Hi Gianfranco
Stunning work!!! I've been a Leopard I driver for many years myself, and I think you're spot on on the details. If you're in need of pictures of the Danish Leopards, try contacting Keo (Kenneth Oestergaard) on this forum. He's a friend of mine and he has great knowledge on this tank, plus a s#"tload of pictures. I'm quite sure he will help you out.
Keep up the great work
Regards
Jacob

Hi Gianfranco !

Like everybody here, I'm really glad you and your family are OK !

I hope you soon back to "normal life".

Cheers

Marco

John, Olivier and Mark Antony,
thanks for the moral support that you are giving me these days along with many other friends of Armorama. From my last message to date we have had about another 100 shaken of adjustment, some well above of the 4 degree on the Richter Scale.
Luckily our house is solid and that it was built with seismic criteria, so the damage was minimal, so we only the discomfort and fear of one of shock stronger.
We hope that this seismic swarm ends at the earliest and that we can soon return to normal life. Up to now we have insured and moved all materials and furniture that could fall and that can break easily, so we have the whole house upside down.
But, meanwhile, I have anyway begun to do some little works on my Leopard and I corrected (it's the fourth time!) the bulkhead between the engine compartment and the fighting compartment... I hope it's the last time! !
It seems to me that this time he has become well ... even if I built it during this earthquake (but it's came a bit twisted ... )
Seriously, we were very lucky.
Greetings to all Friends of Armorama.
Gianfranco

Great work Gianfranco I hope you will send in a build feature of this project when complete.

I glad to know that everything is well now.
With natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis.. there's not much we can do when it happens.
Italy is such a beautiful country, well I truly hope everything will get back to normal soon.

Take care Gianfranco !

Hours 9:01 a.m.,
Another strong earthquake of 5.8 ° on the Richter scale that lasted over 30 seconds.
I wasn't able to get up off the couch while I was watching television. Every time I got up, the movement of the floor made ​​me fall back on the couch.
My wife, fortunately, was able to go under the lintel of the entrance.
It's terrible to feel so helpless!
We hope it ends soon - Gianfranco

Hours 11.40 a.m.
Many others aftershocks, including two over the 4 degrees on the Richter scale!
Now my wife and I will close the house and we go to eat something away, at least so for a while we will not think about what is happening.
This is not life ...
Gianfranco

I apologize to all the friends of Armorama for these "out of topic," but we are desperate ...
Excuse me again - Gianfranco

Gianfranco, quando succedono queste cose, non c'è molto da dire. Tu e la tua famiglia sono forti e in grado di seguire la vita. Speriamo che ora le cose si normalizzano, e si può riprendere una vita normale.

Forza!

Marco Vaiano amico (che è un po 'italiano troppo)

Mi dispiace il mio italiano povero

Don't apologise Sir. With every post we know you and your wife are safe. Updating all your friends on here is the best thing cause we are not all getting the information. I hope that things settle down swiftly so everyone in the region can start to rebuild and repair. Please keep letting us all know how you are going.

Stay safe, we're thinking of you.

Cheers, John

Stay safe Gianfranco !
It's a helpless situation, but I hope everybody can stay safe!

Gianfranco,

anche se da lontano, sto seguendo l'evolversi della situazione.
Cercate per quanto possibile di stare al sicuro.

E se c'e' qualcosa che posso fare sono a disposizione.

I wish you and your family all the best in these terrible moments. I hope the situation will be normal again really soon.

Gianfranco, my thoughts are with you and your family.
Stay safe.

Marco Antonio, John "Jashby," John "Nito74", Nicola, Olivier and Malcolm and all the friends of Armorama,
thanks for your support. You cannot know what your words are a comfort to us.
The situation is very serious. Yesterday there were 16 dead and over 350 others injured in a radius of 30 kilometers from our house, and the number of displaced rose to just over 8,000 only in the province of Modena.
We just returned home after spending the night sleeping in the car ... sleeping ... so to speak ... Every little sound, every slightest movement made ​​us wake up.
We cannot take a shower by yesterday and we have the shoes on our feet for over 24 hours.
But we are among the lucky: our house, built in 2003, has undergone a few superficial damages but the fear is still so much more.
The worst, however, is to see your house, built with great sacrifice, to dance under your feet and that it gives you the impression of collapsing on top of you at any moment. It's a shocking thing, as is terrible the feeling of helplessness that you take.
We hope what all to this to end, and end soon.
Regards to all - Gianfranco

Gianfranco I saw the news an the interviews at Sky, it was devastating image, houses, streets looked like a war zone.

