Armor/AFV: Allied - WWII
Armor and ground forces of the Allied forces during World War II.
Hosted by Darren Baker
Sherman Skink
tankmodeler
#417
Visit this Community
Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 01, 2004
KitMaker: 3,123 posts
Armorama: 2,539 posts
Posted: Sunday, October 28, 2012 - 12:21 AM UTC
Yeah, that looks better. It amy still not be domed enough, but it looks a lot better around the edges.

Paul
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - 12:05 AM UTC
A quick and dirty Gunners hatch:



The Periscope is just a place holder at the moment. Going to pull out and my Sherman and use those as a reference.
Will probably also find my valentines to use those as a guide for the commanders periscope surrounds.
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 01:03 AM UTC
Thinking it might be better to have the periscope as a separate part in case I ever decide to attempt an interior with the hatch open and periscope removed so reworked the aimers hatch.



Periscope based on the one from my sherman kit and photos that may or may not have actually been a sherman periscope with the attachment point to the hatch integrated into it:



Can always do the attachment point without the periscope mounted later on.

Completed assembly:



Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 11:18 PM UTC
Added the periscope to the commanders hatch.



scope was based off the dimensions I got from my dragon sherman, and compared with the skink drawings looks a little large in relation to the hatch overall.

Haven't been able to drag out either of my valentines to compare those periscopes as they are current;y boxed up in preparation for my move. will pull them out this weekend to get a look at them.
tankmodeler
#417
Visit this Community
Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 01, 2004
KitMaker: 3,123 posts
Armorama: 2,539 posts
Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 11:21 PM UTC
The periscopes in teh two main turret hatches are not the American style (M6??). They are the Vickers design seen on Valentines and Rams.

The optics are much narrower (maybe 1/2 the width of the M6). Lemme see if I can dig out some reference material on them.
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Thursday, November 01, 2012 - 04:28 PM UTC
Managed to drag out my AFV Club Valentine.

Measuring the periscopes in that, they come out at around 3mm compared with around 5 for the sherman ones. So will do up new and improved commanders periscopes over the weekend.
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 03, 2012 - 01:52 AM UTC
Added the Valentine style vision block. Think I may need to recheck my measurements as it looks a little out of proportion to my eye.

tankmodeler
#417
Visit this Community
Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 01, 2004
KitMaker: 3,123 posts
Armorama: 2,539 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 03, 2012 - 05:58 AM UTC
Yes, it's too tall. The bigger issue is that the entire periscope mount has to be tilted so that the disc of the base is parallel to the ground and not to the base of the hatch. Remember, the hatch sits at an angle, sloped back along with the surface of the turret roof. The nominal position of the periscope is to be able to look out parallel to the ground.

Paul
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 03, 2012 - 03:57 PM UTC
Ok, re-jigged the vision block. Helps if you have properly zeroed your measuring device and take into account any recesses the measured item fits into.



Also added the angle needed to make it sit horizontal.
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2012 - 01:15 AM UTC
Real life keeps getting in the way, but I finally had a bit of time to throw at this today.

Close to finalising the commanders hatch shape.

Also started checking the fit and alignment of all the different parts. Glad I did because I found a few discrepancies as unintended consequences of editing other areas that would have prevented any kind of fit or alignment.

Here is what I now have so far.



Also started working on what I will call the exterior gun tray. Not sure what I will do about the guns themselves yet.

I probably should have prefaced this whole build process by saying I really know bugger all about tanks.
I have mostly been an aircraft guy, with the occasional foray into large scale figures lately.
My few vehicle builds have always been OOB, so I am straying far outside my comfort zone and knowledge base with this and appreciate all the advice I have been getting to help me along.
jon_a_its
Visit this Community
England - East Midlands, United Kingdom
Joined: April 29, 2004
KitMaker: 1,336 posts
Armorama: 1,137 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2012 - 08:20 AM UTC
Looking good, but it makes my head hurt.
tankmodeler
#417
Visit this Community
Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 01, 2004
KitMaker: 3,123 posts
Armorama: 2,539 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2012 - 10:17 AM UTC
OK, so I've dug out my drawing and I've come up with a couple dimensions. more to follow.

