Armour Dreams

[Petr Brezina]

Excellent craftsmanship!

[Jonathan Moore]

Thanks both but I am just doing what I enjoy.

Both sprocket flanges are finished as are the two cover caps and hopefully this weekend I will find some time to test fit them onto the final drives.
Then apart from the three vision port covers, associated fittings and the dummy gearbox cover, in theory I have finished making parts and the whole thing needs stripping and painting. That of course ignores the elephant in the room, the track links. In a moment of shear madness I emailed every iron foundry in the UK, attached the wartime specification for Malleable cast iron track links and requested a cost, some luck. Most didn't even bother to respond, some were down right rude and some where clearly taking the P. However one did provide me with a figure of £30,000. That was before the current increase in electricity and material costs, so it's back to fabricating them, oh joy.

[Jonathan Moore]

I found time this evening to have a test fit of one of the sprockets.

[Jonathan Moore]

The only item that I am struggling to find information on or even find detailed pictures of, is this leather MG pouch.
And it is really irritating me. In the later vehicles they used a metal box and the normal infantry MG teams used a small leather case but in early tanks the pictures always show the same case. The nearest that I can find is a post war Czech version, the dimensions appear to be correct by scaling, but the Czech one is made of canvas and has a handle. In the end it may have to do, that is until in the dark and distant future I find a real one to copy.
If perchance anyone out there has any more detailed information please let me know.

[Jonathan Moore]

Only me, I just thought that I would give a quick update. Life's just been too busy since my last update with very little Panzer time involved but lately things have quietened down so I have finished a few little jobs before I started to strip it all down for spraying. I had decided to make a few changes to make life easier in the future, such as moving the ecu and fuses to a more accessible location, changing all the cooper tubing to steel just a name a two but there are more which I will do as I reassemble the whole thing.

One of the two final components that needed making was the small hatch on the rear engine deck.

[Jonathan Moore]

Then the final fabrication, the gearbox cover.
Of course, in the original tank there is a gearbox to fill this space but in my recreation there's just a hole,

[Jonathan Moore]

so I wanted something that recreates the look and covers the drive shaft and covers all the bits below.
It all easily breaks down into smaller pieces so that if needed it can be removed from the interior of the tank.