Final coats of primer are on and its time to start on the suspension units and road wheels.

All primed up and looking a lot cleaner without the rust

 

 

Stored out of the way for now.

First prototype of road wheel, High pressure 100mm ID water pipe with a 1mm steel rim.
 

First prototype of road wheel, High pressure 100mm ID water pipe with a 1mm steel rim, will use 2mm instead and then make the inserts for inside out of 2mm as well. The steel rim had to be pressed into the pipe so should not go anywere

Been a while since I have had any time to do anything to my M1A2 but have finally decided its not going to do itself.

Its been sitting in the workshop for the past 6mths with nothing done on it so I decided to get it primed up so it won’t just rust away.

 

Turret still bolted together

 Unbolted and quite rusty on the base plate and around welded seams

 Hull and motor mounts with lots of surface rust

Went around and rust killed 90% of the surface area of both the hull and turret parts.

 Even with a very quick skim coat of primer it’s starting to look a lot cleaner. Will be doing a full coat of primer tomorrow, sand and redo so that it’s all protected

Sizing things up

 

 

Have tacked the top on the turret base so i can get it alinged to put in the tabs to screw the top.
Seam welded the top and ground it back down to close to finish.

Here you can see the base after i have seam welded it, it eat alot of weld to fill aound the slew plate

Tis is the PC for controlling the turret

Have made up the base for the turret, this will support the batteries and PC, main gun etc.
It will have tabs that will allow me to screw the top on to make it easier t access the inside of the turret

Have cut a new top skin for the turret as the last 1mm one was to thin and was flexing to much.
New one is cut from 1.6mm which is surprisingly strong.
Have also added vents along the back to help with cooling the ATOM PC that will be inside under the back blast covers.

Have had the new sides folded with a 4mm set to help them stay straight along there bottom edge

The 4mm set also gives the look of it being thicker and more solid

this is one of the new sides with the orrigional one under it