Finally was able to make a start on the Tamiya Challenger 1 Mk.3. All the road wheels are chunked up painted and assembled but I forgot to snap a pic. The Chobham side armor has the hollow back filled in and the thinner plate at the back end has been replaced with some sheet styrene and grab handles. I really hate when they make parts try to "look" thinned by tapering the edges.

Thank you Dan Hay for pointing me to your site. I took your drawings of the scratch built fuel drum racks and printed them to the correct scale on Avery labels and applied that to the sheet plastic. Makes cutting out the part a breeze. Just peel off the label and clean up with a little Goo Gone. Wow did you save me a lot of time:)

Yet another snow day here yesterday. So after the snow blower ran out of gas there was nothing to do but sit at the bench. The fuel drum racks are almost done.

I look forward to more updates and will follow with interest, so far so good

Thanks for tuning in Paul.

Hi Marc,
you're starting a really interesting detailing job !
I'll follow this one with pleasure.

Olivier

Thanks Olivier. But really so far i am hanging on the coat tails of others. Replicating Dan Hay's work. I'll be happy if i can get close to his.

Hard to believe there is so much detail hidden in those fuel drum racks. Thanks for sharing the progress.

Paul

Hey Paul, thanks for stopping by. I agree and it will look nice without the fuel drums in place.

Progress has been slow but at least there is some. Next will be closing up the underside of the fenders.

Marc, nice work! I feel your pain on the fuel drum brackets.

Google books has a good chunk of that chapter. Pics might be kind of small to help, but here is the link anyways:

Challenger 1 Mk 3 KFOR

Sorry for the delayed thank you Graeme.

Haven't gotten my usual amount of bench time lately but managed to get something done. Finished making the new storage bin for the rear of the turret. Tamiya has th corners chopped off at an angle instead of round. Making 2 dozen little tie downs was fun too. No really, it was. Still a couple more thing to hang on the turret. If anyone saw my plea for a Challenger fuel drum, it was to replaced the tie down ratchet. They are molded on and I chopped one when I was cutting it off. I pressed one into some Milliput and filled that with thick CA and let it harden. Worked really well. I put a bit of sand paint on it to see it better.

The turret and hull tops are just set in place at the moment.

That rear storage bin is really out of the ordinary !
Some very fine craftsmanship there !

I shall be watching this ...
Cheers
Christopher

Thank you Christopher

Really nice work, very clean.


cheers

Thanks Rick, appreciate the comments.

Extremely nice work. Could you do me a huge favor? I need to remake the kit fuel tanks but I'm not sure how to go about it. Could you elaborate more on it?

I re read your first post. Could you PM me where you found the drawings?

If you are referring to the Challenger 1 sketches I created for my own build (several years ago), they may be found here:

http://www.onepointed.com/dan/model/Projects/Challenger1mk3/

If you have any questions about anything Challenger 1 related, please feel free to ask as I'd be happy to help.

Cheers - Dan

Sean, glad you like it so far. I see Dan has already got you pointed where to go. Between his info and the book it's tough to go wrong. I haven't got anything wrong yet Dan, have I? I already fixed the guard on the left side of the turret at the back of the long box. It's backwards

About the only thing you've gotten wrong is making your build look so damn easy!

Seriously though, you're doing a fantastic job and I look forward to seeing your Chally progress (and lots of photos - hint hint) in the future.

Cheers - Dan

Thanks Dan, nice of you to say. But... damn easy

I'll get more pics up soon. Almost done with the headlights.

I can cross the headlights, mud flaps off the list. And I under cut the over lap and the straps on the barrel for better definition. All the recessed panel on the side armor are now raised.

this is an excellent piece of work. I enjoy seeing this take shape

Thanks Mark, happy you are enjoying it so far.

Jeez...11 days since an update. It is really getting to be a struggle to get bench time. Starting to have doubts whether it will be done for Mosquito Con Apr 3. The scratch stuff is done and last night I finished the barrel. Took a while to chisel off all the straps and make new ones. The clamps got some Scale Hardware brass bolts.

I say, this project gets better with every update!
I admire you for not choosing a more "conventional" tank/subject and investing all such detailed work and skill !

Cheers
Christopher
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