I have been building a lot of aircraft here lately and thought I would return to my roots as an armor builder for my next project. I chose the Tamiya Challenger II and decided to add the Accurate Armour up-armor package to it. I'm using the Osprey book Modeling the Challenger I/II as a guide for this one. Thus far I have added the resin exhaust stacks, masked and applied the anti-slip texture to the turret and the upper hull. Not sure why it was applied to the forward vertical sides of the turret, but that is what was shown in the book so I followed along. Much of this area will be covered by reactive blocks so not a lot of it will be visible. Masking was done using Tamiya and 3m blue painter tape. For the irregular areas, I used Micro Mask liquid mask. Great stuff! Anti slip texture is from Rustoleum and called Terra Cotta. Very good stuff to replicate this material. I spent the better part of an evening dinging up the road wheels and another several hours getting the first two of many slat armor arrays built. Hope you all like it, more to follow soon. "Q"

Great looking job on the non-skid. Yours are the first pictures I've seen of the Rustoleum method an it does look impressive. Too bad you're going to cover up all that texture. I'm planning on a Challenger 2 Tamiya build later this summer and have been doing a bit of research on non-skid so it was great to see such a fine job and clear photos. Thanks and great job so far!

Mark

Nice, i'll be following this one!


cheers

Thanks for following along. Not much of an update, but an update none the less. had to run errands today so I didn't get started until late. I started in on the rear slats that hang from the ass end of the tank. I got 6 completed thus far....only 6 more to go then on to the turret....took me about 3 of them before I figured out a way to get them together more or less straight. I'll use the three dinged up ones along the bottom. More to follow soon. Thanks for looking, "Q"

Were the deflective exhaust tubes used with the later version armor blocks and slats?

I thought they were removed after the invasion was over. I stand corrected and apologise if I am wrong, just asking. Nice job on the non slip texture.

Here is my attempt some years ago.



Keith.

nice work on the slat!!! I built one a few years back, but wasn't ready to try the slat ....might be time to try one.

Jeff

Thanks for the kudos guys. I have no idea about the exhausts. I'm just following the destructions in the kit I got the rear slat panel done and assembled....all 60+ pieces. I need to dress some areas up a bit, but I think it will look alright once mounted. This was a lesson in pre planning and patience. Now I can move onto the turret. Thanks for following along. "Q"
Gotta go rest the eyes now.....

Hoping to make some headway on this thing today. I got absolutely no modeling in yesterday as I had other things to take care of I have all day today...more pics to follow soon. Thanks for watching. "Q"

wow you are off to a great start on this one. the anti-slip looks fantastic

Thanks for the kudos Dylan. Not much of an update, but a major step forward. I got the slats for the sides of the turret knocked out today. The second one came out great. Finally figured out a way to get these things together without a lot of trouble. Soldering is the way to go with these things. I've use CA in the past for some complex PE assembly and it always seems to fall apart. Soldering makes this stuff solid. Only one more to do; the one that spans the rear of the turret. I ordered some PE screens for the back deck and they showed up in the mail yesterday so they were installed today as well. I would continue working, but it's the wife's birthday and I don't want to upset her. Dinner and a movie awaits. More to follow soon. Thanks for watching. "Q"

Looking real good, thanks for the update.


cheers

I've always wanted to do this to my Challenger II but when it comes to modeling I have the attention span of a child with ADHD. Keep up the great work, It's really nice seeing this.

I thought ADD was bad but to have it in High Def is another matter entirely. Thanks for the kudos guys. Getting in some late evening soldering work here. More to follow. "Q"

Looks awesome! The chally II looks like a spaceship doesn't it? Can you give us any tips how you got the soldering so neatly? A lot of people (myself included) have slat armor waiting cause we're afraid somewhat of soldering. How do you hold everything together? How do you keep everything straigth?
thanks,
Mario

Thanks for the kudos Mario. I've had a lot of people ask me the same thing here lately, mostly from within my own model club. I plan on putting together a short SBS that shows how I went about doing this. I am new to soldering my PE brass, but have found it is actually easier than one would think provided they take their time and think ahead a bit. Will get something together in the next couple of days to show my process. Thanks again for the kind words. Much appreciated. "Q"

The soldering info would be great! I plan to build a Stryker w/ slat..and using CA wouldn't hold w/ my handling.

