SimonT

Rest in Peace
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Morning all,

as a small number of you already know my father passed away at the end of January and I lost interest in the builds I was doing. I found it hard to concentrate on pretty much anything.

A few weeks ago I placed an Amazon order for something small and used this cheap old Tamiya kit to boost the order into the free postage bracket knowing full well that being such an old kit it would need work

t34-76-001_2019-4-8.JPG

I opened the box on arrival and started cleaning up some parts to take my mind off things, slowly worked my way through the entire kit and as usual started updating a few bits

Now the lower hull is around 2mm too wide as is usual with the majority of these old made for motorisation Tamiya kits that were designed around a certain motor and battery set. This time I decided to live with it rather than cut it in half - that way I may complete it this year and even get it painted

That said, it hasn't totally escaped correction and updating.......

t34-76-010_2019-4-8.JPG
the motorisation holes were filled in and the open side sponsons were plated over

t34-76-005_2019-4-8.JPG
the side plates are totally devoid of any detail so I made some suspension arm bump stops and milled some suspension grooves in just to give the impression of there being something there

t34-76-007_2019-4-8.JPG
bit hard to see but the track guards were scraped and scraped with the edge of a straight blade to thin them right down to the point where they were just becoming translucent when held up to the light - they are super thin

It would have been faster to whip them off and replace with pewter but I decided to stick with the kit parts for a change knowing I could change to pewter if it didn't work out

t34-76-013_2019-4-8.JPG
t34-76-012_2019-4-8.JPG
t34-76-009_2019-4-8.JPG
the wheels are a really loose fit on the stub axles due to the need for movement with the motorisation. The centre caps are also made of poly rather than hard styrene (unlike newer Tamiya kits that fit with an internal poly bush)

I had to install short sections of telescoped plastic tubing inside each wheel in order to get a good fit on the stub axles

New centre caps were punched from plastic sheet and detailed with punched bolt heads and a pewter centre dome

A nice feature of the kit is that you get a selection of different road wheel types so you can mix and match - I went with the early cast steel type on all axles

t34-76-011_2019-4-8.JPG
t34-76-008_2019-4-8.JPG
the turret got a scratch built gun made from the usual tubing and filler

Looking at photos showed the surface to be fairly rough castings so I gave it a coat of Vallejo red oxide texture paint

I added the vertical casting marks around the turret ring - some were micro strip and others were the texture paint applied with a cocktail stick as an experiment to see how it looked. Both methods seem to have worked ok and should look fine under paint

t34-76-015_2019-4-8.JPG
engine deck grille was treated to an Eduard etch mesh after carefully trimming out the kit part - still need to add bolt heads to the marked positions on the etch

t34-76-003_2019-4-8.JPG
t34-76-014_2019-4-8.JPG
the small Eduard fret also includes the other engine deck grilles so they were cut out and replaced with etch

New bold heads were added to the back plate to replace the kit ones

Various redundant holes in the upper hull had to be filled - initially with scrap plastic card then filler

Tie downs on the right hull side were scraped off and replaced with brass wire

Storage box scraped flat and tidied up - new lid edge added from micro strip and locking clips from adapted Historex buckles

t34-76-002_2019-4-8.JPG
the early square fuel tanks were a bit lacking so I assembled, filled and sanded them back to basic box shapes then made new outer plates from pewter

New filler caps added from punched sheet

Rather indistinct in the photo but I added the two large louvre blades in the hole on the engine deck - they can be seen through the mesh in the previous photo

t34-76-004_2019-4-8.JPG
stowage boxs on left got new locking clips as well

t34-76-006_2019-4-8.JPG
the never ending pile of track links - been cleaning these over the last couple of weeks and the pile just doesn't seem to be getting any smaller

These are Miniart and seem to be taking forever to clean up

There are still one or two bits to finish off after the tracks are cleaned up but it may stand a chance of actually seeing paint this year :thumb2:
 

JR

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Morning Simon.
Good to see you back producing what will be another master class in the Black Art of extreme modeling.
Taking my front row seat and saving a place for your apprentice young Steve , who has gone off to watch the golf ! How very dare he.:surprised:
Nice inclusion of some pweter, what thickness is that please as it look firm.
To make things harder you throw some MiniArt tracks into the mix ?
John .
 
D

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He's back and at it again! Superb fettling as usual Simon. I hope this is helping you recover some of your mojo after your sad loss.

PS. Now we know what you look like too - would never have guessed in a million years!
 
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JR

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He's back and at it again! Superb fettling as usual Simon. I hope this is helping you recover some of your mojo after your sad loss.