I was at Modena and Bologna about 8 or 7 yrs ago, such beautiful cities and landscape. It's sad to see the despair in the people's faces looking at their houses and possessions..

I'm glad to know everything is ok with you and your family.

I wish a quick recovery to normality soon.

Stay safe !

Ciao Gianfranco,
it's terrible, i just hope you've been able to return safely to your home.

I don't wonder how terrible it would be to feel our homes lost.

I live at least at 200 km from the earthquake center, and the shockwaves waked me up...

John and Giuseppe and all of friends of Armorama,
thanks for the support that you give us, it's fundamental in these moments of crisis.
Sorry for the delay in replying, but these days are a bit frantic.
Finally, we had some days of relative calm, which at least allowed us to recover a little of the lost sleep.
But the earth trembles still, at least 40/50 shocks a day, even if only some of them are so strong as to be clearly sensed.
And this makes you continue to live in the tension, because the experts have said that this situation will last for months, if not years, and that is very likely, indeed almost certain, that there will be aftershocks as strong as the first. And this thought is devastating.
Now, however, finished to mend the house, I'll take to model; at least, when I work on my models, I don't think to another and this calm down me a bit nerves, so it soon I'll post the new photos of the results I have achieved.
Greetings to all friends of Armorama - Gianfranco

Hi guys,
excuse my silence, but here the earth continues to tremble. My wife and I are lucky because we are on the edge of the most seismic area, but even now the tremors are felt occasionally also by us.
The modeling, therefore, was put a little on the sidelines also because I’m committed to helping my neighbors and for this I go to make the anti-looting patrols to prevent criminals to plunder the abandoned houses in some countries practically destroyed.
But today we go for a week from my mother-in-law in Foggia so, I and my wife, we can get some rest, catch up on sleep lost and regain a bit of serenity ... and I can continue to do a little the modeling.
As soon as we shall return from Foggia, I will update you on the progress of my Leopard (I will put on the workbench also one M47 "Patton" for a girlfriend, so I’ll have 3 different models at once to carry on ... if the earthquake still not put on us one of his hands ...) .
We feel in a week.
A dear greeting to all - Gianfranco "Il Colonnello"

Tieni duro Gianfranco !

That's good to have 3 models on the workbench, a good way to forget bad things, at least for some minutes...

Hi guys,
after some personal problems that have took me a lot, the holidays spent with my wife to fish for trouts in Slovenia and some small "jobs" out of the program that I made for some friends (as such as the M 47 of the Italian Army that I have already posted on Armorama) , I'm back to work finally on my beloved Leopard.
In practice - as you will see - I had to disassemble, rebuild and complete the bulkhead spark because it was wrong (there were a few things that I had not seen from the pictures in my possession) and then I completed all of the side walls of the compartment of combat.
Tomorrow I'll take the photos of my work and I will post them to hear your feedback.
Any comments and any suggestions will be, as usual, much appreciated.
Greetings to all the friends of Armorama.

Hi guys, here are the pictures of my work.

Here are some images that I was inspired to correct and to complete my model. The schema has enabled me to calibrate the volumes and dimensions of the various parts, as can be seen from the pictures of the view of the model together with all details assembled but not fixed.






The schemas of detail allowed me to identify all the parts to build / modify and their exact location. Of course, was necessary to reach some compromises (as little as possible).






Other total views to appreciate all the details so far realized.






First of all, I have completed the fire alarm system by placing all the cylindres of Argon gas, is that the pipes. To complete this system, I will have to do even the control box and his protective mask that will be placed on the hull near the pilot's place (and to do this I still have a little time). I had already made a master of a cylinder of Argon gas which I then duplicated in resin, so I can use them also for my Rescue Leopard.