Turret height from top of hull plate to top of turret - 35.9"

commander hatch length - 20.3"

gunner height length - 20.3"
Hatch height (at thickest point, see below) - 3.063"

Polsten rotor diameter - 14"

Vickers sight armoured ring outside dia - 6.5"

Read turret basket overhangs 10" past the back of the rear turret surface.

The top of the commander's hatches is parallel to the ground so the hatch is a wedge shape.

More angles and dimensions to follow.

Paul
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2012 - 12:33 PM UTC
Well so far after checking against a couple of those dimensions, my commanders hatch is 0.1mm too long, and my vickers sight armoured ring was 0.02mm too small in 1/35 scale.


Hopefully all my dimensions will be reasonably close so I don't have to start from scratch again
tankmodeler
#417
Visit this Community
Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 01, 2004
KitMaker: 3,123 posts
Armorama: 2,539 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2012 - 03:54 PM UTC
OK, some more:

the gun rotor locations

front, lower - 16.17" forward from the turret ring axis & 9.46" above the surface of the hull.

aft, upper - 8.43" forward & 21.01" high.

The radius around the upper rear edges of teh turret is not a single radius. Tangent to the top surface is appears to be 23.25" R. tangent to the aft face of the turret it is 10.57"R with the two radii tangent to each other at the intersection.

The front nose of the turret does not stick noticably out in front of the circular base of the turret. There is a gentle bulkge to the front that does, on a cople of the remaining castings & images protrude slightly over the base, but not much and it blends back to the diamter of the base.

The base is also smooth all around the turret with no kinks or facets. The only real discontinuity is the small groove where the balls are fed into the turret ball race.

The periscope in the gunner's door also appears to be a vickers scope and not a variation on an American scope.

HTH

Paul
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2012 - 04:23 PM UTC
Those are some pretty comprehensive dimensions!
tankmodeler
#417
Visit this Community
Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 01, 2004
KitMaker: 3,123 posts
Armorama: 2,539 posts
Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2012 - 05:09 PM UTC
Good drawings & an engineering degree will do that for you...

:)
jon_a_its
Visit this Community
England - East Midlands, United Kingdom
Joined: April 29, 2004
KitMaker: 1,336 posts
Armorama: 1,137 posts
Posted: Thursday, February 07, 2013 - 11:35 PM UTC
just seen on MilMod Polsten

Scroll down for skink interior
tankmodeler
#417
Visit this Community
Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 01, 2004
KitMaker: 3,123 posts
Armorama: 2,539 posts
Posted: Friday, February 08, 2013 - 11:10 AM UTC
Yeah, I have that drawing photocopied from documents at Bovington. It's a good one for shoing the internal arrangement of the armament.
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - 06:13 PM UTC
Been quite a while since i updated this but there has been progress.

Printed out a few experimental versions on my own 3D printer, but in the end went with shapeways for the final items.

This is a comparison of my turret print on the right with the shapeways version.



This is the upper and lower parts of the turret. Also got all the hatches printed, but not sure which box they are in at the moment as i moved house just before Christmas, and a month later my son was born so things have been a little busy.

The turret ha been printed hollow so if any one is really keen they can attempt an interior when I finally getting around to making casts of this.

Next step is to fix the bits of the turret I am not happy with and figure out how to make the guns.
barkingdigger
Staff MemberAssociate Editor
ARMORAMA
#013
Visit this Community
England - East Anglia, United Kingdom
Joined: June 20, 2008
KitMaker: 3,981 posts
Armorama: 3,403 posts
Posted: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 - 08:37 PM UTC
Wow that looks good! Any idea of a timeline for completion? (After all, you just moved house and had a child - mustn't be very busy... Only kidding!). I know I'd love to have a copy, assuming you plan to make it available via Shapeways. Are the gun barrels available anywhere in turned brass? Or is this a case of needing to print resin ones?

