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Project - T
Project T started in 2012 and was completed in 2014. I always wanted a 1/6 scale tank to go with my action man collection. Action man's Scorpion tank was nowhere near 1/6 in scale and was built to toy size proportions. My favourite Airfix plastic model kit to make as a small boy (albeit at a mere 72nd scale) was the Russian T-34 tank.
This was partly for two reasons. Firstly it came with a choice of two turret versions (a 76mm and an 88mm gun version). To me, this was almost like having two kits in one box. I always made the tank with the bigger gun (well bigger is better or so they say). The second reason was its wheels were a lot easier to glue on compared to the overly complicated wheels on the German tanks, which were a constant source of frustration. Such a project though would require making lots of intricate and precisely cut parts. Fortunately, I had access to a laser cutter which could do just that. I began my project by drawing some designs on paper to help me understand how I was going to construct this model. I even made a few cardboard parts to test out construction techniques and generally get an idea of how big this model was going to be. Once the plans worked (in theory anyway) the next step was to accurately draw out the parts in a vector drawing program (Adobe Illustrator CS6) which then could be loaded onto the laser cutter. Play the video below to see the laser cutter in action. The video shows some of the track links being cut.
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