Looking good John.
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Following along on your adventure ! I really like the subtle use of pe , not overdone like Im guilty of lol
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Oh my, lovely details. Those Meng bolts are handy, aren’t they?
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Thanks Colin, and Jeff…I’m a fan of PE … It just breaks me doing it lol…
Russ, couldn’t agree more… Just gutted it took me so long to start using them…
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No wonder it was your ride! The attention to the details is pretty much over the average. I am going to show these posts to my son (13) who won an old Tamiya Chieftain for showing his Shermy in the under 16 entries in a local exhibition and now he wants to try to tackle it (OOB to start with).
We’ll follow the build together by now…
So feed us 
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Thanks Stefano… hope you and your boy both continue to enjoy the build 
The Tamiya Chieftain was the only game in town for many many years, so there are a lot of detail and accuracy issues, but it will be good for your boy to build out the box…if he enjoys it, I would suggest maybe a birthday present for him of one of the TAKOM offerings for a nicely detailed kit
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Been getting the M1A2 started, so decided to return and get a small bit of detailing done now my micro drill bits arrived …
Drilled into the back of the Fixed fire extinguisher handle mounts to secure the wire piping into
Used a .3mm bit and did the same on the front side… Just went in deep enough to give the wire and the handle a seating so it supports them a bit more. Will add the handles towards the end prior to paint.
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Wow John you’re getting into the real nitty-gritty with this build. That looks outstanding!
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And miracle upon miracles … the .3mm bit did not break … yet lol
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That’s what she said.
What I have always said is don’t use someone’s model as a reference. Your build may change my thinking on that. Very nice work.
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No point in putting all your cards on the table lol
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Every good tactician knows you keep a certain amount of your firepower in reserve.
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Anybody want to hazard a guess as to what I’m going to try and build next …
And I wondered what an M1 turret looks like on a Chieftain hull…
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Just wrong…
Hey Johnny, like what you’re doing - bar that
Mal
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Has a South African ‘Oliphant’ vibe to it.
Good luck with the scratch building of the mount John.
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Thanks Peter and Mal…
Made a bit of progress with the mount.
First off to get it out the way, drilled out the cable hole for the junction box for the MG solenoid cable
And the same for the Comd Spotlight
Used the .4mm micro bit … (Which didn’t break 
)
Next I made the main cradle mounts which go onto the mounting plate on the cupola…
These are about 2.5mm wide and 5.5 tall… cut oblong sections initially then sanded the angles on the sides and the rounded top… They are slightly over size at the moment, but will get trimmed down and also sanded flatter for depth.
I then made the mounting plate and secured that to the cupola…(Search light and sight hood just taped on for size ref on cradle mounts)
The searchlight will be cut off and some more detailing added to it later on as it’s not quite right as it is.
I then used some H channel and trimmed it down, which will hopefully be the right hand side of the cradle. Both sides were sanded back thinner
On the right side of the cradle, is the cocking handle guide which I am also going to try and make …
Very very thin strips were cut off a length of already thin strip and a smaller bit was cut to join them together so you get the open segment in the middle…the thicker right hand bit needs to cut in half again to reduce its size… The wire next to it is .4mm.
And the guide will goe on the cradle side flush with the top eventually…
Also sliced off part of the kit moulded detail of the elevation gearing as it’s quite nice and may save a bit of time later.
This will probably take a while as I’m working in sizes of 6mm longest or smaller and I’m getting a fair few miss cuts with it being so small… But happy with where it is now .
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Coming along well,you have to ask yourself sometimes, why?
O/T but I believe you were looking tracks for your Chally,have you seen Quick Tracks they have Chally and Chiefy printed track links.
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Thanks Ivan… Those tracks look pretty nice. I think that will be my next buy … Cheers mate.
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So you have nothing else to do but fiddle around with tiny bits of plastic huh? 
Great work!!
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But it keeps me out of trouble lol…
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