Armour Dreams

[Jonathan Moore]

Jubilees clips, top and bottom of the mould hold the outer sheet in place and finally the whole assembly is bolted together.

The polyurethane, release agent and vacuum chamber are all currently in bound, all I have to do before commencing the casting is to shot blast the hubs and add some extra bands around the outside of the hubs to increase the surface area so that the tyres have a bigger area to bond to.

Confused join the que.

Jon

[Chris Abraham]

Great work you are doing. I am planning to have a go at doing a Vickers light tank or a A13 cruiser tank, have the fabrication skills and tooling but you try finding the drawings with measurements, thats the hardest part in my book, at the moment i am doing a lot of homework. Trips to Bovington are very trying as theres always one measurement that you forget to take. Keep up the good work.

[Jonathan Moore]

Originally Posted by Chris Abraham

Great work you are doing. I am planning to have a go at doing a Vickers light tank or a A13 cruiser tank, have the fabrication skills and tooling but you try finding the drawings with measurements, thats the hardest part in my book, at the moment i am doing a lot of homework. Trips to Bovington are very trying as theres always one measurement that you forget to take. Keep up the good work.

Morning Chris,
Have you got the two Black prince Books on the A13, I am a bit anal but they are, in my opinion, fantastic books and contain a mountain of technical detail. It might be worth mentioning your project on the HMVF forum. The other source of reference is a good quality model.

Regards,

Jon

[Chris Abraham]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Moore

Morning Chris,
Have you got the two Black prince Books on the A13, I am a bit anal but they are, in my opinion, fantastic books and contain a mountain of technical detail. It might be worth mentioning your project on the HMVF forum. The other source of reference is a good quality model.

Regards,

Jon

Hi Jon, i have got the P.M Knight books on the A13, gives a really good account of the construction details of the tank. A tank often seen in 1940 used in France and the Western desert and here in the UK but only one left, A French museum scrapped one not that long ago I have also bought a good quality model like you mentioned but it will be a tape measure job to proof scale the sizes. As for drawings i am finding it difficult to find anything really especially hull plate sizes etc, i even tried Bovington but the didnt have much. I do wonder where these factory drawings went on most British tanks as its a bit of a mystery, i have asked all over, someone sitting on them.
As for your mould to cast the urethane i have noticed that tank bogie wheels have groves in them or raised steps to stop the rubbers sliding off, the A13 has them on their aluminium wheels they use.

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Moore

J
The polyurethane, release agent and vacuum chamber are all currently in bound, all I have to do before commencing the casting is to shot blast the hubs and add some extra bands around the outside of the hubs to increase the surface area so that the tyres have a bigger area to bond to.

Jon

Have you given any thought to adding vanes or fins to the hub to key into the "body" of urethane? Not making any claims that they should be there, but they would reduce the propensity for the urethane to shear off the hub. Fine line, of course, as too much would reduce the elasticity and absorbtion of the urethane.

[Jonathan Moore]

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

Have you given any thought to adding vanes or fins to the hub to key into the "body" of urethane? Not making any claims that they should be there, but they would reduce the propensity for the urethane to shear off the hub. Fine line, of course, as too much would reduce the elasticity and absorbtion of the urethane.

Morning Toni,

Thanks for the reply, I not sure what you mean by vanes but my intention is to weld a couple of bands, either of flat steel of 5mm dia bar, around the circumference of the hub to act as anchors. Many years ago I had the job of turning the rubber tyres off of some forklift wheels and when the rubber was removed, it revealed a series of small V grooves machined into the hubs circumference for this exact purpose, I could go down that route, I am not sure yet.

Regard,

Jon

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Moore

Morning Toni,

Thanks for the reply, I not sure what you mean by vanes ..........

Regard,

Jon

Like the cleats on steel tractor wheels.

[Jonathan Moore]

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

Like the cleats on steel tractor wheels.

Tony,

A question that I asked at the time was why have grooves around the circumference and not ridges across the hub. Apparently the rubber flexes in the direction of rotation as the wheel goes round, if the ribs are across the hub the ribs cut into the rubber and end up shredding the tyre. Anyway that was their answer and they were in the business, so I assumed that they knew what they were talking about.

Chris,
my hubs already have a lip to stop the tyre coming off but the addition of ribs around the circumference will help even more.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

As the steering box is from a 430 series AFV I needed to add a plug to the front of the hull so that I could top it up with oil.

[Jonathan Moore]

I decided to add some detail to the front of the hull while I was waiting for the vacuum components to arrive, the small maintenance hatch doesn't open, it's just there for show. The brackets either side. are to wrap a tow steel rope