AFX Bolo
After talking to Weltman, he made me realize that AFX must stand for Armored Fist Xperiment. You can forget about Armored Fist Xtreme, that one never really sat well with me anyway. After the tradition of the X in X-planes standing for experimental this will be Armored Fist Xperiment. Considering some of the yo-yo work I've done on it it's even more appropriate than most would imagine. I'm tempted to start calling it KJ for the father of the Blackbird but I think I'll hold off on decided what name to give it. I'm most likely going to paint AF-02 on the turret though and put AF-01 on the Tiger's turret. Just wait, someday when I'm finished with experimenting and I have a real garage I'll start work on AF-03, now that is going to be a fun machine hahahahahaha.
The new tank will have several different appearances depending on the event it's being used at. If the insurance debacle ever ends favorably for vehicle based tanks I've got some very interesting ideas for some scenarios.
As for the Bolo reference, if you're any sort of science fiction fan/tanker you should read the Bolo books created by Keith Laumer. Keith passed away and his Bolos are being written about by other authors now but some of them have truly captured the spirit of the Dinochrome Brigade that Keith created. Although this will never come close to any of the Bolo's Keith or any of the other authors imagined, I just like the idea of calling it a Bolo since in my mind Bolo indicates ultimate tank. Wishful thinking on my part I suppose.
Panther: This is basically what I want the Panther shell to look like.
5/3/05
Of course things are still going slower than I would like. I got a good start on the turret roof, only to run out of resin. I have to do the sides and the inside and then its on to the cupola. The mantle (what I was calling the glacis plate) is mounted and I have a 9' section of 3" PVC sitting in it as the cannon. Looks like I lucked out with the size of the window motor I'm hoping to use to eventually power the up and down of the cannon. It'll be a tight fit but it should work, I only have to worry about balancing the cannon. I managed to chip the resin casting I have on the mantel but that should be reattached when I mix up the next batch of resin. I was planning on one more layer of gel coat, which will help hide and secure the chipped piece. You can see in the third and fourth pictures how I mounted the cannon/mantle to the turret. The Mantle is supported by only the PVC pipe.
5/3/05
Things certainly seem to be going far too slow lately but here's a few pictures of what I've been up to with the glacis plate setup for the Panther turret.
4/20/05
It's certainly been a long time for this page. I have been losing some truly great days weather wise around here and getting very little actual work done on the AFX. I do have the canopy up and a lot of clean up work done but I really feel as though I could have had a lot more done. Just a couple of pictures, finally getting a decent glacis plate started for the front of the turret/cannon mount.
7/29/04
Well my favorite saying lately in regards to the AFX is 'It's not finished yet but..' Still no roof on the turret and no real mounting system for the cannon but the bulk of the turret is finished. Although I really want to sand it down again and apply another coat of gel and then re-paint it. All of the pictures in this update are from July. Although I don't have any pictures I've added a bottom section to the turret. It needs a bit of work since one corner rubs the roof in one section when turning it.
3/15/04
My cousin needed his welder so I've been involved with another project lately. I've also been trying to clean up my work area a bit but I really need a dumpster (along with my own garage). I picked up a roll of 24 oz. woven roven that's 50" wide along with 5 gallons of polyester resin and five 4' by 8' sheets of polyisocyanurate foam so I should get the fiberglass work started tomorrow. The fiberglass work should go much faster than when I was trying to build an Abrams turret because the Panther has much simpler lines. The Abrams turret hasn't fared too well in some of the high winds we've had but then again the canopy has had a rough time too. I've got it sitting up on top of the roll cage along with most of the large pieces of plywood. The roll cage is definitely a lot stronger than the wood frame I had and I'm very happy with how well it's working out.
I've also got a few pictures of the tools I'm using for the roll cage work and some shots of the roll cage itself.
2/24/04
I got the 2nd hoop welded in place up by the front windshield. I certainly could have used a third hand or a real welding mask. I'm using one of those simple welding shields, the kind you have to hold with one hand. The first weld was the trickiest but it's now done.
