Puncture repair marathon and also the T34/122 tank.

As I have mentioned in the past I do a lot of cycling and have done so for decades! 200K plus miles of cycling on my legs going back over a long time with a lot of time trialing and road racing in my younger days. However, as Mrs. Woody would no doubt agree, you would probably have to scrap a car with 200K miles on it especially if it was as old as I am!

Over all those miles of cycling I have had all sorts of  mechanical mishaps from gear and brake cables snapping through to snapping chains which when it happens and you are out of the saddle climbing a hill the first thing you hit is the cross bar and then the ground! Ouch and a squeaky voice! 

Generally I carry a few tools with me on the bike and I have mostly managed to get home under my own power after most mishaps. Whilst I do carry a puncture repair kit I do tend to avoid repairing punctures at the road side preferring to carry a couple of spare inner tubes with me. Get puncture, stop bike, wheel off, tyre off, check for what caused puncture and remove, punctured inner tube replaced with spare, tyre back on and pumped up, wheel back in place, get back on bike and continue happy bike ride! I can usually do that in about 5 minutes which is a lot quicker than trying to find the puncture in the inner tube and repairing it especially if its cold, windy and wet. The repair can await my return to a hopefully warm and dry WMD HQ - working smarter not harder as I get older! 

When back a HQ I replace the now used spare tube on the bike with another from my box of good tubes straightaway so I still have two good tubes with me for my next ride. I have learnt the hard way when miles from home with both spares having not been replaced. The punctured tube then usually ends up hanging on something convenient and then gets forgotten about rather than repaired. This goes on until I look in my box of good tubes to find the last one. So still feeling a bit under the weather with Covid I decided to bite the bullet and go through the 12 tubes that needed repair as I was down to my last good tube. It was a puncture repair marathon but worth it. Five were beyond repair or ended up needing repairs that would involve putting a patch on a patch which is never a good idea. However, I did end up with seven repaired tubes and a happy Mrs. Woody seeing the tubes removed from various hanging points despite my manifestations that they were a decorative feature!

Tank wise the tracks are now constructed. Having built one set on the tank itself with the wheels temporarily mounted to the hull I used this a s a pattern to build the other set. I used masking tape wrapped half way around the complete set and then built the other set by attaching the links to the other half of the masking tape. The photo probably explains it better.

I have also primered the hull and turret in a light grey primer which should be a good base for the top coat. It is drying over night so should be ready tomorrow to go back in the spray booth - Covid permitting!