Panzer 2 turret

[johann morris]

I have been beavering away as usual and to tell the truth the turret ring took longer than anticipated but now I have a turret that rotates. I spent this weekend assembling the turret on to the upper hull and fitting all the various components. There are still a few details to finish but on the whole I am quite happy with it and excited to be starting the  running gear and lower hull, oh goody.

Just for a bit of  a change, I got a dummy to stand in the turret but don't tell my son I said that.

 

 

Jon

 

 

[chevpol]

OH MY GOD!!! were is the like button?!!!!! I cant wait to see the finished vehicle, such unbelevaible work!!!

[rog8811]

Fantastic! What a project, looking forward to updates.

[eddy8men]

great work

[johann morris]

Thanks

[johann morris]

There doesn't really seem much to show you because I have been fabricating and machining lots of components ready to install into the hull. It all takes loads of time for what seems very little result. Firstly sorry for the quality of the pictures the light wasn't very good tonight. As you can see from the pictures ,the main hull has been welded together and over the next week I will attempt to weld the various components in place. I hope by tomorrow night to have rolled the front of the hull but its a major job with my very limited equipment so it may take more than one attempt but we will see.

The 3rd and 4th pictures are the inner and outer bearing houses for retaining the radius arms into the hull side and the plates with the holes in are strengthening ribs. First job tomorrow, before rolling the front, is to get the 4 front housings in place and accurately in line. Not an easy job by hand, these housings would have been machined on a special machine so that everything lined up perfectly but I don't have such a machine so fingers crossed.


Jon

[eddy8men]

lol makes the covenanter resto look easy

[Enigma]

I thought you were only making a turret and was impressed. This is taking it to a whole other level!!

[johann morris]

I am not sure eddy, you have certainly  got your hands full with the covenanter. Its a challenge that I would love but I would imagine finding the parts is going to take time, a lot of money and more important than all that absolute dedication to the cause. You have my respect for taking it on and I am looking forwards to the updates.

 

 

Jon

[johann morris]

Quote

 

I had quite a good day and tomorrow I will hopefully bend the front of the hull. The 4 front bearing houses are tacked in ready to be fully welded when the hull is turned on its side.

 

Jon

[eddy8men]

proper bit of engineering is that

[Tamber]

A thought, for those bearing housings; if they turn out to not be quite lined up enough, an option is to phone about for a company that does mobile line-boring. It's a pretty common operation in heavy equipment repairs, and they can set up to machine it in-situ.

(Feel free to disregard this if you already knew, but it's good to have options just in case.)

[johann morris]

Its going quite well apart from a virus that slowed things down somewhat. As you can see the curve on the front of the hull was a success with lots of leverage and heat, which was very welcome in the snow. All ten suspension arms have been fabricated and my next job is to turn the locating arms that locate the suspension arms into the hull.

 

Oh and I made an Easter chocolate cake, which my wife demanded with menaces.

 

Jon

 

 

Jon

[mtskull]

The word is a tad overused these days but, that is awesome!

(The tank doesn't look too shabby, either).

 

Edited January 19, 2018 by mtskull

[daleheywoodtanks]

Here Here !

Keep the photos coming. Excellent work.

Indeed AWESOME !

[johann morris]

Although I had drawn the suspension arm location shafts on CAD, I decided that I would make a set just to make sure that some plonker, thats me, hadn't cocked up. Well it turns out that I hadn't. The outer bearing housing retainer has an oil seal pressed in to stop the ingress of dirt. Then there's the complete set, bearing housing retainer, shaft, bearings, the relevant spacers and finally, the complete set installed in the hull. The hole in the end of the shaft is for a greasing point that I have to make, see below. I am not going to weld the arm to the shaft until I make the wheel axles and I don't think that I will do that until I have made a wheel. Only 9 more sets to make.

 

 

Jon

[Enigma]

I agree with the previous comment, awesome.

You sure have a large skillset to make something like that!

[johann morris]

Thanks but its nothing, just flour, sugar, butter, eggs and lots of cream, jam and chocolate.

 

Jon

[eddy8men]

very impressive. not the cake i'm afraid

[fadedsun]

How thick are the plates on the hull?

 

looks good. You could probably make money off this...

[johann morris]

Making money doing this sort of work would be very nice, all I need are some customers. From my experience most of the locals here in midwales are more interested in tractors and sheep. It seems that mid wales is too far from civilisation for most to venture. 

The hull, turret, upper hull are all 6mm to keep the weight down but packed out where necessary  to give the impression of being thicker. The curved mantlet is actually a 12mm x 6mm frame skinned in 1mm. The suspension components are made of various sized material.

 

Jon

 

[mogmaner]

The quality of your work will sell it self ,look forward to seeing the finished results.

[johann morris]

Evening all,

I have managed to finish the 9 remaining suspension arm shafts and associated components and the spring retention rollers, well that's what I am calling them. As I don't have any technical construction details of these, this is my version. The spring retainer rotates as the spring is flexed by the suspension arm, the unit consists of a shaft on a back plate and a housing. The housing contains an oil seal at the inner end, followed by a bearing, then a spacer followed by a second bearing. This is the pressed onto the shaft and held in place with a washer and a bolt. Another spacer is followed by a 3mm section o ring and an end cap, all held in place by a circlip. The last picture is an original unit. The original has an oil / grease point in the centre of the end cap, on my version this is just a dummy that can be unscrewed and replaced with a grease nipple so that the unit can be filled with grease on final assembly.

 

Jon

[johann morris]

I have at last, managed to fabricate the suspension arm travel stops / bump stops and attached them to the chassis. It seemed to take ages to complete these items but we have been in a perma frost for a week, that seemed like a month, snowed in and the workshop was frozen up, thats my excuse anyway. They are not perfect but as near as I could get them, the grey one is from the Bovington tank museums PZ2.

 

For my next trick I am going to make the track return rollers, now that will be fun.

 

Jon

[Highland_laddie]

just wish I had 1% of your fabrication skill.  This is fab definitely one of my favourite current threads.