2/22/04
Things are going a bit slower than I would like. I can see though that most of the little but time consuming stuff is done. I finished tearing off the wood frame I had done last fall and the new steel tubing frame has begun. My dad and I actually started welding the roll cage together today. Granted it was only a single hoop and the simplest out of the three that will be there. The welding is far from the neatest I've ever seen but this is the first time I've ever actually had this type of welding explained to me and my dad thinks I'm picking it up rather well. I've got the two pieces pretty much bent for the front hoop by the windshield, one needs a bit more work on one bend and the other needs to be trimmed to the proper lengths. I also got a line on a place that sells fiberglass materials in bulk and relatively cheaply so that's looking very good. The bad news is I burned out the cheap cut-off saw I picked up and we had to do the trimming of the rear hoop using a pipe cutter. Things are certainly looking up, although I could really use a dumpster to get rid of a bunch of scrap wood.
2/1/04
This was the design sketch I came up with for the Panther design, along with a couple of pictures of where it was before I stopped working on it. Things have changed and I'm going to be changing some of the work I've already done for this. I'm thinking that much of the wood work is going to be removed and it'll be shipped out in a week or two so the roll cage I wanted can be started.
9/1/03
Well Spplat Attack 2 is over and as far as taking a tank goes we missed it. Although Dawn and I went anyway and had a blast as regular players. This was definitely one of those projects that just never went the way I had wanted it to. I finally found out what was causing my headaches with the wheelchair motors. There was time there when I was starting to think that I had gotten two fried motors. I took the casing apart a bit and found what looks to me to be some sort of electromagnetic brake. The motors had 4 wires going into them and the two white wires that I couldn't figure out went to that brake like thing. It's to the right of the switch in the 9-1 pictures. I just cut it out, hooked up the motor and it then worked fine. I wasn't so lucky with the second motor. I did the same thing and it still wouldn't turn. I then took off the wheel and gear box assembly and the motor itself worked fine after that. I suspect that there's something inside the gearbox but I have to clean out the bearing grease first and I just not up to that job anytime soon. I scavenged the window switches from the drivers door and I'm going to use them to activate the turret motor and the gun elevation. I'm hoping to use the electric motor from the drivers side window for that.
Right now I have to decide what to do next. I can literally wrap it up for the rest of the year and finish what's left next spring. The other thought I've got nudging around in my head is to do some slight modifications to the hull, build another turret (I'm starting to think I just like to build turrets hahahaha) and build a really cool looking Panzer V Panther for the October 24, 25, 26 MXS 'Return to Wolf's Lair' scenario. Something to think about....
9-1
8-22
8-23
8-26
8/5/03 3 am!
I can't believe I'm still awake. Dawn and I finished up our last SCUBA class sometime around midnight or so and now suddenly it's 3:00 am. She's asleep and we're leaving tomorrow. Heading to North Carolina on our way to Florida for the wedding. Before leaving though I really wanted to get the latest pictures up. I had wanted to finish putting up the side pieces and fiberglass them today but I spent over 4 hours today at Sears getting two new tires and an oil change for the trip. Like a complete idiot I figured that while they had my truck for the tires it'd be easier to have them do the oil change too. Big mistake and so I didn't get anything more done to the AFX after that fiasco. Anywayz on to the pictures of the latest progress. Starting with the future drive system for the turret. I bought a 'in need of repair' electric wheel chair off of E-Bay and we're picking it up in Vero Beach Florida in a few days. I'm going to rip it apart and use it to power the turret. :)
7-31
8-2
8-3
7/27/03
I must say this part of this project is certainly taking longer than I thought it would. I've been cutting lots of foam and if I had to do this again I'd certainly do some things a little differently. Although all in all I think it's going pretty well. I wasn't able to get as much done this weekend because my land ladies son had a back yard barbeque on Saturday and I had to take some time on Sunday to set up the canopy and also run out to get some supplies. I thought I had just about run out or resin because the pump on the can was starting to draw air with the resin. Which seemed odd since I seemed to have plenty of hardener left. So I bought a new 1 gallon can of resin along with a roughly quart sized can of hardener. I picked a slower hardener for the second can since I started laying out much larger pieces of fiberglass. When I switched the pump from the first can of resin to the new can I discovered that the original was half full. Looking over the pump itself I discovered that the extension tube on it had slid down a bit which is how it was drawing air. So it looks like I'll have plenty of resin and hardener left when this is done, which is a good thing because the thought that I had used a full can of the stuff already was somewhat worrisome, this stuff isn't as cheap as I would like it to be..
