@ Andy: Actually, I'm relieved to finally get to the painting stage!

@ John: Thanks for the sentiments, my friend!

@ Jerry: I don't use anything particularly special as a primer over PE. I'll probably shoot these with Floquil Model Rail Road lacquer - likely their "Boxcar Red" or "Primer Red." Over that, I'll go with Tamiya acrylics for the base colors.

Well, stick a big (brass!) fork in 'em, the fenders are done!

The left fender went much faster and easier then the right side. Not only did I have the practice from the right side, but I understood the design and intended geometry so I didn't have to spend so much time trying to figure out what I was doing. Also, the second fender went together just a little "cleaner" than the first one.

Anyways, here are a couple of quick snaps to show the two fenders on the hull before I set them aside for finishing and final assembly.













A "challenging" project within a project, but I'm definitely ready to move on to some other part of the build.

Happy modeling!

What the 'ell man!!! It's been entirely too long without an update.
J

@ Jer: LOL!

To ev'rything
Turn, turn, turn
There is a season
Turn, turn, turn
And a time for ev'ry purpose under heaven

But since it was you who asked..!

Here's a little up-date.

I'm getting ready to close up the hull and turret. Before I do that, though, I will paint the interior spaces flat black to prevent any light reflections from bare plastic showing.

I had to fill the lifting handle attachment points on all of the hatches before I could glue them to the hull deck. The kit holes are too big and too deep for the Voyager replacement PE handles.

I also had to make sure the hull MG would fit and could be added later from the inside, though the turret ring. I replace the kit MG barrel with a turned brass flash hider from RB Models and a barrel made from a piece of .9 mm dia Albion brass tubing. I used the kit supplied PE perforated barrel jacket.

The armor plate around the MG had some small sink holes in its face, so those were filled and sanded, and the bolt details replaced.

I'm still working on getting a good fit with the turret parts, but once that's done, I'll shoot some flat black and close up the hull and turret. From there, I can add all of the fiddly detail bits.









In these photos, the upper hull deck, turret parts, fenders, and stowage box are all just dry-fit.

Hey, it's finally starting to look like a tank!

Happy modeling!

But it hasn't got a gun yet!

Still looks awesome, Mike.

Nice work Mike and it really is coming along nicely. Shame you have to paint it though, I quite like the color scheme so far

Keith.

@ Christopher: LOL! The key word was STARTING to look like a tank.

Thanks for the props!

@ Keith: Thanks for checking in! I guess you're back from vacation. Hope you had smooth travels and a great time.

Mike,
Outstanding metal work with the fenders. Mine would end up like Jerry's with additional terrain features and extra solder. Perhaps you need to do a soldering demo at the next Convention, either formally or at the bar after the day's activities.

I will use your blog for inspiration as I need to build up one of the three Churchills that I have in the ready rack of the stash. Fortunately, it will be without the gearbox and all of the extra brass...

More pics, por favor.

John

@ John: Thanks for the kind words, John!

If you get hard up for seminar presenters, don't hesitate to ask. You know where to find me.

In so far as a demo at the bar, what could be more fun than butane torches and frosty cold adult beverages?! You know every good story begins with, "Hey guys... Watch this!"

How about butane torches and high octane alcohol?

This is insane...in a good way!

@ Bob: LOL! If they filmed it, they'd have to put in a notice saying, "No model builders were harmed during the making of this SBS..."

@ Michael: Thanks for commenting. I really appreciate it!

To all: I've been out of the loop for the past week, but hopefully I'll get some more work done and new in-progress photos up soon.

Happy modeling!

It's looking fantastic, sir! Do you intend on bringing it to the next meeting? I did not get a chance to really look at it last time.

@ Adam: Thanks! Oh, yea, I'll bring it to the next meeting... A captured audience, you know! LOL!

So, I finally finished up a collaborative modeling project and am now able to get back to my own stuff.

I'm still plugging away on some of the large construction aspects of the turret and hull... waiting on some putty to dry, etc. That means that I'm not quite ready to paint the empty interior spaces black and close the tank up.

While waiting on some other bits and pieces to dry, I did the exhausts and heat shields.

The tank I'm building didn't have the clips on the sides of the air intakes for the wading stacks. This is clear from the photo I'm working from. There's a lot of details about the upgrade and re-build program for the Churchill that have not been published, and it's apparent that many tanks cycled through more than one up-grade. The deep wading modifications would seem to be one of the program modifications that wasn't instituted on all of the Churchills until maybe sometime in mid-1943, but certainly before D-day.

My working assumption is that if the deep wading package was not installed on the assembly line, then the square exhaust flanges for the deep wading exhaust extensions were not present on the tank. There are plenty of photos of Mk. III's and even some Mk. IV's without the clips for the stacks or the flanges for the exhaust extensions.

That's a long-winded explanation why I've changed the exhaust pipe ends to the early curved pipes with beveled ends and am not using the AFV Club supplied pipe ends with the square extension mounting flanges.

I've made my early type exhaust pipes ends from aluminum tubing. I still have to put another layer of putty on the joints with the mufflers, but here're the early pipes.



