Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Erebus - a new tank (2)

Hi all,
Strap in! This is a large update today with 44 images :)

Continuing from the last update I wanted to close the hull section. But before i could do this, I wanted to have a removable piece that I can use to build out the interior.
 
So this is currently just 2 simple walls and a floor that I can slide in and out of the hull
 
With this in place I could finally close the hull and fill gaps and sand it smooth.
 
With this the basic hull was done.
 
And the interior does still slide in and out easily
 
The other vehicles of this family use 1:35 T-55/54 road-wheels and tracks. But as usual I'm trying to do as much as possible from scratch.
For this I glued together a stack of discs of plastic card
 
Then I wrapped a strip of .5mm plastic card around it
 
To make things smooth, I mounted this onto my drill 
 
After running this over the sanding block it looks really nice and smooth
 
With some nuts and bolts it is done!
 
Would be ready for molding and casting

It looks nice, but putting it besides the existing vehicle, it is a bit on the large side...
 
Almost as big as a soda cap...
So I gave it another try this time smaller
The end result is also very cool - I think :)
compared to the other
 
But Ouch!
Now it is too small...
 
Maybe i should go with the first, bigger one?
 
Luckily my friend Massimo from Italy was so generous to send me a brand new set of T-55 wheels and tracks from MiniArt - THANK YOU Massimo!
This tank will proudly carry your name on the turret :)

With the hull squared away I started to work on the turret.
For this I built two discs and spaced them
Glued together
and wrapped a strip of plastic card around it - giving me the base for the turret.
 
Then i cut the base shape for the turret
 
And the first angles.
 
The turret will not show any interior, so really simple building here.
 
Here i added the shape for the ammo storage and auto-loader 
Side view
Applying the actual armor sheets was a pain in the butt and I had to sand a lot...
 
But in the end it looks pretty much the way I had intended
 
Looking at the hull with the turret on, I realized something was wrong...
I made (again) a measurement mistake and the hull is too high!

So I built another hull (1 evening), this time lower
 
Now it looks sleeker 
 
 
 
 
 
So for this new hull I need the interior option again, so another slide in-out tray
 
And I added the rear door to that slide in
 
With the closed door
 
And the door in the open option
 
And as a outlook I positioned the new turret on the EPIALES hull
 
Next up would be the armor sides and skirts.
But since I want to have access to the hull side for mounting the wheels, I designed the basic shape removable again.
 
It can easily slide on and off
 
and i can start fleshing out these sides
 
but am still able to remove them and have access to the hull
 
So this is as far as I got.
Again a HUGE thanks to Massimo for the wheels and tracks :)
Cheers
Klaus