7-24
7-25
7-27
7/20/03
I just haven't seemed to have any time to update this, these ought to help explain why. I have started laying down some fiberglass.
7-16
7-17
7-19
7-20
7/10/03
I'm finally done with installing this transmission! I put 7 quarts of tranny fluid in just now and it still seems to be two quarts low but it does move in both forward and reverse. I ran into one last problem a few days ago. I managed to let one of the end caps fall off of one universal joints for the 4x4 drive shaft and a bunch of the needle bearings fell out. I picked them up, cleaned them off and placed them back in the cap to discover that I was missing one. I was hesitant anyway about using them and decided to buy a new universal joint. As I was putting the drive shaft down the other cap fell off and got a bunch of dirt in it. As I picked that one up I found the missing needle bearing. At that point there was simply no way that I was willing to use that one so I had to got to Sears and buy a big 'C' clamp so I could change the universal. Even though I bought the clamp yesterday I just got around to installing the new universal today. So that part is done and now I'm going to have to put the AFX on the back burner because we're taking the Tiger off to NJ for the second Cousins Big Game.
7/6/03
I've had more trouble with this whole tranny issue than I want to think about. The main reason why I haven't updated anything for the past week is because of the tranny. I put the S-10 back on the ground and discovered that reverse was gone. So all that work was pretty much for nothing. I was looking around on the 'net hoping to find someone here on LI who was parting out a S-10 Blazer when I discovered this site in my search: www.uneedapart.com I figured what the hell and submitted my info. Some of the responses I got were pretty funny. There was one place out in the Wisconsin area or maybe further that was willing to sell me a tranny for over $600 and I had to pull it out myself. I guess they missed the part where I was from NY. Anyway this one place up near Albany offered one for $275 and I just couldn't pass that up. So I gave them a call Saturday morning and they were surprised that I was planning on driving up to pick it up myself. Most of their stuff gets shipped out USPS. For some reason I felt that a nice long distance drive was a good idea and decide to just go.
The whole road trip Saturday reminded me of Jimmy. One of the really cool things about having a friend like Jimmy was that when something like that popped up you could've called him up and he would jump at the chance to go off on an 8 to 10 hour road trip with no prior warning. Every once in a while something like that happens and it's those days that I miss him the most.
Anyway, they told me it'd be ready by 2:00 or so and I got there around 3:00. It wasn't ready so I drove around New Scotland for about an hour came back and it still wasn't out. I spent the next hour watching the yard mechanic, Red curse S-10 Blazers. Although I felt bad for him watching him have so much trouble with it made me feel better. Pulling and installing that tranny is probably the worst tranny job I've ever done. Although with the 'modifications' I've done to the floor and the experience I've acquired doing this job it took less than 4 hours to pull out the broken tranny. I had some running around to do so I only got as far as putting the tranny itself up and bolted it on to the engine. I did manage to also get the torque converter bolted to the flywheel and got the gear shifter hooked up. If everything goes well I should have it completely done tomorrow night.
