With a maelstrom of Chaos behind me it's back to the bench then. One thing I have got onto is the depiction of the varying production variants of the Armoured Exhaust Cover. I have mithered David Byrden over this in the past, and a lot of the features and differences come from 'mould' drop out during casting, and the moulds being 'patched' rather than reset. Often the apex of the cover suffers the most due to mould flaws, with the central ridge being flattened and smoothed. Another version has what looks like bridging plates inserted to strengthen the deteriorating mould, causing a 'roofed' effect, and yet another example has access channel machined into the side walls for the attachment nuts/bolts to be fitted or removed.
And here are the covers ready for a few layers of Mr surfacer 500... 'Claggy' grade not 'Skaggy'!!!
The casting marks are from Archer decals,with the seams on the lifting lugs applied with stretched sprue, the 'plated' cover is 1mm styrene stock sheet butted, and overlapped. The access channels on the later production variation is applied using a suitable burr and drill in a mini rotary tool. The flattened and smoothed cover is simply sanded with a fine grade wet and dry finishing paper. These will all receive a couple of coats of Mr Surfacer to blend the detail and remove the harshness of the additions.
I have had a go at beating up and deforming some of the PE 'sheet' pieces, not as easy as it appears... My hat is off to all those folks who have done this and kept them 'deformed' enough to actually attach onto the vehicle.
One little thing I discovered is that you can burn brass PE, to resemble aged and rusted mild sheet or shrapnel and projectile damage. Just 'tin' the area to be mangled and abused, slap on some liquid flux, and turn the blow torch up, then set about the PE until you get a very thin 'crumbly' area that can be poked and bent to the look you want.
See you all tomorrow, my patient friends... Cheers Phil.
More of that Skaggy word!! The exhaust cover varations seem to be almost like Sherman transmission covers-small differences between the manufacters.
ReplyDeleteDan
Skaggy must be an M6 corridor phenomenon. Mind you, the M6 can get pretty skagged up sometimes...he he.
ReplyDeleteNice work there Herr Barkington. I love those multi-shot pictures.
PS is it mating season for Tiger 1 armoured exhaust covers already?
Bill
Hi Dan! 'Skaggy' is one of Bill's colloquialisms, round yonner way up ere it's 'Claggy', and a bit further up in Lancashire it's 'Clart'. Usually it means dirt or mud of the thick cloying kind. I'll bet that there are a multitude of regional variations within the U.S. also? A friend of mine in the Fleet Air Arm, was visiting Charleston, after a combined exercise, finding the PX a bit dull, he and the other WAFU's set off into the night looking for some 'nightlife'... After finding a suitable club for dancing and drinking, he was stood at the bar surveying the local 'talent' when a young lady sauntered across the dance floor and took hold of his hand. She lent towards him and whispered in his ear, "Do you 'Shag'?" ...Well due to the trans-Atlantic variation on the word he ended up with a livid welt across his face, a whole mind of confusion. To be honest Dan Shermans/M4's confuse me no end, the always remind me of giant Lego kit's that could hot swap. Very useful in the theatre I expect?
ReplyDeleteHi Bill, it's mayhem here at the moment, I will have to spend the evening putting all the male and female parts into separate boxes just to get some sleep!!! Mind you it could be a good thing, if you can put up with the 'grunting', when you come downstairs in the morning, you could have a whole litter of Tiger Cubs filling the cupboards!
Right I'd best go and get something done...
Cheers Phil.
I've been thinking all day about the many words for "muck", but have thought of none so far-I must be thick!
ReplyDeleteLove the rough looking PE parts-some of the holes might be from a bit of spalling I think.
Dan
Hello Dan! I think that it is just that past Kent, England and the rest of these 'sodden isles' are rather muddy places to be at times. And being English, we have to complicate matters by having a multitude of words for the same thing!
ReplyDeleteHow Are you enjoying the new 'Noise' on the blog? I'll keep updating it to keep every body awake!
I think that the 'accident' with the PE will come in very handy at some point in the near future.
Thanks again for the support.
Cheers Phil.