Airfix Chieftain turret

4th March 2018 21:49

The turret is one of the distinctive visual features on the Chieftain and on the kit I’ve got the front top surface wasn’t particularly good, especially along the join.  Quite a few layers of filler followed by smoothing were needed to get a smooth profile.

Airfix Chieftain turret

There were a few other bits of filling required, the tops of the smoke grenade dischargers and the seam round the top plate being the most obvious.

By modern standards this was quite a bit of work for a plastic kit but it’s 40 years old and the tooling is nearly 50 years old so I’m not going to complain, in fact it adds to the satisfaction of making an old kit and having to deal with the problems of a modeller at the time when this was a state-of-the art kit.

Continued De-clarting of tinware

7th January 2018 15:25

After the initial de-clarting of the tinware I now moved on to trying to clean them up further. However, after the best part of a day (or what passes for daylight hours at this time of year) with various abrasives and power tools I’d not made much more than an impact on the surface.

Dyanne tinware

As this has now sucked more than enough of my time I’ve opted to pay to have them sand blasted.

In the mean time I’ve picked up a new set of fixings to hold it all together when it’s done.

Burton 2CV tinware fixings

New year Hadrian’s Wall walk

1st January 2018 14:03

Coming out of Gilsland there is a section of Hadrian’s Wall that was built as “narrow wall” (eight Roman feet wide) on top of “broad wall” (ten Roman feet wide).  As the narrow wall is later in date, this indicates that the foundations were built first and the main wall was built afterwards.

Hadrian's Wall at Gilsland

Further on there is a milecastle.

Milecastle at Gilsland

The wings of the milecastle that join into the wall are also built as broad wall and are stepped in to meet the inner face of the narrow wall.  This indicates that the mile castles were built independently and before the main wall.

Milecastle at Gilsland

Further down there is the remains of a bridge abutment. This was significantly modified twice throughout its life as it was presumably damaged by by the river.  To relieve pressure on the structure sluices were put into the wall on the first rebuilding.

Roman bridge relief sluice at Gilsland

As these seemingly didn’t prove sufficient they were widened when it was modified for the second time.

Roman bridge relief sluice at Gilsland

Electric fuel pump and inertia cut-out

2nd December 2017 15:12

As I’d blanked off the mechanical fuel pump mounting I needed an electric fuel pump.  This came in the form of a Hucco 133010 engine mounted (suction) pump that can deliver the 2.6-2.9 psi specified in the Citroen Workshop Manual for the fuel system.

Hucco 133010 fuel pump and inertia cut-out

For safety I have also got an inertia cut-out that will isolate the fuel pump in the event of an impact to minimise the risk of fuel being pumped out of a split or disconnected fuel line in the engine bay.