I didn't spend the whole week cursing GM automotive engineers though. I did go out and pick up enough stuff to get started on playing with fiberglass. I must say even though it is easily as messy as everyone I've talked to has claimed, I find working with this stuff as enjoyable as working with wood to make things. There's just something I find pleasing when it comes to making stuff, especially if it's something a bit on the odd side. I found the proper polyisocyanurate insulation at Home Depot. Although it has some foil like material glued to each side it wasn't the foil that Todd warned about. The side with the silver facing out came off pretty easily, despite Dawn's efforts to make it more difficult. The same can't be said about the lettered side. That side likes to come off in little pieces about an inch long, roughly triangular shaped. I made a small almost turret shaped piece to get used to fiberglass and despite dropping it in the apartment when it was still tacky it came out pretty good. I do have some air bubbles but I'm pretty sure that won't be a problem on the full scale version. I bought 4 more sheets of the insulation that's a full inch thick as opposed to the 1/4 inch stuff I got for testing. I think that the paper will come off easier and I also bought a sheet of plywood, for some areas that'll require a little more strength. I sketched out the upper and lower turret sections and will build the sides from there. I also picked up a couple of bucket seats from my friend Nancy. I'm going to put one in the turret of the AFX and the other will replace the drivers seat in the Tiger.
Anyway it just passed midnight so it's technically July 7th and I have to go to work early so this will be all for tonight.
6/29/03 late evening
I stopped by my grandmothers, which happens to be my mailing address and discovered that the pallet carousel had been delivered!
I also did a quick preliminary sketch of the way the interior will be set up. I'm not sure exactly how the gravity feed and magazine are going to be set up until I get the semi-auto working. this one is based off of the upper drawing I put up earlier today. The dark line at nearly 45 degrees is a good approximation of where the front windshield will be if I leave it intact. I also have a couple of small, shaded spots that are about where the bumpers are normally located along with a faint outline of the radiator.
6/29/03
Things are going very well with the tranny. I had a lot more written here a short time ago but my computer decided to lock up and had to be re-booted. Anyway everything is pretty much in place where it belongs. I managed to get it jump started despite having quite possibly the most dead battery I've ever seen. It ran well in drive and the 4 wheel drive worked! I also managed to pull off the mangled front bumper and the crumpled front drivers side fender. The wonderful auto motive engineers over at GM back when they designed this Blazer in their infinite wisdom made the inner fender a welded-on part of the outer fender. They also set up the oil filter remotely and bolted that onto the inner fender on the drivers side, what a bunch of idiots. I now have the oil filter kind of floating in place with a section of the inner fender that I sawzalled off. I'll have a better setup to keep that in place before long but at least getting the oil filter off for oil changes will be easy. After all of the I decided to keep the passenger side fender on. That won't matter in any of the tank designs I'll most likely ever make and if something comes up later I'll deal with it then, at least that one isn't crumpled up and close to the tire like the drivers side was. The first picture below shows the hole I cut to get to the kick-down cable. I wound up making two more cuts with the sawzall and bending the floor a bit to get to the cooling lines. The second picture shows the 3 prong vacuum fitting that got broken somewhere along the line. I crazy glued a piece from a different vacuum fitting I bought at Pep Boys into place and then added some epoxy to keep it there. The third picture shows all the major pieces in place. The fourth picture is one of the wheels spinning while it was running. The fifth is the Blazer back on the ground and Finally an obligatory Dr Pepper picture. That'd be a nice sponsorship to have! It is pretty funny how many times there's a Dr Pepper in the background though.
I'm thinking about keeping the front windshield in place. It'd make some things easier although it'd take away from the 'Abrams' look. I did a quick sketch to give me a rough idea of what it'd look like and that's below. I put in the side view of the preliminary sketch below that for comparison. Although it'll be taller overall it also gives me a few more inches of ground clearance. I also added a few inches to the overall height of the turret to better accommodate the turret gunner in the new sketch. The main gun is also lowered, that's for the space needed inside for the gravity feed of the semi-auto cannon.
