Lancfan's Airfix Churchill III conversion.

[lancfan]

My first build will be a conversion of the Airfix Churchill mk VII tank into the earlier mk III in lend-lease Soviet guise.


David.

[lancfan]

Here are the obligatory box and sprue shots ready for friday.



David.

[Chris]

A venerable old kit David, will be fun watching it go soviet!

[ShaunW]

I've built this golden oldie once or twice in the past and this is a nice left field choice for this GB.

[lancfan]

With the sprues washed work can now begin, I have built a good number of Airfix Churchills as a personal build theme and there is a neat way of simplifying the main bogie assembly that I found online once, the wheels and bogies are the same distance apart on the sprues so instead of separating each and every wheel to glue it down as per the instructions you simply glue the wheels on by the row when still on their sprues and separate them when the glue has dried.


David.

[lancfan]

The underside of this kit is particularly bad so I always start by removing the tow hitches and the underside detail. On the left is an identical part from another kit in the stash to demonstrate the before and after views of this.
Image Lost.

This is not the end as the correct detail is now scribed onto the part. Having done this a number of times before I have a jig for the purpose. The rescribed part is here shown with my marking jig.


David.

[lancfan]

The refinished floor part 86 has been fitted with seats for the driver and Besa gunner and the interior has been painted white, the first rows of wheels have been cut away from the sprues and the second set are glued in place, the idlers/drive sprockets are also assembled.



The next step will be to modify the hull sides to correct a positioning fault with the front idlers and remove the inner faces of the front track guards, that done the hull can then be assembled.

David.

[lancfan]

The sides have now been altered to remove the front track guards and expose the front inner bearings and track adjusters. Below the GB model parts are another pair of sides for comparison.


David.

[lancfan]

The hull has now been assembled, work will stop now until the glue has fully dried.


David.

[Chris]

Nice idea with the bogies, and love the jig.

[Softscience]

not bad looking for Airfix armor. I noticed you painted up the interior, will you be adding figures?

[lancfan]

I will add figures but have not decided where yet


David.

[lancfan]

Airfix got the track length and front geometry wrong when they tooled this kit and it needs a couple of simple adjustments to make things right.
The rear drive sprockets have now been glued down and to correct the first fault the locating pins from the front idlers have been cut away and these idler sprockets have been glued on further forward to a more realistic position with the centres in line with the break for the front track guards.
With the exception of the foremost pair the bogies have been glued into their locations on the hull sides and then left to dry stood on the pictured jig. When the glue has dried the front bogies will next also be moved forward to create the correct front track shape.


David.

[Chris]

I never could get tracks to fix right on airfix small scale armor, then again the tracks were usually rubber bands.

[ntrocket88]

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.