Chas's workbench

[Mike Garwood]

Fair play!!

Mike

 

[Chas Levin]

Next up, The Ladders, Stage 1. These fine etchings are left on the etch surround until 0.4mm wire has been soldered up each side to act as strengthening. The whjole process is explained in great detail with equally detailed hand-drawn illustrations - I love Masokits instructions:











And after some cleaning up, the next thing is to bend them, using 2.5mm dowel as suggested in the instructions:







There's a slight conundrum with fixing the ladders though, to be pondered during the next stage of their construction.
The ladder tops are held in place by glueing, whereas the ladder feet are to be soldered.
I want to keep the tank and the chassis separate until after painting, so soldering the ladder feet would mean soldering right next to painted areas and next to the araldited plastic solebar overlays and I don't like doing that.
There are two alternatives: glue the ladder feet as well as the tops (not keen, prefer solder there), or... solder the ladder feet in place before aralditing the solebar overlays and leave the ladder top locating pins sufficiently short that the tank can be slid in underneath the ladder tops...
(I've used the 'frown' emoji there because it's the closest to a 'Thinking face' one).
Probably have to try a dry run - tack-solder the ladder feet in place and see how much wiggle-room there is for the tank...

 

[Chas Levin]

The ladders' tops have small lugs to accommodate securing wires but these are used first as a guide for drilling the corresponding holes in the tank top:








And the tops of the ladders are then held in place using short pieces of 0.4mm wire soldered into those lugs' holes:



Here's where things are so far, with the tank, top platform, ladders and solebars sitting in place, unfixed:

 

[matto21]

Wonderful work, I've enjoyed reading all about the tank underframe. It's convinced me to buy one of the Masokits underframes for my model!

 

[Chas Levin]

Wonderful work, I've enjoyed reading all about the tank underframe. It's convinced me to buy one of the Masokits underframes for my model!

Thank you for the compliment and I'm delighted to hear you're going to build one of the underframe kits too! When I mentioned to a friend I was going to be building one he said he'd follow the build as he too was thinking of trying one, but other than that, I've not seen much mention of other builds - which I think is a pity, as it's a terrific kit.

 

[Chas Levin]

Solebar glueing ('gluing'?), which I wasn't looking forward to as it's a little fiddly, with all the various protrusions adding to accurate clipping and holding difficulties. The plastic solebars from the kit, suitably padded out in places with plastic card, are glued to the brass solebar sides. The instructions advocate using plenty of araldite, removing the overflow as it's squeezed around the edges and through the holes in the brass, but I find removing excess araldite a right pain, so I tried instead to use just enough that it gets to the point where it looks like it's about to splurge out, but no more:

 

[Suffolk Dave]

Solebar glueing ('gluing'?), which I wasn't looking forward to as it's a little fiddly, with all the various protrusions adding to accurate clipping and holding difficulties. The plastic solebars from the kit, suitably padded out in places with plastic card, are glued to the brass solebar sides. The instructions advocate using plenty of araldite, removing the overflow as it's squeezed around the edges and through the holes in the brass, but I find removing excess araldite a right pain, so I tried instead to use just enough that it gets to the point where it looks like it's about to splurge out, but no more:

View attachment 220011

View attachment 220012

Seems like wise advice to me...

 

[Chas Levin]

Seems like wise advice to me...

Thanks Dave; after all, the plastic solebar overlays are purely cosmetic, far from being load bearing and there are various other things helping hold them in place...

I even considered cyano, but I have an old-fashioned faith in epoxy: my dad did too - he used to call araldite "engineers' glue"!

 

[Rob Pulham]

Hi Chaz,

Can I ask where you got your aluminium clips from. I have the remains of some bought from Eileen's about 12 years ago which have largely rotted away with the flux from soldering.

I did buy some that I thought were the same via eBay but it turned out they were steel and went rusty almost as I removed them from the packet.