6/26/03
Things are going pretty well. The tranny is bolted on, the transfer case is installed, the drive shafts are in place, the tranny shifter is connected. Some of the stuff not done though are, the tranny cooling lines need to be connected to the tranny, the kick down cable has to be attached to the carburetor, the 4x4 shifter hast to be connected, the speedometer cable, uhhhhh. hahaha, I am pretty tired at the moment. I also have two wires that connect to the transfer case, they've popped out of their connector and I have not idea which side they go in. I'm not concerned about that since I believe that they're only for the light on the console that indicates the 4 wheel drive is engaged. I bent the tranny dipstick a bit trying to install that since I'm using a PCV valve grommet on the end going into the tranny and it's a bit on the tight side. I did fill the tranny and it didn't leak from there. Although it did leak from where the kick down cable goes since I didn't have it connected at that time. I had to run out to Home Depot to buy a 1/2 drive drill for my hole saw. I used that to cut a 4" circle in the floor so I could easily connect the kick down cable, so now that won't leak anymore. I used my sawzall to extend the hole for the 4x4 shifter since I realized after I installed the cross member and drive shaft to the front wheels that the shifter should have gone in first. I haven't installed it yet but it shouldn't be a problem. I'm tempted to cut another hole in the floor so I can get to the tranny cooling lines and maybe also get to the tranny dip stick. I'd rather not in some ways but it would certainly make those two tasks much easier. Looks like the wheels will be turning some time Saturday. I'd love to start it up but without the cooling lines in place it'd pump out all of the tranny fluid onto the ground.
6/22/03
Let me tell you (well not that anyone is really reading this page yet, I think), THIS DAMN RAIN SUCKS! The weather report yesterday said that it was going to clear up and that Sunday was going to be great. Well they were wrong. The low pressure system hitting us this weekend stalled and although it didn't rain as badly as yesterday it was on and off. I said screw it and went out there anyway and after looking everything over I decided that there was no way the tranny and transfer case together were going to be squeezed past the exhaust system, so I pulled the transfer case off. I did some rather interesting jack juggling, even had three jacks under the tranny at one time but the tranny is now up and pretty much in place. I've got to loosen it up a bit to bolt the fly wheel to the torque converter and I believe that I'm going to have to find some different bolts to bolt it in place. The ones I got at the auto parts store were close but they just don't seem to be going all the way in. I also discovered that one of the original bolts had snapped off in the engine block last year and it's highly unlikely that I'm going to be getting that out. It's just one headache after another with this project. If you look at the center picture you can see all of the nice dark areas of the asphalt, that's the water flowing from under the edge of the canopy. Actually the only reason why there is any dry areas at all is because I was running the forced air kerosene heater under there for a few hours.
In other news on the AFX project I broke down the other day and ordered that pallet carousel from Northern Tool. In some new research on that particular item I discovered that it's actually made by a company called Vestil and that they make several different versions of this little darling in addition to the 40" series that Northern sells they also make 30", 36", 48", 60" and finally 72" diameters so that pretty much covers a rather large range of tank turrets. The bad news is you'll have to call Vestil and find a reseller near you if you interested and they'll special order one for you. I was thinking that the 48" version would suit the Tiger very well but it's $429 not including shipping and to tell the truth outfitting the AFX is more important to me than doing anything more with the Tiger. I'm like a kid with a new toy I guess, hahaha.
Despite focusing on the AFX I'm thinking about building a 'competition turret' for the Tiger using the 40" one if it turns out that Dawn and I are going to the IAO Invasion event. Still haven't heard anything about that yet. There's just no way that Dawn could drive the Tiger but if I build a new fiber glass turret and mount the semi-auto cannon she should be able to handle that. It shouldn't be all that hard to bolt it over the existing collar and rotation setup. After that event I figure I'd just put the regular turret back on the Tiger and use everything from the competition turret for the AFX. Besides it'll give me something to practice fiber glassing. As it is I'm thinking I should call Joel and see if he can hurry on the custom parts I ordered. I'd feel a bit bad about that because the day before I found out that we had a good chance to go to IAO I told him not to worry about that work since I didn't think I'd need it until August when I start seriously gearing up for the Shatner event after the wedding. Sometimes nothing goes as planned.
Another point of interest I've exchanged a few e-mails with Lee Cross who came up with the belt fed semi-auto cannon design. He's now an electrical engineer and I've got a hunch that the cannon world will be quite familiar with his name in a year or two. He was quite interested in my synthesis of his design with Andy Gustafson's semi-auto cannon. Hopefully I'll get it to work.
Finally I've talked a bit with Todd Meyer of the Gryphonians and after that I'm pretty sure that I'm really heading in the right direction by following his footsteps in using fiberglass.