I've also used a thin saw to add slits on the sides of the kit exhaust pipe flanges along with some .018 dia x .010 styrene punched disks to replicate the nuts and bolts joining the pipes together.

The Voyager PE heat shields are pretty straight forward to construct. The various sections have holes etched to locate the nut and bolt details, and I used these holes to align the sections of the shield to each other.

I did add my own bolt details from hex and round punched styrene since the supplied PE bolt heads looked much too thin to me. I considered shaving the bolt details off of the plastic AFV Club kit parts, but those were simple little cylindrical looking bolts. The prototype heat shields have fairly prominent nuts on them.



The PE shield has been soldered together as a single assembly that I can paint separately and install later. (The exhaust pipes and mufflers are also still separate for painting.)

Here're the dry-fitted exhausts and shields.











That's all for now.

Happy modeling!

Imagine a bunch of popcorn eating emojis here... you've got the patience of a Saint. Uber impressive PE work Mike.

Guess I had better (muffler) pipe up here... looking really good Mike, you must have been going nuts (and bolts) recently with this engine deck area...

Amazing detail and such nice work.. I am looking forward to seeing it next Wednesday at the store.

Have a great weekend.

Keith.

I have built entire models that have less parts than that exhaust system!
That is wonderfully clean work bubba. I think you should have been working for Rolex as a watchmaker.
J

@ Michael: LOL! Man, I have to confess all before a jury of my peers... I had no idea what that was and had to Google "emojis."

As long as you're not throwing that popcorn at me!

Thanks for the props!

@ Keith: What can I say!? See ya next week, my friend!

@ Jer: I wish I was working for Rolex! (Or at least getting paid like I was!)

The latest little up-date...

Since I successfully fabricated the fenders, I can now forego "Plan B" (in case I screwed 'em up!) and I have shortened the link-to-link track by 19 links per side. This has given me two runs for the spares box to (probably) use as spare armor on another build.

I've joined the ends of the two track sections with elastic thread so that I can easily slip them on and off the model.



I actually wasn't 100% sure which tank I was going to build when I started, and if I had decided on one of the Churchills in Italy, I would have built the tank without the center fender section next to the turret. This would have required full track runs. But with the complete fenders on each side, the portions of the tracks under the fenders are not needed.

I also had a lot of work to do on the air intakes on each side of the tank. The AFV Club kit parts were warped and had shallow sink holes on their ends and the bottoms. After cleaning up the parts, I filled the sink holes with Mr. Surfacer 1200 and allowed it to dry over night.

After sanding these areas smooth, I added rectangular Evergreen styrene strip to the insides and clamped the air intakes down to a metal ruler. This glue-up was also allowed to dry over night. After un-clamping, the parts were straight, so they were painted flat black inside and the Voyager PE screens were added.





I also added styrene strips inside the hull sponsons to close up the openings from the air intakes.

These areas and the empty interior of the hull were sprayed flat black and the upper hull deck was glued on.

With the hull closed up, I've turned to the hull details...

Added AFV Club's turned brass conical-head bolt details which was an indulgence since the plastic kit bolts are totally adequate. AFV Club actually gives the builder two options for the conical-head bolts, the ones that are completely circular and the more common ones with the flats milled on the sides. This option is not called out in the instructions, but it is there, so if you're building one of these AFV Club Churchills, check your references.

The circular conical bolts are actually covers that were welded over the very early tanks that had the armor attachments that were flush to the outer surface. The points where the threaded rod came flush with the surface of the outside of the hull was determined to be a ballistic weak point, so the conical protective disks were welded over them. The later production tanks had the threaded rod turned to a point and the conical protective rings were threaded on and welded to the hull at the two milled flats.

Anyways, moving on...

I've completed the engine deck details now.

The rods with the bent tips are the engine hatch hold opens. The eye bolts and rods are the AFV Club plastic kit parts. Small and fragile, they were tedious to clean up, but they replicate the prototype parts very nicely. I did add PE washers to one end of each rod. On the real tank, the rods are retained in the eye bolts on the engine deck by these washers and their other ends are held inside the engine hatch with small toggles made on the ends of the rods.

I did use the Voyager PE parts for the retainer brackets for the rods.







The hatch handles are, obviously, the Voyager PE parts. If you look closely, you can see why I had to fill the locator holes for the plastic kit handles. The holes were too large and deep and would have swallowed up the Voyager handles if I hadn't filled them.

That's all for now. Thanks for checking in and...

Happy Modeling!

Looking awesome Mike. Sounds like you've determined the exact tank you're modeling now? Have a photo to show the rest of us?

Those really good stories have a phrase that goes something like this: "hold my beer and watch this..."

Pete, the seminar-meister, has your name and I'll let him make the call when the time comes. Nice work again on the brass and the other details. I also like the track tensioning devices that are in use on your build... Most of us mere mortals would have been satisfied in using glue.

Keep the pics coming

@ Jesse: Hey, Jesse, sure. I guess I'm committed now, so here's my subject:

IWM 2304, T68261R, DOROTHY



I think I can come up with something a little more imaginative than this setting, and I have something in mind that would be a little latter than this photo and hopefully more interesting.

