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Modeller Build Logs
Tasca M32 Recovery Vehicle w/ T1E1 Mine Roller |
| By James Wechsler | | Started: | Apr 15, 2008 | | Updated: | Jun 19, 2008 |
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First off let me say that Paul Owen is a great guy, even if he is a Vancouver Canucks fan. Having built 44 Shermans, I really hadn’t planned on buying the Tasca M4A1 kit since I’d built that variant a few times over. But Paul sent me this kit and it is a really, really great gift. So I got motivated to do something special.
After thinking about it for a while, I realized that simply building this kit as a gun tank really didn’t get me excited. Then it dawned on me, it would make the perfect conversion base for an M32 Armored Recovery Vehicle. I mean the old Italeri kit was just staring at me and screaming ‘I need a new hull, suspension, and transmission cover!’
So there it was, my mega project. But then I got to thinking a little more. Why not go further? Let’s scratch build the T1E1 ‘Earthworm’ mine roller! Never heard of this massive contraption? Check here:
http://www.jedsite.info/engineer/tango-number-us/t1_series/t1e1/t1e1-intro.html
But wait, there’s more. The M32 has two huge hatches on the turret structure that just scream ‘interior’. At last, my project has reached planning fruition. This blog will be of an M32 ARV w/T1E1 Mine Roller and a full interior.
Plan on a lot of chapters. |
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| The scratch building begins | May 9, 2008 |
This may seem like a strange time to start scratch building the mine rollers. But my logic is that I really don’t want to be manipulating the hull too much once I’ve got the interior in it. Sure I’ll mount everything securely, but it’ll still be a little fragile and getting the mine roller attachment mated up to the transmission cover is a complex task that involves a lot of rotating the hull.
So now seemed like the time to do it.
Well my biggest problem is that I don’t have a set of drawings for the mine roller so I’ve got to make a best estimate from the photos. The basic mounting system is a large hexagonal beam that is mounted to the transmission cover with two large supports.
The hexagonal beam represented a serious challenge. It needs to be about ¼ inch across the faces (which I learned is the way hexagons are measured). None of the typical styrene manufacturers (Evergreen, Plastruct, etc) make a hex beam or tube in anything like that size. In fact, I surfed the internet and found no plastic beams available other than in Nylon and Teflon, two materials that are extremely hard to glue. I did find an Aluminum beam that I bought in a 12 inch segment. Aluminum is a tough material to use since it’s pretty strong and you can only use Krazy Glue. After getting it, I decided that it would be too tough to use.
So I thought about making a hexagon from strips of sheet plastic. Possible but seriously complex to keep the hex shape. And then, just by chance I noticed that I had an old disposable pen that was molded in a clear hex tube. So I went to the stationary store to look for them. I couldn’t find any pens but I did find the mechanical pencils shown in the picture. I invested a whopping $4 for the package. I’ll end up using 2 or 3 of them and my kids will get a pencil bonanza.
What ever type of plastic is used, I believe Acrylic, seems to work great with all of the typical plastic glues I have so this turned out to be a great solution.
The rest of the support brackets were made out of 0.060 inch plastic sheet. This is a thick plastic which is tough to cut so I had to use a Dremel motor tool to cut and shape these parts. Once mounted I ran weld lines in the joints since I’m pretty sure the real one wasn’t glued together!
Finally, I used 0.020 inch sheet plastic for the thinner parts and thankfully they were simple to make and shape.
As I look at the final assembly, I believe I got it about right. But it seems to be mounted about 2mm too low on the transmission cover. Realistically, there’s no way to fix this short of cutting it off and reworking the whole thing. Instead, I’ll compensate when I build the mine rollers themselves. The reality of working of photos, not drawings.
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