I also repositioned in the correct position the two tanks compensation for oil of the hydraulic controls of the pilot (the two small tanks to the left of the gas cylinders).









I have completed the heating system by adding the commands for the opening / closing of the pipe unions of the air intakes system inside the hull , the seals of the expulsion chamber of the exhaust gas and the relative command to its closing in case of immersion tube and the pipes and cables for the supply of gasoil for the heating system.
I apologize for the bad photos. I'll make a new the set of images before painting and glueing all the details.








I have completed the right bulkhead with the electric cables for feeding of the command and control of the engine and of the various devices available to the pilot, with the pipes of the fire alarm system and the tubes of braking system and of the steering of the drive wheels.










As I mentioned earlier, I had to disassemble, rebuild and complete the flame arrestor bulkhead, thanks to some new pictures at my disposal. In particular, I have added all the details present, how the various wires and tubes, the controls of the drain valve of the engine compartment and the selector of the fuel tanks, the solenoid device for the "grounding" of the tank, the box of the small electrical heater for the food of crew, the "blades" filter and the feed pump for diesel heater ... and other controls and cables.








After that, I have completed the bulkhead on the left, starting to build the drain pump with its pipeline, the manual pump of the system immersion for inflating the pneumatic seals of the tower in case of diving, and one of the solenoid for the "putting ground "of the electrical system of the tank.










I also made the control levers for the air intake of the ventilation system to catch the air from the combat compartment in the event of immersion, which I fastened to the hull as well as in reality (vds also the image 08). I also realized the cylindrical container that contains the flexible corrugated pipe for heating inside the compartment of combat (vds. also the image 07).






I then completed the bulkhead on the left with the command of the brakes and the exhaust pipe of the water collected from the filter system anti-NBC (which I will complete it later with hoses, pumps and boxes of filters).






Here is an overview of the bulkhead on the left almost complete.






I have built the support for part of the control unit of the stabilization system of the turret and the pump for the expulsion of the powder of the filtering system anti-NBC.








An overview of the details as soon as made. The longer tube will be connected then to the main filter system anti-NBC.






The schemas of the interior of the hull and of the various details, are essential in order to identify the positions and sizes of all the major parts. Here is the complete set of views of the model with the upper part of the hull.




The front part of the hull yet without the driver's seat, a particular very complex to reproduce well.






The bulkhead right side, on which you can see the various parts fixed both to the hull, both at its upper part.










The flame arrestor bulkhead on the rear with all the wiring. Some cables will be put in place only after the final fixing of the bulkhead.








The bulkhead on the left illustrated as the right. The front part of the hull has not yet been completed and will be the next job. Then it's up to the turret...








Another little problem has been the realization of the holes on the hull for the ejection system of the exhaust gases of the heater. As you can see, there are some "corrections" of them (in fact, I had remembered that they were three holes, but not as they were willing) so I wrong them and then I had to correct the error after I finally found the image which reproduces their correct position. But, as we say, "Only those who don't anything, don't do mistakes" ... and I very wrong (fortunately there are the putty, the glue and the plasticard ...







For now I'm done and now I dedicate to make the details of the front of the hull, such as the filtering system of the compartment anti-NBC with their details and the rack of the ammunition (finally I got the pipes of proper size!) and the pilot's seat.
Until next time ... and any comments and / or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Best regards - Gianfranco

Tchau Gianfranco !

Amazing work (as always). I'll folow you in this adventure.

Cheers !

Marco

Just noticed this thread, your work is inspirational. I feel encouraged try something like this.

I just received the kit who I bought two weeks ago of the engine and of the related compartment of the Leopard 1 produced by the "Perfect Scale Modellbau" and I examined it carefully.
It is a very nice model with many parts very well printed, without shrinkages and bubbles.
Clearly there are some inaccuracies due to the compromises necessary for industrial production, but in general it is a kit highly accurate who will give a lot of satisfaction to those who will build and complete it with all the wiring and piping necessary.
But I will continue to make "my" engine ... that at the end will surely be most beautiful and better of this ... or at least I hope ...
Cheers - Gianfranco