Darren Baker provides us with a close look at the contents of the Chieftain Mk 10 from Takom in 1/35th scale.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

I am building one right now. The detail is great, some shortcuts here and there, but nothing major as far as I can see. The turret assembly requires some persuasion, otherwise I can see nothing to complain about.

Will this cable be correct?

Metal Cable

Unlikely, I'd say.

The Valentine was a few tons lighter than a Chieftain so I'd be very surprised if the wire tow rope would be the same diameter. I have dims somewhere but around an inch is what I recollect.

Sorry David wrong time period. I suspect Eureka or RMG will come to the rescue. If you just want the cable then RMG offers that I believe. but I will need to check scale.

Darren thanks for the peek into the box, I do have a couple on order.

Regarding the tow cable and I'm not an expert but would it be the same as used on Chally 1? Eureka do have a Chally 1 tow cable set.

Accurate Armour do a set of modern British tank recovery ropes, I'm pretty sure the Challenger and Chieftain items are the same.

Also again with ref to the decals the rear hazard plates are the wrong colour, they should be a high visibility orange and red, they provide red and white which would suit a modern German tank.


Dan

Building my model, I have managed to come across an annoying issue: running alonside the top of the hull there is a rail, which is moulded solid on the Takom kit. It shold be recessed, on the Meng CAD images this detail is represented correctly. Prepare the razor saw, this was not fun to mend at all

A few tons? At 55 tons the Chieftain weighted as much as 4 of the 15 ton archers.

Which rail do you mean ? Is it the U-channel lying on its side visible in this image ?? :
http://data3.primeportal.net/tanks/erik_jan_eskes/chieftain_mk10_rev/images/chieftain_mk10_rev_100_of_136.jpg

Will be a lot of work if it needs fixing ...
/ Robin

It would be a lot of work if you used a razor saw and I'd anticipate the result not looking great anyway. A much better solution (I did it in the 1980s on a Tamiya MK 3) is to remove the upper section and replace with 1mm brass U channel on its side. It is surprisingly easy and quick and looks much better than the solid kit part.

Technically the cross section is an 'F' but doing this gives you a '6', which is better than the kit 'B' section. For a rebuild though, as this kit represents, remove all the wading rail behind the transverse depression stop rail and do not replace it, as that part was all cut off to fit the raised transmission covers. Obviously deep wading as a requirement had been dropped by then.

Sorry if my 'a few tons' caused confusion; call it British understatement😀