6/15/03
Well I didn't get anywhere near as far as I would have liked but I did get a bunch of stuff done. I didn't get out the door until almost 12 noon and then spent the next six hours running around getting stuff like bolts for the tranny, gasket sealer and so on. Now this job is further intensifying my intense dislike of automotive engineers. The tranny and transfer case together are too long to simply jack up into place. The exhaust system goes under the front of the tranny and part of the frame goes under the tail of the transfer case. It's a choice between putting the two up separately which is even harder than bolting them together and putting them up as a unit, which is also damn near impossible. I forget exactly how I did it last time and I tried putting the tail in first and pushing it as far as it would go to then jack the front of the tranny up. That is just not going to work so I had take it down and start jacking it up so that the front goes in first. That's tricky because the shape of the transfer case makes the tranny roll to one side and fall off of the jack. Anyway I have to pick up the other big jack from my dad tomorrow after picking up the tank at George's. Because Jimmy broke my tranny adapter for jacks I'm thinking to maybe go and buy an actual tranny jack. We'll see, anyways here's a picture of the tranny as it is now.
6/14/03
Finally was able to actually do something today. I went and picked up the tranny filter and gasket along with a sheet of gasket material to create a gasket between the tranny and the transfer case. I got back home and just as I finished getting the Blazer back up onto the jack stands a thunderstorm hit. I was out under the canopy for a good portion of it watching practically torrential rains come down. This showed me were all of the leaves were coming from that were strangely accumulating under the Blazer too. The way the canopy is setup just about all of the water that hits one side winds up flowing under the Blazer. That was very aggravating to say the least since I don't have a creeper and I wasn't about to start crawling around in the debris filled water. It slacked off and stopped a few hours later and I was able to turn the tranny over, pull the pan, clean it up a bit, replace the filter and put it all back together with the new gasket. I was running out of daylight so instead of working until after dark I decided to call it a day and packed up everything. I was a bit worried about possible water damage to the tranny since when I thought it was a write off I had left it exposed to the weather and it had been snowed and rained on. After opening it up it was obvious that some water had gotten into the tranny but water mixed with tranny fluid turns into a nasty grayish muck and is heavier than the tranny fluid so it all settled to the bottom of the tranny pan and the only thing that had any significant amount of that muck on it was the filter. There was a couple of other small areas that had a little of that gunk on them but nothing more than the edge of a plastic wiring coupling and a piece of metal. So I feel much better about the possibility that the tranny itself is still in working order. With a bit of luck I should hopefully have it up in place sometime tomorrow.
In other AFX news I've been talking to people about working with fiber glass and I now think that it will be even easier than I had originally hoped although I also think that it'll be much messier too. I've also started researching for the golf cart components that I'm hoping to use to power the turret. I must say that I'm very disappointed in that regard. Those golf carts are far more expensive than I had hoped for. So I've been putting out feelers looking for a crashed or semi-totaled golf cart. Something that some drunk golfer drove into a tree, rolled over and ripped apart, hell it could have been set on fire too for all I care as long as the motor and all the electrical gear still work. I really don't want anything more than the motor, batteries, charger, and any speed control/forward and reverse switches. Oh yeah a tire would be nice too hahaha.
6/2/03
Well now that the first big game is out of the way I'm hoping that I'll get a break on the weather this coming weekend and get the tranny back in so I can really get to work on this thing. Some of the delay is also financial, I have to get a bunch of new seals and a new filter for the tranny along with some bolts to replace the ones that were lost when it tried to leave the Blazer. Anyway I did take the 3-D sketch of the Abrams mode and colored it using the theme colors of Shatners web site and this was the result. You could call it '1st Shatner Armored Calvary' ;)
4/7/03
Sometimes you just can't catch a break. Mind you it's now April 7th! it's supposed to be in the 60's or 70's. This is costing me about $175.