PS. Now we know what you look like too - would never have guessed in a million years!
I agree Peter, actually thought Simon was a Time Lord !
 

Jim R

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Morning Simon
Just looking at the photos would have told me this was your work. You seem to be keeping rather more of the original kit than you usually do. As always a lesson in scratched improvements.
Jim
Yeh - I was surprised he only had two hands like the rest of us!
 
D

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Morning Simon
Just looking at the photos would have told me this was your work. You seem to be keeping rather more of the original kit than you usually do. As always a lesson in scratched improvements.
Jim
Yeh - I was surprised he only had two hands like the rest of us!
Jim you noticed he had to rucksacks with him at show I think he keeps the other half dozen in the bag.

Nice to see you building again Simon and you haven't lost your touch.
Pete.
 

minitnkr

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Excellent work as always. Thought something serious happened when you went quiet. My condolences. PaulE
 

SimonT

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Thank you all

John - the pewter is 0.152mm if I remember correctly. It was good stuff but has nearly all gone now and Sylmasta have stopped supplying it. I have some other stuff bought off ebay 0.15mm but it does not seem as strong so it remains to be seen how it will perform

The Miniart tracks are half the price of Friuls but each link has three sprue connections to clean up. The mouldings are excellent in terms of detail but they are the usual soft plastic that they insist on using which isn't my favourite

PeterD - yes, sorry about that. You can see why I prefer to use the more photogenic avatar of my Yoda model

Jim - I do seem to have rather a lot of green plastic still. Must be losing my touch :smiling:

PeteL - thanks. Good to meet you the other day

Ralph - cheers

Paul - thank you


The track links continue.......
 

BigGreg

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all my condolences... i lost my Dad in 2012...and still l feel sometimes that is not there anymore....:crying:
happy to see you back with a great work.
Greg
 

JR

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Thank you all

John - the pewter is 0.152mm if I remember correctly. It was good stuff but has nearly all gone now and Sylmasta have stopped supplying it. I have some other stuff bought off ebay 0.15mm but it does not seem as strong so it remains to be seen how it will perform

The Miniart tracks are half the price of Friuls but each link has three sprue connections to clean up. The mouldings are excellent in terms of detail but they are the usual soft plastic that they insist on using which isn't my favourite

PeterD - yes, sorry about that. You can see why I prefer to use the more photogenic avatar of my Yoda model

Jim - I do seem to have rather a lot of green plastic still. Must be losing my touch :smiling:

PeteL - thanks. Good to meet you the other day

Ralph - cheers

Paul - thank you


The track links continue.......
Thanks Simon, the one I got was only .006 ok for ripped metal . I got mine from Peak Dale.
See their doing that thickness you mentioned.
John.
 

Si Benson

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Good evening Simon, good to see you back with us.
Great choice of kit to improve, coming along nicely so far:thumb2:
 

SimonT

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Thanks Greg

John - at 0.006 that is more like cooking foil. The 0.15 is thin enough to look more scale like but will also hold its shape quite well

Si - thanks. At £11 these old inaccurate Tamiya kits are good fun and value for hacking about


More track links cleaned up last night but the pile still seems as big as ever
 

Steven000

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My condolences as well Simon.

Good to see you working on this project, all looks very nice.

Cheers and goodluck with cleaning those track-links!
Steven
 

JR

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Might get a sheet of the .15 then, the other will make nice straps maybe Simon .
John .
 

MikeC

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Simon,
Sorry to hear about your Father, time does heal, but the memories stay. And it is good to see you back on the bench and doing justice to an old old kit.
Cheers, Mike.
 

Steve Jones

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Well I have missed all the fun haven't I. Stunningly beautiful work as always Simon. I will keep a closer look on the progression. Thanks for sharing
 

SimonT

Rest in Peace
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Morning all,

after watching the daftly named Tour de Yorkshire whizz past the end of our street I made a concerted effort to clean up the remaining track links

Next task is to add track pins to all the links with teeth, ie half of them - the moulded pins were either missing or very indistinct so I removed all traces as I cleaned up the links

t34-76-016_2019-5-6.jpg
these are punched with The Nutter from their lead foil

T34's used loose pins rather than ones with retaining clips - there was an angled plate on the hull side that bashed loose pins back in as the tracks ran past

As a result there were only heads on the hull facing side. The outer side was a shallow boss with a hole inside of which was the end of the pin

The Nutter punch comes with a set of pins to punch nuts with a hole through the centre - they should look the part
 
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