M31 Bridgelayer conversion

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Sure looking Great to me Beekster.

[Beekster]

Work has continued on the back porch this weekend. I built a new left side upright with a dogleg to clear the idler wheel mount and line up with the tow lug better. I was also dissatisfied with the fit up top; the porch sat too high at the back and the odd appearance of that was exacerbated by the forward rake of the suspension. So I cut off the upper mounts and fashioned new ones both longer and angled slightly upward. The result is better, I think. I reinforced the joint at the front of the porch with a support plate on the inside and added some weld seams just for fun.





Now I can finish the rest of the usual Lee/Sherman bits at the back and glue the porch in place. Once that's done, I'll cut off the extra rod on the ends and add some nut & bolt detail to each of the four mounting points. Something else the new upper mounts will fix is the issue with the spare track return rollers.  The change in geometry means they will fit now as they ought to do.

[JCON]

Nice work!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Amazing details there Beekster.

[Beekster]

Ok, I've generally been complimentary of Takom's engineering here. Now it's time for a rant. See the images below:




The engine deck grille is nice, and you can see the two spigot handles which flank it. You can also see that the etch stub isn't trimmed, because you can't do it. These wee little things are about fifty thousandths of an inch across, and they can't be held while you try to file that off. There should be two more on the deck, but one disappeared so I pulled off the other one. Why did Takom do this, when they could simply have molded the detail in place where a black wash would make it pop perfectly well? They gave in to the current trend to add to parts count because they can, without really adding anything worthwhile to the finished product. I've got the remains of an Eduard set for a Lee, from which I stole the engine deck grill for the Ram Badger. I'll see if there are spigots there. But these put me in a foul humor, and I decided to revolt against the primacy of parts count as seen below:



Those aren't the kit's air cleaners; these are Dragon spares and there are three pieces to each of them. Most square ones have six or seven parts, if they have all four of the retaining rods. Round ones only had two, which made these attractive. Takom's square cleaners have eleven parts, eight of which are wee tiny P/E brass bits to do the retaining rods. Again, more parts for the sake of more parts...which is stupid. The retaining bolts on the Dragon air cleaners are a bit too subtle as molded, but I don't care. They will be difficult to examine closely once the back porch is on anyway.

[ogrejohn]

Looking great Beeks!

I know what you mean about parts count just for the sake of more parts. Trumpeter has you put on about 150 of these little 2mm disks for the anti-radiation cladding on their T-72B. Would have been easier just to mold them in. This is just a few.

[BUCKY]

Nice lot of detail, beekster!!

[Beekster]

Yeah, John, it's insane. I don't have more spigots unless I rob a Takom Grant that I have in the stash, and I'm loathe to do that. But the tall stowage bins will butt up against the locations for the two that are missing, and I can conceal them with stowage stuff of various sorts.

[JCON]

Looking usable!!!

[Robbo]

Very nice building

[Beekster]

Several things going on here in this picture of the rear hull stowage boxes in progress:


In the foreground, the kit mattock head has been replaced by an Asuka part because I like the shape better. Also note the strap loops added from punched discs and .015" rod, which will eventually have a strap made from wine bottle foil. The kit has molded loops, which are now gone. Molded loops aren't my favorite, but it's possible to make them work with straps on occasion. Not this time. The molded bits were located above and below the oval stud that the mattock head rests on. If any of you can tell me how a strap would work in that configuration, be my guest...

On the larger boxes, you see spare track holders on their rear faces. Takom gives you single molded pieces for this, which would be fine if they were done correctly...which they are not. The frames in which the track block sits are represented by a bar across the top of the track pins in Takom's part...and nothing else. As designed by Takom, there's no structure that would be welded to the tool bin, upon which the track block pins would rest (and be retained by the bar across their top surface). So spare Asuka parts came to the rescue here, along with spare Panda track links. These are actually British parts as used on Fireflies, but they will do fine (as I wave my hand in Jedi fashion). Bits of styrene rod are seen filling tool locating holes which won't be used, and other molded strap loops have already been removed. The axe and mattock handle provided by Takom are actually quite nice, and will be used as-is with new tie-down loops and straps added. But other stuff needs fixing. The track tensioning wrench is fine, but there's no tubular mount with retaining pin inside the open hex end of the wrench. That ought to have been molded to the top of the tool box, but wasn't. Also, there's no shovel included at all, nor a crowbar! Asuka to the rescue here too, and I will find places for them and make tie-down loops. And the sledgehammer? As molded, the retaining bracket for the head is on the wrong side (top) if it is mounted on the side of the box as the instructions indicate. Asuka will fix this too, and I will scratchbuild the retaining brackets along with the tie-down loops.

[JCON]

Nice work!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

It will all make more sense to me, after the tools are in place.

[Beekster]

Apr 16, 2020 16:31:35 GMT -6 dogfish7 (R.I.P.) said:

It will all make more sense to me, after the tools are in place.

There will be "after" photos when I'm done with this step, have no fear.  This subject is actually rather frustrating, because there are no good walk-around photo albums which show where tools were stowed.  Near as I can tell, you can't buy/download the wartime TM9- whatever technical manual which would have stowage drawings.  The manual exists, because select pages from it have been published in various places but none are very detailed as to tool placement.  And some of the most well-known photos differ from what can be spied in images of in-service vehicles.  Example:  One of a sequence of photos taken at Baldwin during conversion work shows a shovel on the right rear mounted vertically with the head on the rear of the sponson and the handle & retaining strap on the large stowage bin.  But virtually all in service images show spare track blocks on the back of the bins as I have modeled.  Where did the shovel go?  Who knows...recovery vehicle crews had all the materials on the tank to move tools and other fittings around to suit them, and obviously did.

As for that crowbar...

I lied.  Takom does provide one, but it is too short and stumpy so Asuka it is.  And I've found a great place for it, crosswise on the engine deck in front of the big angle fitting with the spare track support rollers & travel crutch for the crane boom.

In fairness, some of these problems are simply the result of moving things around.  The tools are all on common sprues that are in all of Takom's Lee/Grant kits, not on the extra sprues specific to the M31.  That sledgehammer described above would fit just fine on the engine deck where a regular M3 would have it, but since the tank retriever stores other stuff on the deck (like the ground plates for the adjustable crane legs) the typical pioneer tools have to go elsewhere.  Takom could have molded new tools specific to the M31, but that would mean yet another extra sprue and a more expensive kit.

[Beekster]

As promised, some nearly-finished images of the pioneer tools in place with footman's loops & straps. The big boxes are just sitting there; they won't get glued down until I get little retaining chains on all the filler caps on the engine deck. I've left the strap off the track tension wrench for now to better show the simple construction of the footman's loops...just tiny punched discs and .015" plastic rod.

[JCON]

Nice details!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

A lot more Utilitarian looking now. Big difference.

[BUCKY]

Some very good work going on here. Great work-arounds on the problem areas, too.

[JED]

Excellent work

[ogrejohn]

That is some dang fine work!