion is to make the rear door a little more angular at the rear:

It's going really well!

It seems that you've made good use of them Bill !

Keep on the good work !

Frenchy

Thanks for the positive feedback all. Sebastien,like Matte said earlier all the doors are different, but once they are all done they could be duplicated. The problem though is that there are things I made in styrene that should be brass sheet (lots of undercuts). All the covers over the mechanism that secures the door is sheet material and even the rectangular piece on the face of the door seems to be sheet material as I have seen it damaged and wrinkled in photographs (thanks again Frenchy). If I cast just the doors and had the ability to do etched brass then it would be possible to reproduce the doors. Trisaw, I don't know how big of a market there is for M1114 Frag 5 doors, even amongst these there are variations. Perhaps Matte Leese could figure this out..;0)
Matte Black these images are perfect, I never saw the connecting rod in my other shots, this is an important detail. I'd like to do the turret with the 12" square armored glass windows. It has the battery case on the angled back. All I need is a photo of the left front angle if you were sitting behind the MG. There (again) seems to be variations in that turret but I've seen many that are like these.



And I need a good measurement of the height of this turret sides.
Now I have three more doors to build, a turret and a Red Dot AC unit!
Thanks for looking.
Bill

Hmmm... Left front, you say? From behind the MG? You're getting awfully spoiled.


For good measure, here's the right side:

Here's a view showing the assymetry:

and a view of the bottom area showing where the two come together:


The height of the turret side is 22 inches.

I'm sure there's a Market.................... All I'd need is Masters....................

Bill, excellent job. Nice to see you taking this on. I'd love to see the turret when you get it done. Are you making an M1151 out of this? Only critique that I have is whether or not that D-ring below the latch is too small. I can't tell without it painted, but the photo makes it look smaller than photos of the real thing.

Matte, your photos are invaluable and on behalf of all humvee fanatics, I thank you!

Matt I too believe there to be a market .........

Jeff

great photos dude.........I think i'll go down to the G.M dealership right now and pick mine up.
I picked the red one with spinners on it...

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! I AM getting spoiled.
Now that I can see the mechanism of the door I think there is a piece there that I can make and then cast it to use with the other doors which will save a lot of work. The actual door are different front and back but the hardware looks the same.
Jeff, it is Bill not Bob but hey I know who you were talking to. The D rings do look small and in the next build up I will use a larger diameter rod to see how that looks. For now this is for a 1114 UAH but hey could be used on the early 1151's. I see the Frag 6 doors on some of Matte's photos and that would be nice to make as well.
The interior turret pictures are the exact detail I've been waiting for, 18Bravo you are off the hook, thanks for all your other measurements. Is that a 50 cal ammo box in the turret, great to know for scale. It is great to know the actual height of the turret walls, no more guess work. 18 Bravo measured the armored glass to be 12" square in this turret just to pass that on.
Matte I'll scan some images to illustrate how the Mig door measures up. I'm trying to find more space on the door surface. I was hoping that the doors with the Frag 5 kit on them are in fact wider than the doors without the kit, that's the way it appears in photos, but the Mig doors are exact (width wise) to your earlier dimensions but shorter than the actual dimensions.
Thanks to all for looking and being positive, you're a great bunch.
Bill

Hi there folks

Silly question I know, but what the heck are the big shackles on the doors for? Is this in case the doors get buckled by blast damage?

Thanks

Nige

Nige
Yes, in a nut shell. If you look at the set of photos I posted up the thread a bit, you'll see instructors demonstrating how to open the doors with another vehicle in the event the doors get jammed or occupants are otherwise unable.
Bill

Matte Black
I like the Hula Honey in the vehicle as well, nice touch!
Bill

Lol, I was the one who accidently called you Bob (now edited) not Matte. Sorry about that, its not like like I don't know your name...lol. I'm tired, I wrote that coming off an all-nighter but I'm good now...

That is a .50 in the turret as is the ammo for it (though it was Matte who posted the pics...). Looks like a nice place to put all those grenades to keep em from rolling around too much.

Jeff

Jeff
Thats a good one, ;O), I had spent some time writing an initial response and my connection timed out so I had to write it all over and wasn't as careful the second time, sorry about that. Great paper by the way Jeff, I learned a lot!
So when I make the next doors I'll keep in mind the sequence of build breakdown to make them easier to cast, and then we'll go onto the turrets.
thanks Jeff
Bill

Matte, as per your question about the Mig resin doors for the first M1114 conversion, (first generation Mig conversion).
Your measurements are first and Mig's actual measurements second,scaled to 1/35.
Front door width, 2"8" (23.22mm) Migs 26mm
Front door height 3'5" (29.75mm) Migs 31.5mm
Rear door width 3'2"(27.57mm) Migs28mm
Rear door height 3'5" (29.75mm) Migs 31.5mm
This is all relevant of course because the Mig doors were designed to fit the dimensions of the Tamiya body. I could not very well start changing these sizes without changing the body and the Mig resin roof. The only reason I measured in the first place was to place my Frag 5 armor kit on styrene templates made from the Mig doors. I remember you saying that you "eyeball" your dimensions so I have to learn to relax and go with the old "looks close enough to me".
Bill

Hey Bill
if i asked you for the RTV silicon and resin maybe people like me will be really happy to use your creation

Time to start a good business or sell the master to company like Mig ???

Keep us update and congrats
Seb

Sebastien
Very nice of you to think my efforts worth reproducing. I have played around with casting and mold making and it interests me but I haven't the skill to do it professionally, though I will attempt a proto-type. The next doors I make will be modular so they can be cast in separate parts. There are some big undercuts that would prevent one piece casting. I wish I knew how to do rudimentary photo etch as these doors would benefit from some. I'll post my results as they occur.
The turrets may have a greater life because they could be added to other vehicles beside the HMMWV, more on that soon.
Again thanks for the encouragement.
Whats on your table these days?
Bill

Etching:

(can't find the post here) but:

http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/rms_tips/rmsfaq.6.html

http://steampunkworkshop.com/electroetch.shtml

Drawing the pattern on the brass... and etching works as well.........

HTH

Matt

Matt
So have you tried either of these methods yourself and how did you find the results?
I saw a mention of doing home made PE over in Missing Lnyx Constructive Comments (recent HEMTT build) but the modeler never elaborated.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/110741/thread/1194453561/M977+HEMTT+finished
I have access to large format exposure unit Ferric and Nitric acid where I work so I could expose brass sheet through a negative wipe on solution. What I find though is that using a home printer to generate the clear film sheet isn't opaque enough and the exposure unit goes right through the ink. I could draw directly onto the film with opaque ink but that would be grueling.
I'll read these articles you've so kindly provided and see what's what.
Thanks again
Bill

Joe (Mother) has just makrked on a Brass sheet with a sharpie ans let the brass go in the Acid. I have yet to try it... (but did get as far as buying the acid at Radio Shack)

Matt
That sounds simple enough, I'd like to see the results. Is he using ferric for the etch? You don't happen to know how people get the raised detail on etched parts, is it a two stage process? I'd love to get a tour of the Eduard plant where they do the entire job!
Thanks Matt.
Bill