Churchill Mk. IV AVRE with Small Box Girder Assault Bridge Mk. II

[stillp]

Thanks :smiling3: The hard part will be making the deck look convincingly like wet wood, though.

Somehow I think you'll manage that Jakko!
Pete

[Guest]

I think what I will need to do first is find some wet wood and look closely at that. Unfortunately, it hasn’t rained here in a fair while. Fortunately, though, as I need to leave on my bike in about half an hour, it won’t rain today either

[Neil Merryweather]

I think what I will need to do first is find some wet wood and look closely at that. Unfortunately, it hasn’t rained here in a fair while. Fortunately, though, as I need to leave on my bike in about half an hour, it won’t rain today either :smiling3:

It would if I had to :tears-of-joy:

[Jim R]

Painting of the bridge has turned out well. Quite a few steps but very effective. Hope it rains for you

[Guest]

It can rain tomorrow, I don’t need to cycle anywhere then I doubt it, though, the weather is rather nice of late, only it would be nicer if that strong northerly wind would die down a bit. Weird direction for the wind to come from anyway …

[Guest]

Still watching and admiring your workmanship. Recieved mine the other day - such a big box....

[Guest]

Thanks The size of the box surprised me too — at least half as deep again as a normal kit. Then again, it actually needs to be that big for everything that’s inside it.

I’m now debating whether the turret of the real tank would have been with the gun at 12 o’clock, or 9 o’clock. I see a fair number of photos of bridge-carrying AVREs with the turret at 9 o’clock, and all photos of the tank once derelict on the beach also have it there — but does that mean the crew turned it that way after coming ashore, or did they not turn it because they had no reason to? Or, of course, that someone climbed in after the fighting and turned the handwheels? (Not exactly unknown to happen )

[Tim Marlow]

Thanks :smiling3: The size of the box surprised me too — at least half as deep again as a normal kit. Then again, it actually needs to be that big for everything that’s inside it.

I’m now debating whether the turret of the real tank would have been with the gun at 12 o’clock, or 9 o’clock. I see a fair number of photos of bridge-carrying AVREs with the turret at 9 o’clock, and all photos of the tank once derelict on the beach also have it there — but does that mean the crew turned it that way after coming ashore, or did they not turn it because they had no reason to? Or, of course, that someone climbed in after the fighting and turned the handwheels? (Not exactly unknown to happen :smiling3: )

Isn’t it the case that if the turret is at nine o’clock the driver can get out more easily in the event of an enemy hit? The Petard gun could potentially obstruct the drivers hatch otherwise. These guys would be going in at the forefront of an attack, after all…..

[Guest]

Not sure, a Churchill driver would always have an escape door in the hull side available too. But looking at photos more carefully, I get the impression that nearly all photos with the turret at 9 o’clock were taken during training, while photos taken in France and beyond usually show it more or less directly forward instead. I think I will go for 12 o’clock, partly because the deep-wading instructions say to do that (of course, that would have been ignored for fascine-carrying AVREs, but what does that say for the SBG carriers?).

Meanwhile, I’ve been painting the bridge decks some more:

[ATTACH]482068[/ATTACH]

I first applied a wash from Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black, and then drybrushed with various shades of wood- and dirt-coloured paint, mostly aiming for transverse lines to try and replicate wood grain. I deliberately didn’t use every colour on each plank to enhance the effect. I think it needs a little more still, though.

During that painting, one of the eyes at the front of the bridge broke off. As it will have a cable attached to it that will carry half the weight of the bridge, I decided not to just glue it back on but replace both eyes with brass ones:

[ATTACH]482069[/ATTACH]

I bent two eyes from 1 mm brass rod and soldered them to more of that material. Not the greatest soldering job ever accomplished, but I couldn’t pull them off with pliers so it will do. All that remained was to cut down the stems, drill two holes and glue them in:

[ATTACH]482070[/ATTACH][ATTACH]482071[/ATTACH]

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
Coming on very nicely. The eyelets look very good and should be a whole lot stronger. I tend to do the same make eyelets with a tail on they are so much stronger.

[Nicko]

Wood decks look very effective Jackkp.

Nick

[Guest]

I’m now kind of wondering what other plastic parts I would do well to replace with brass to ensure the bridge doesn’t come crashing down because some small part breaks …

[Guest]

More wood effect painted on the decks:

[ATTACH]482109[/ATTACH]

With at the top, still without at the bottom.

I painted streaks with a medium dirty red-brown colour and a fine brush, the trick being to use very thin paint (airbrush paint, used unthinned, in this case, but thinning regular paint works just as well) so you can make thin lines with it. Don’t try to be too regular, and try to look at each plank individually — that is, don’t try to paint all the planks the same, but also don’t try to make each one deliberately different from the one next to it.

After finishing the other deck too, I repeated it with a sand colour, again using airbrush paint:

[ATTACH]482110[/ATTACH]

I did these thinner and less densely than the darker colour, and again tried to paint each plank separately. With this second colour, it’s also important to not try and fill only the “empty” areas from the previous colour, but to leave some of those empty still. Also, to have some touch or overlap that colour instead of always being separate from them.

It needs another wash over all of it to tie the colours together better, I think, and the seams between the planks also need to be darkened.

[Guest]

Continuing with the wood theme, I first lightly drybrushed the decks with Tamiya X-9 brown to tone down the stripes a little, before applying a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone to accentuate the moulded wood grain and the seams between the planks:

[ATTACH]482159[/ATTACH]

Again, bottom without, top with (and for the next two photos too).

The next step was to drybrush all the wood with Humbrol MC24 Natural Wood, from a tin almost as old as I am

[ATTACH]482160[/ATTACH]

And then a lighter drybrush with Humbrol 72 Khaki Drill, from a slightly (but only just) newer tin:

[ATTACH]482161[/ATTACH]

At this point, I felt the wood looks good enough to leave it like that. I might go back and enhance the seams, but the wood itself is done, if you ask me, so I pulled the tape off:

[ATTACH]482162[/ATTACH]

Some washes bled under the tape, so it will need touching up in places, but that’s okay. Some more stuff needs to be painted as well anyway

Oh, and for fun, I thought I’d show the paints you — or well, I — need to paint a simple little bridge:

[ATTACH]482163[/ATTACH]

On the left for the trusses, on the right for the decks.

[Guest]

Jakko,
Replacing parts with metal - rings etc. I would seriously take a look at these and replace them. If you remember my Chieftain Bridgelayer, I used brass wire (0.75mm) for the bridge 'stays' as the bridge was way too heavy to use plastic rod. This was done under the reasoning that over time the plastic would become brittle, or even a slight knock would end up with the bridge giving way. Even on the Centurion I am using full width brass rod to replicate the pins for the lifting arm.
I do like the finish you have given the wooden deck of the bridge, bet it looks even better in real daylight.
Keep up the good work
Mike.