Anne’s L6/40 Italian light tank

[Amccombs3]

Yes, that must be it. Field repair. In any case, the turret is what it is, and I fully expect silly remarks about it when next we meet in person.

Today, while the bird was in the oven for Thanksgiving (a duck — a turkey would be way too much for the two of us), I got to a long-overdue task and cleaned out the drawer of my workbench/desk. I was driven to do this because some small but important tank bits had gone walkabout during the hiatus, and I was starting to worry about them. Happily, I found most of them, way in the back, in a small plastic container. As a happy byproduct, I also found a number of my favorite tools that had hidden themselves, such as my 6” rule/straightedge and my best tweezers. This exercise was very pleasant and I recommend it on a leisurely day.

I said that *most* of the small missing tank bits showed up. These included all of the headlight parts and some (not all) of the parts for the engine hatch hinge. In another stroke of luck, I had actually scanned the model before beginning construction, AND I was able to find the file and print another set of hinge parts. I made some progress on the teensy headlights, but not enough to photograph. And I’ve been working on the idler wheels, but they aren’t ready for their close-up yet either.

So, progress continues.

[Don Boose]

Sounds like a productive Thanksgiving. Hope the duck was delicious.

Don

[Amccombs3]

Still puttering along. I had to come home early today due to a huge scheduling snafu, and put the time to good use edge-painting and assembling the idler wheel assemblies. I didn’t really want to put in the wire axles, but they proved to be unavoidable, even though there is no reason to ever need the wheels to turn. At least I remembered to make a left and a right! And over the long weekend I got the engine hatch hinges finished up and in place. I think road wheels, with their very odd suspension, may be next numerically, but I might choose to do the return rollers next instead.

[Amccombs3]

I went with the road wheels as the next assembly step after all. I was in the mood to cut out lots of circles, so the timing was good. This was followed by lots of edge painting, then a couple of nights of assembly-line gluing. Four road wheels per side plus the spare. Next will be the peculiar suspension bogies.

[Don Boose]

Excellent road wheels. I look forward to your fabrication of the peculiar suspension bogies.

Don

[modelperry]

Wheels look good to me. Standing by for suspension update....

Greg

[Amccombs3]

Suspension update: after the usual procedure of cutting, edge-coloring, shaping, and gluing, I’m into the assembly phase. Bogies and suspension arms are partially assembled, as shown. I’ll be trimming the wire axles later; I left them long for a fudge factor during assembly. Rolling and gluing the tiny spacers was challenging; I tried water-moistening the paper with mixed results. It made the paper much easier to roll tightly, but the paper is easy to tear, as I did on one cylinder side. The suspension arms that have a tab in the middle get return rollers, so I need to make those next.

Edit: second photo, a few minutes later. Now I won’t have to worry so much about losing those tiny spacers.

[Don Boose]

I see no flaws in that suspension.

Don

[smithdr]

I agree with Don on this one. That looks just great!

Dan

[rockpaperscissor]

Very nice work, Anne. The suspension looks great.