Keep us posted on the great work!

(And congrats to you & the missus on the new arrival!)
ALBOWIE
Visit this Community
New South Wales, Australia
Joined: February 28, 2006
KitMaker: 1,605 posts
Armorama: 1,565 posts
Posted: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 - 02:47 AM UTC
I missed this thread the first time around Iain and am very impressed with the printed product. It looks pretty good, you are quite the "E" Artisan. Are you planning to sell these through shapeways?

Al
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 - 04:00 AM UTC
There was a polsten gun available as an after market item, but it would require buying 4 which would add up quite quickly. Other issue is it has been out of stock wherever I gave found it so I suspect it's out of production.

The gun is about 70% complete in 3D modeling software. Plan was to create the design then build a master in brass and plastic,and cast up resin ones. I don't know how well it would work as a printed item, but should be ok.

As far as selling through Shapeways, I might do that, but my intent had been to fix the issues with the turret using apoxie and look at if I could offer a cast resin model since I have had a few enquiries from people that seem interested in this conversion.

I would need to do a bit more work on the 3D model to fix the problems before I would be satisfied enough with it to offer for sale. And there would be some scratch building required as the exterior gun 'boxes' are too thin to print properly, and it's too expensive with the current exchange rate for me to do test prints through shape ways to make sure everything will work.
recceboy
Visit this Community
Alberta, Canada
Joined: July 20, 2006
KitMaker: 706 posts
Armorama: 665 posts
Posted: Thursday, June 16, 2016 - 07:51 AM UTC
Looks great.

Anthony
ALBOWIE
Visit this Community
New South Wales, Australia
Joined: February 28, 2006
KitMaker: 1,605 posts
Armorama: 1,565 posts
Posted: Thursday, June 16, 2016 - 10:17 AM UTC

Quoted Text

There was a polsten gun available as an after market item, but it would require buying 4 which would add up quite quickly. Other issue is it has been out of stock wherever I gave found it so I suspect it's out of production.

The gun is about 70% complete in 3D modeling software. Plan was to create the design then build a master in brass and plastic,and cast up resin ones. I don't know how well it would work as a printed item, but should be ok.

As far as selling through Shapeways, I might do that, but my intent had been to fix the issues with the turret using apoxie and look at if I could offer a cast resin model since I have had a few enquiries from people that seem interested in this conversion.

I would need to do a bit more work on the 3D model to fix the problems before I would be satisfied enough with it to offer for sale. And there would be some scratch building required as the exterior gun 'boxes' are too thin to print properly, and it's too expensive with the current exchange rate for me to do test prints through shape ways to make sure everything will work.



I would certainly be interested in getting one if you do cast and sell. I may be able to Loan you a 35th Resin Polsten if that helps I have both Cromwell and Resicast examples that were done for the LVT's.

Al
Pave-Hawk
Visit this Community
Western Australia, Australia
Joined: May 05, 2006
KitMaker: 900 posts
Armorama: 510 posts
Posted: Thursday, June 16, 2016 - 10:32 AM UTC

Quoted Text



I would certainly be interested in getting one if you do cast and sell. I may be able to Loan you a 35th Resin Polsten if that helps I have both Cromwell and Resicast examples that were done for the LVT's.

Al



I appreciate the offer. Even just a few decent photos next to a ruler for scale reference or with a few key measurements would be extremely handy to make sure I have not wildly misinterpreted the few drawings I have. Or at least that I have misinterpreted them the same .

I said 70% but going back and looking at it, it's actually probably closer to 90% done on the guns.




I will be cutting the gun short to match the box shield around it, so there will only be the parts projecting outside the turret with no interior.

I think the spring needs some work as images I have seem to show two springs with different twist directions that meet in about the middle of the forward most half.