3/25/03
Well there's just no way we'll be making the Wild Geese game. I'd still like to build the Gangster PAV but I'm pretty behind schedule with a bunch of stuff in life. Here are a few pictures of the current state of the AFX though. I picked up a large canopy along with the side panels in hopes that I could pull off something like a portable garage for less. As a temporary structure it looks pretty good but this isn't going to be the solution I had hoped for. It looks like I'm going to have to get the Blazer under 14 feet in length and build a shed for it. I'm thinking of 14' by 7' so it'll be under 100 square feet and therefore not taxable. When I first started working on plans for the shed I was quickly discouraged by the looking costs but I think I'll be able to get around a lot of that by not building a floor. Well at least for a few weeks I have a pretty much dry place to work on the AFX. Hopefully this canopy will also give me some breathing room from the town but I know it can't stay up for very long and I'm already under the gun from the town about the Blazer.
I know it's a little on the rough side but this is my basic idea on what I'd like to build for the 'Spaghetti, Meatballs and Mayham' game celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Wild Geese at EMR. Now if only I can get the Blazer running or rather drivable hahaha.
M1A3 Abrams mode
A friend asked me if I could make a giant spider for an upcoming scenario at EMR, this is what I think I could pull off using the AFX. In a lot of ways I think this will actually be pretty easy. I'm thinking of using mostly paintball netting stretched over a flexible plastic pipe frame. I'd love to get one of those net shooting guns I've seen on shows about non-lethal weapons to use for this.
This is actually the first concept sketch I ever made with the second tank in mind. George and I were thinking about building a Sherman tank to balance out the Tiger. I'm not sure if we'd ever actually build a Sherman since it's already been done extremely well by Bret Golihew but we definitely talk up a lot of ideas.
Shortly after talking about building the Sherman George mentioned that he would love to build an Abrams. The M1A3 pictured up further is my latest version and what I think to be the best. The next set of drawings is my first attempt at designing a paintball tank version of the Abrams. I was never happy with this concept of raising the turret to give the driver enough room which is why I didn't do any work on the Abrams style for several months.
When I started to once again think a little more seriously about the second tank I came up with this design. I wanted to keep some aspects of the Abrams and I was also trying to come up with a cool looking double barreled turret.
I never actually cared for that particular turret so I played around with it a bit and cam up with this drawing. It was shortly after this that I decided to draw the Abrams at the top of the page. The only problem I have with that Abrams is where to put the gatling gun. There is a strong possibility that the second tank will have a working 6-barrel gatling. I haven't seen it yet but I've been assured that it works and I should know more in the spring. I want to put it where the 50 caliber goes on the real Abrams but at this time I'm going to wait on adding it to the designs until I see it and get an idea of exactly how big it is.
One thing I really want to do is return to next years Spplat Attack. I had really high hopes for the last one and that trip was quite a disaster. One thing I really learned is that the Tiger as it is now is very unsuitable for the kind of multi-role ability we attempted with the combat shuttle. I'm hoping to perfect that concept or at least make it workable on the AFX. These are some ideas I drew up thinking about the next Splatt Attack. I really had my heart set on the Delta Flyer style vehicle (the lower of the two for non-Star Trek people) but my friend Bill Adams from the Shatner BBS got me seriously thinking about the upper or Runabout design. For a while there I was pretty much torn between the two until I saw Star Trek Nemesis. Bill whipped up some CGI images comparing the Delta Flyer to the Runabout and a Dune Buggy to paintball vehicle conversion along with a photo series of the Blazer as the Argo on his site. I realized that the AFX base vehicle would actually have something of a resemblance to the Argo off road vehicle in the movie. I started thinking that with a little work it would be very easy to build that off road style vehicle. Looking at the shuttle designs I believe it would possible to build the Delta Flyer over the off road vehicle in such a way that it could be quickly pulled off. The way I envision this would be to play the first two hours as the Delta Flyer, pull that shell off and play the next two hours as the off road vehicle and then repeat that for the afternoon four hours. I would love to drive out on the field as the Delta Flyer pull that off on the field and leave it behind as a distraction for all the law rocket guys.
And finally (for now) my initial version of the Argo, along with my old Blazer and a picture from Nemesis.