 

[garratt396]

Hi Chaz,

Can I ask where you got your aluminium clips from. I have the remains of some bought from Eileen's about 12 years ago which have largely rotted away with the flux from soldering.

I did buy some that I thought were the same via eBay but it turned out they were steel and went rusty almost as I removed them from the packet.

I bough some on ebay some time ago. look under hairdressing supplies or such like.
David

 

[Chas Levin]

Hi Chaz,

Can I ask where you got your aluminium clips from. I have the remains of some bought from Eileen's about 12 years ago which have largely rotted away with the flux from soldering.

I did buy some that I thought were the same via eBay but it turned out they were steel and went rusty almost as I removed them from the packet.

Hello Rob, good question - I bought them years and years ago and have no idea where. I know I don't have the details because a couple of years ago I decided to get some more, found I'd lost the supplier details and as @garratt396 suggests went searching on Ebay... but I couldn't find any of that sort of size. I found some rather larger ones and bought them in case they're useful one day, but I need to have another search myself, as the ones I have there are rather grubby and a couple have broken arms: the aluminium starts to develop age-related metal fatigue, I guess... as do we all!
David's right though about the sort of category to look under on Ebay, hairdressing or even cosmetics. The cosmetics industry has a lot of products modellers find useful: pointy ended cotton buds for instance, invaluable for fine paint removal...

 

[simond]

I bough some on ebay some time ago. look under hairdressing supplies or such like.
David

Yes, this. They’re sold as “stainless” which is true under certain conditions….

cheap too. Boxes of 100 iirc.

I’ve bent and twisted them into all sorts of shapes for different jobs. Cut legs off too, to make single legged versions. Very versatile!

 

[simond]

these claim to be nickel plated, so they ain’t ally.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beayuer-Hairdressing-1-8inch-Alligator-Hairpins/dp/B097XX2NB5/ref=asc_df_B097XX2NB5/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696385525345&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16123030860922533595&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007850&hvtargid=pla-1433082343148&mcid=bd99b6c62d8933068a5a4eae6dc8111a&gad_source=1&th=1

still at 10p each…

 

[Chas Levin]

Thanks Simon, I hadn't seen nickel plated ones before. I just had another look on Ebay this morning and evidently uncoloured aluminium is no longer the fashion... The useful thing about aluminium of course is that you can solder around it, though funnily enough I've been reading about soldering aluminium for another project. Doesn't sound much fun though!

 

[Phil O]

I got mine from "Sally" the local hairdressers supply shop.

 

[Chas Levin]

I got mine from "Sally" the local hairdressers supply shop.

Haha - just shows how internet-centric many of us have become, doesn't it? Fancy that: going into an actual shop, on a high street?! We used to do that all the time...
Good idea though - I'll start asking in hairdressers' shops!

The clips came off this morning - one side down, one to go:

 

[AJC]

That looks superb, Chas, a credit to you and Mike Clark's design.

Adam

 

[Chas Levin]

Thanks Adam! It's a real pleasure to build too: it's one of those I've been building slowly partly because I don't want it to be over too soon.

The lure of the next project will get me in the end though...

 

[AJC]

Thanks Adam! It's a real pleasure to build too: it's one of those I've been building slowly partly because I don't want it to be over too soon.

The lure of the next project will get me in the end though...

I know what you mean - a good kit is a joy to be savoured (to an extent). I usually have one in hand from a known quantity for stress-busting purposes...

Adam

 

[Rob Pulham]

I bough some on ebay some time ago. look under hairdressing supplies or such like.
David

I did but didn't find any aluminium examples.

I have just done a wider internet search and thought that I had cracked it until I noted the 'free' shipping



Clicking on the link reveals that shipping is free when you spend £79.90 - My guess is that despite it being on a .co.uk registered site, English isn't their first language... Actual shipping cost for the grips is £7.90. Which for a small pack of aluminium grips which weigh 3 parts of naff all, is in Shapeways postage charging territory. But it did make me smile.