Jeff

Everything looks great. I love the way rustoleum gives great anti slip effect. I did mine with Mr.Surfacer 500, but in my opinion this works better. Wish it was available where I'm from. It looks easy I guess until I try it - then watch where little bits fly etc I also dig how you manage to pull off PE parts so cleanly, without unnecessary glue marks unlike myself. Can't wait for the painting session.

Also many thanks ahead for the soldering SBS. Can't wait to see how you do it.
Mario

Sorry for the late reply Mario. No problem on the SBS. I've got a few things I need to get cleared off first, but it won't take long. Back soon. "Q"

It has not to be the Rustoleum product. Every terracotta spray, no matter if cheap or expensive, will do the job fine, trust me. At the moment work on the anti slip coating job at my Tamiya M1A2. I tested products of several manufacturers before and they all just work fine.

As promised, here is the SBS on how I went about soldering up these slat armor arrays. First off my tools:
From center clockwise, Flat nose smooth jaw pliers, #11 blade, needle point tweezers, narrow smooth jaw pliers, metal snips (on top of the others) poster tac, soldering iron, flux, and solder. I do all my soldering on a small glass plate so I can turn the whole assembly as needed. The ceramic tile is to place the soldering iron on so I won't burn my cutting mat.

This is the head I use to solder with. It is actually a wood burning tip, but the point is so fine it works great with this small stuff.

Initial layout of main support is held in place by poster tac. This helps as the parts won't move around when installing the subsequent pieces.

Remaining pieces have one end lightly dipped in flux and inserted into their respective slots. The solder serves two purposes; it acts as an adhesive and keeps the part in place, it readies it for the follow on application of the solder.

All slats have been installed on one end and soldered in place. The comb looking tool keeps things straight and level.

The opposite end piece and remaining slat lengths are added and soldered into place. More poster tac is used as a heat sink to draw heat away from already soldered joints.


The vertical rods are added. one end of the rod is soldered in place....
The alignment tool is used to evenly space the slats and the opposite end of the rod is secured and then cut.


The remaining rods are installed in the same fashion.

Once all the rods are in place, the alignment tool is used to keep all the slats even, and then the slats are soldered to the vertical rods thereby making the whole assembly very strong. This is hard to do using super glues...
After all soldering is finished a grinding stone is place in the Dremel and all soldered joints are cleaned up.

The last thing done is to use a medium grit sanding stick and run it over the entire assembly and finally rinse off the flux residue with some lacquer thinner.


I hope this helps. If I can do this, anybody can. "Q"
ps. The key to all of this is the glass plate and the poster tac. The tac acts as a heat sink and it also keeps things in place. The glass lets me rotate the pieces for easier access rather then laying things out so I can get to them...

Looks great and you make it look almost easy to do Do you get the alignment tool with the slat or some other source?

Very useful "photo tutorial" Matthew

I've never thought to use poster tac as lock to facilitate the solder process

That's very ingenious, thanks a lot for sharing!


....And I like A LOT your build so far

Cheers

It came with the Accurate Armour set. I'm sure one could be made though with some thick sheet brass and a Dremel cutting wheel. Glad you guys found it useful. Thanks, "Q"

Love the poster tack idea, very clever!

Thanks for sharing


cheers

It's the simple things in this hobby that make it fun...ie. Poster Tac. ;o) Glad you all found this useful. I'll be doing a demo on soldering PE at my clubs meeting this month. My luck, things won't go well... Thanks again for the kudos all. I'm kind of stalled on this build for the moment. I need to solder one more slat armor array, but it is the one I am using for my demo...and, I'm waiting on some after market tracks to arrive. Shouldn't be long though. Thanks, "Q"