@ John: LOL! With the guys I usually hung out with, you'd better have finished your beer first else you'd have an empty bottle waiting on ya!

"Hold your beer 'til you get back?! Yea... sure..."

More photos as soon as I get a chance.

Cheers,
Mike

Been busy and distracted by the 1:1 scale world for the past few days and only got back to the work bench a little yesterday and today.

After finishing the details on the engine deck, I've moved on to the front hull details.



One of the first bits to tackle was the latch assembly that holds the driver's wicket or view port doors open. This is a crazy little PE assembly made of 4 PE parts and three bits of wire. It's a nice improvement over the molded on kit details, but the way I'm displaying it, it's just about hidden. Oh well...









It actually went together a little easier than I anticipated.

The rain hoods / sun shields over the periscopes are made of two PE parts, and there were no problems with these. Voyager gives for the parts for 4 units - 2 on the hull and 2 on the turret.







After figuring out the sequence with the first one, I built the other three assembly-line fashion.

Finally, I built the Voyager blackout headlight cover for the left light.



Voyager gives you the parts to do both headlights, but the earlier Churchills only had a single hooded blackout drive light, the other one was a semi-circular shielded open lamp. I'm modifying the other kit headlight to this configuration, and it's in the glue up / putty stage right now.

Anyways, that's all for now.

Happy modeling!

You soldered that little doohickey?

Kimmo

Hi Kimmo,

Yep, it's all soldered together. Except for the size, it wasn't a particularly hard assembly to make.

Here's an excerpt from the Voyager instructions showing how the parts of the wicket latch fit together.



First, for all of the work on the wicket latch, I used VERY small chips of solder and liquid flux. I use a butane torch for all my soldering work.

The technique for heating these very small parts could be called "Indirect Conduction Heating." I use a pair of fine-tipped tweezers to hold the parts, clamping the solder joint while supporting the work. I use the butane torch to heat the tweezers near their tips. The heat transfers through the tweezers to the small PE parts. When they get hot enough, the solder chip will melt and flow.

If you try to heat these very tiny brass parts directly, you run the risk of burning them or melting them. However, using the indirect, conduction heating method, the PE parts are never damaged.

I started by bending the "wings" on part E43. I then folded the bolt details over and soldered them in place. To solder the bolts, I held them tight to the surface of E43 with fine-tipped tweezers, applied a small drop of liquid flux and a VERY small solder chip. I heated the joint using the indirect conduction heating method.

I then cleaned up parts E36 and E55. I straightened a piece of brass wire and cut two pieces about a cm long and threaded the wire through E43 to connect parts E36 and E55. I then threaded the second piece of wire through the outer holes in E36 and E55.

Using my fine-tipped tweezers, I grasped both pieces of wire between parts E36 and E55 allowing part E43 to hang freely. The shape to part E36 held E43 more or less level.

With the two pieces of brass wire held in the tweezers, I used another pair of tweezers to push and twist the wires and PE parts into alignment. I then applied a small drop of flux and a small chip of solder to the joint with the wire and parts E43 and E36.

I heated the tweezers and melted the solder by indirect conduction heating.

Without releasing the tweezers, I then made some small adjustments in alignment, turned the assembly over and repeated the soldering at the joint of the wire and parts E55 and E43.

I used a drop of lacquer thinner and a small nylon brush to remove the excess flux. I then cut the wires on one side to length and sanded their ends even and flat. I used tweezers to grip the part in the center at the wire hinge pins, and then cut and sanded the wires on the other side.

The small clevis, part E56 was simply bent to shape and slipped over a piece of wire a couple of cm's long. A small drop of flux and a chip of solder were applied to outside of the wire-part joint on one side. With the opposite side of the wire in the tweezers, I used the indirect conduction heating technique.

The melted solder always runs or flows towards the heat source, so by heating the opposite side of the wire, the solder flowed into the wire-part joint.

I flipped the part around in the tweezers and repeated the soldering process for the other side of the part. Any solder drawn from the first joint back towards the tweezers (the indirect heat source) could be considered excess and not necessary.

Again, I cleaned the flux away with a drop of lacquer thinner and trimmed the ends of the wire on either side of the clevis.

I slipped the clevis (part E56) onto the end of the lever (part E36) and glued the latch assembly to the tank using an acrylic glue. The PE hook on the wicket, kit part B7, PE part E44, was used to align the latch.

Solder is your friend when it comes to all things PE!

Happy modeling!

Mike,
your soldering work is amazing, heck, the whole project is amazing! I'd like to know what type of torch you're using as I just started to play with the process and after having not much luck with the iron I had on hand I grabbed my full size benzomatic torch which worked in a pinch.
My current problem is with trying to solder together a searchlight mount. I got the first pivot point on no problem, bent the frame to shape and of course can't get the other pivot on to save my life. I had the setup clamped in a metal vise and concluded that was acting as a heat sink so I lined the jaws with thin wood sheets. Now I'm thinking the scorching of the wood contaminated the joint. Any ideas?

Sean

Flamin' eck.

Kimmo