Finished making the turret roof weld seam. The cling film method worked well.
Applied weld seams to the upper track link holders and after some unconventional masking started painting the turret with the basecoat.
Turret wrap finished and turret roof weld seam still in one piece until now. Last thing to check is if the turret roof still fits …..
All that remains of the basic build is the mantlet components.
Cute little things but fiddly to handle. As the screws will not be functional, I just drilled and glued them in. Also wasn't in the mood of setting up my 20kg dividing head and just used a tailor's inch tape to locate their positions. Must be an age thing.
Mantlet finally finished and installed.
Something that was bugging me since I started playing with the recoil was will the recoil continue to work once the barrel is painted? Most probably it will work but at the very least the paint will start getting rubbed off and at the worst the barrel will start to bind in the plastic bush of the barrel sleeve. Fortunately, while I was researching the number of grooves in the barrel locking ring, i discovered that there was is a step in the barrel diameter as the barrel enters the barrel sleeve. So first thing I did was reduce slightly the barrel diameter to create the step. I then cut the two grooves in the locking ring. I made the groove 2mm wide and 1.5mm deep using a slitting saw.
Started work on the muzzle brake. Added a piece at the back of the central baffle to make it look like the real thing. I thought I would have to make this thing a couple of times but was lucky and got it right on the first attempt.
Part 23 here Part 25 here
