Roadrunner

New side armor shielding now made (this time including better and more accurate appearing contours), and a start is underway on the connecting cross tube. All of this cross tube assembly is being designed in such a way so as to allow later alignment, fitment and gluing in place.

Azimuth ring all drawn up. Placed in position. I have no idea at this time how accurate this may be, but I’ll adjust accordingly, when (and if) I get more data.

Thanks, Tim, I appreciate it. I ordered my cutter from Michael's, but office supply stores should have them as well. This is but one style that Fiskars makes, but I thought it probably adequate for my needs.

The mirror image on the other side. I’m much happier with this overall appearance now.

That photo of the roof looks excellent. Perhaps it's the photography in general that had been throwing me. Some colors seem to be a lot more awkward to capture than others.

I didn't see yours when I did the search, but of those I did see (and lighting/photography was not the greatest on many of them), it looked both too flat, and too "sparkly". I'll try it on some scrap and see what happens.

With side plates now more properly proportioned, detailing this area (there’s not a lot) can now commence.

Yet another goof (of my own doing). Despite having looked at my photos a dozen or more times, I never realized that I had the area behind the side shields wrong, so I ripped off the old shields, and repaired the side plates to a more correct configuration.

Looks cool to me.

The Fiskars unit works great, though I think I’ll reserve it for .020 and thinner sheets. Well, here’s my scale 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 angle, and it still looks too large, but I’m going to leave it alone. I also lost .040 in height while adding the deck plate, so there’s a tiny bit of interference with rotating platform and angle, so I’ll just shim the platform by .020 or .030 (whatever the minimum is that I can get away with), and it should clear just fine.

Talk about perfect timing, this was just delivered a few moments ago. From what I’ve read, these are perfect to scribe/snap styrene with, and I need to cut some same sized strips for the base flange.

I just recently (very recently) ordered some more Testors lacquers for upcoming projects, but have a feeling that the Diamond Dust is going to be a real letdown. Not until after I had ordered it, did I do a search for the color as applied, and am not too thrilled with what I've seen so far.

You bet I will. I'll be doing two or three more Challengers as well, each one being better than the last (I hope).

Well it's obvious that I haven't visited this thread in a while, but thanks for checking in. I've been spending most of my modeling time lately, working on a big (1:6 scale) Flak gun (here), so have had little time to devote to the Challenger. I also got temporarily distracted by my then newly acquired '32 Vicky, and was going along like gangbusters on that, until I completely ruined the paint job, and abandoned it too, at least for a while. Photo of the Vic', before I trashed it.

Glamour shot. From time to time, I just can’t seem to resist partially assembling, to get an overall view of my progress.

OK, base angle ring flange drawn again, this time depicting a 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 angle, as I felt the 2 x 2 was just too large. This will serve as my template for cutting them out of sheet.

At long last, the gunners pedestal is now installed. There are substantial gaps around it, but those will be filled with scrap, then epoxy added to create weld seams.

Top area redone now, and I've also gone ahead and added the small ridge on both sides (.010 x .020), as well as the stiffening ridge that appears in the middle. I think what I used (.025 rod), might be a tad large though, so I may rip it off and use .015 instead, still not sure.

Thanks, Vince, I appreciate the support. Here's the hook installed. Proportions are not correct, but I'm going to just live with it (I think).

Before: After:

The hooks for the front of the base begin to take shape. Once they're installed, I'll add a casting seam from stretched sprue.

Thanks, Ray. The handles for the stems. Gray piece above, is what the kit supplies.

Using .250 square rod, I have begun to rebuild the leveling leg adjustment stems. I’ll also be building new handle assemblies, as the kit provided ones are quite inaccurate.

Another one of the lame areas on the kit, is this big void on the top of the mount. I have never seen a photo that depicts this configuration, so I’ve filled with sheet plastic and globbed some Tamiya white on it. Once the putty is sanded out, I’ll add the bolted plate on top.

Thanks, Fabrizio, coming from you, that's quite the compliment.