Building a 1/6th scale Valentine tank

You know I'm really bad at updating this blog. The last thing I showed you was an improperly sized picture of one of my suspension bogies so the next series of videos might come as a shock!

Work continues - albeit slowly.

Next up; Suspension. Four bogie units have now been assembled. They look like this;

All have to do now is fit them to the hull.

Nothing is going to plan right now. I went to pick up my new hubs today and found that they'd only made one.
"But you only left one sprocket!"
Well that's true but I thought it obvious that a tank needed two tracks! Mea culpa. I should have been more explicit!
On the plus side, the hub that they did make was a beautiful bit of machining and I'm very pleased with it.

Have a look at these;

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t6/pureteenlard/track1.jpg

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t6/pureteenlard/track2.jpg

New tracks and sprockets - cost me an arm and a leg but well worth it. Weigh bugger all and tough as old boots.

Shouldn't be long now until I get her up and running.

Look what I found in the scrap today - three telephone responder (or possibly sector switch . . .) battery shelves. "Jackpot!", I thought, since each shelf carried two 12v 17Ah SLA batteries. I dragged 'em out and tested all six. Alas! three of them were duff but three gave me a pleasing 13+ volts so I liberated them.


Three freshly scrounged batteries with neat little battery trays too. Sorted!

I'll give one to Neil for his leopard but I'm keeping the other two. Add them to the two batteries I found last week and soon I'll have enough to run the Valentine for a week - assuming I ever finish her, of course . . .

It took me a long time to work out how the suspension on the Valentine works. Anyway, here's a bit of video I found on youtube that shows it rather well.

As for my little Valentine, it's still coming along although a severe shortage of money and the inability to get into my garage has slowed work to a crawl. The suspension components have been made, drilled and, in four cases, bent into a reasonable facsimile of the genuine slow motion suspension. Wheels have been bought and I've just started constructing my tracks - three hundred odd 65mm steel butt hinges - and drive sprockets. With the sprockets I had a real stroke of luck since the 125mm diameter wheels I'd bought just happened to exactly mesh with the hinges. All I have to do now is fit 17 spikes to each of them and I think I'll use M6 security nuts for the purpose

OK, I haven't updated for an age but I have been experiencing stress at work the like of which I haven't encountered before. This stress manifests itself as a middle-aged man with a flat-top haircut and a small moustache. My boss. He's an arse.

Anyway, after much cajoling by Neil, I sat down and did some detailed design work on a new hull for a Valentine. The Centurion has been scrapped as we decided the turret ws just going to be too difficult to fabricate. So, back to a valentine - with a slightly enlarged hull this time to allow the motors to sit comfortably. Click on the thumbnails, gents.

Actually, these pics aren't up to date because there is now the skeleton of a turret in view too. And the speed controller, motors and switch panel is installed. I am awaiting my suspension arms which are being fabricated by a local firm (Joltek Engineering) although they aren't rushing and I'm thinking of looking elsewhere.

If you have been reading the comments left on this blog by visitors you will know that a very nice gentleman called John invited me down to have a look at his full-size Valentine IX DD.

After many weeks of difficulty in getting my e-mail account to accept Johns E-mails we finally made contact. And here's what we've all been waiting for;

After he had removed the tarpauline from the Valentine I was left to crawl over it as I pleased. Now I am, well, a bit of a bloater and I could just about get comfy in the gunners seat but the commanders postion required me to enter the turret hatch at a 45 degree angle with my arms in the air! Just how anyone fought in the tiny space available is a wonder to me. I didn't attempt to get through the drivers hatch - it looked way too small . . .
After a while, John joined me in the turret and explained the operation of the breach (I was curious about how the ejection system worked) and showed me the ammo storage and an inert 6pdr round. Getting one into the breach is not easy, let me assure you, and it would probably take about a year of training and a wartime diet to slim me down to the point where I could be comfortable in the commander / loader's position.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to thoroughly exlore Johns collection (he also has two Saracens, a Saladin, a Ferret, a Dingo, two FV432 variants and other, rustier vehicles) and I shall have to presume on his good nature and beg another visit. The vehicles, by the way, are stored in a farmyard which doubles as the lost Morris Minor graveyard where old moggies go to die . . .
John, in addition to having more armour plated vehicles than any man can conceivably need, is also an extremely knowledgable and friendly chap. Top man, indeed!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . well, a month or so ago somewhere near Stockport I spent some more time with the honorable Neil-san. The end result was mounted motors.
To beef up the hull where the final drive is bolted to the sideplate a 10mm ply doubler was added.

As you can see from the underside view, the doubler has been keyed into the hull bottom to add a bit of strength.

There will now be an aluminium mount added inboard of the sideplate with a bearing for the rear axle and a locking mechanism to hold the motor in place.

Look! I can now thumbnail pictures to enhance your blog-reading experience, or something . . .
So, what has been going on. Well I have bought some cheap RC truck shocks - four quid each, which is very reasonable considering that they come ready built and oil filled. However the less aid about the colour of the springs the better. . . luckily they'll be hidden away on the finished tank!

And I've gone back to my own design of return roller but I have used the bearings from H's old skates.

On a hand related thought, may I suggest that if you want to know if an air vent is blocked, it may not be a good idea to put you hand on it . . .