the inspiration for the tank, during the Great War ( although according to Grandad it was not that great ) dummy tanks were created to confuse the away team, as their 75mm artillery pieces made short work of the drive gear, our tank was the first decoy made since 1918 ! my grandad having worked on the last few, before being posted to Koln with the BAOR where he formed a life long friendship with a German family ( they had lost their son) he said we were all equals doing what we were told , and always spoke kindly of his friends, in Germany,
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My Grandfather , having been injured, joined a pioneer battalion, basically laborers
and one thing he told me about was making the dummy tanks
if you look closely at this original image from the tank museum, the photographers motorcycle is a civilian one and very shiny
Its Triumph Model H
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yesterday I managed to escape for a few hours, my hands shake badly with the weird drugs, so I stashed myself away in the garage, and got on with assembling franko
the wiring had been done in a rush last time, we always seem to get called away for work, well now I cannot work, I just crack on with it
got some help to lift him up and fix him together ( youngest daughter)
then tidied up the wiring and fitted his controls
all simple old fashioned stuff, but afterwards he will be for sale, so the new owner will have no trouble connecting him up
you can see why I need the room, that blue thing is a jig, and the car body needs to go on it soon, so that I can start work between bouts of chemo
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Ha! The robot is so not what I envisaged. Excellent!
Love the tank, too. And the street sign warning of tanks is genius.
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Absolutely brilliant Rapheal! Unfortunately, around these parts the Local Authority Planning Enforcement (Gestapo) Officer would have slapped a planning enforcement notice on it! 
art mate. they can’t govern that!
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The trick is to pre build, plan it
slap it in place and then deny all knowledge
and by the time they come back its vanished like the Tardis
and thats the next project
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The Big lug is wired, had another two coats of paint ( less tins of stuff lying about)
he has his voice back and is ready to terrorize the raggazi
just got to block a section of the garage off, and make sure nothing can be fingered ( little kids are sods for fiddling with things, and pocketing keys
so from ground level to 4 feet )
I even rewired him ( typical sparky leave it a mess )
just got to put a few ghouls and ghosts in, then at a flick of a switch he is up and running
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today I will finish it all off
busy yesterday with chemo
and a nice man delivered a large pack of steel sheets, 18. 20,22, gauge nicely cut to four foot squares
this is to make the replacement panels for my classic car, so once Franko is sold I will have room to get the English wheel out and all the tools and manufacture new wings
( pattern ones are pricey , and I mean pricey and the wrong gauge, the earlier cars were made of thicker steel)
then I can put the old girl up on her jig to allow me to move the shell about
I had a sudden burst of energy this afternoon, and using the remains of a cut down tree, I built a hide behind the gate for our stuffed tramp
and to contain a smoke machine
just ordered some scrim netting to conceal it
going to be lots of fun
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at last, everything is all plugged in and ready , did some audio checks and everything works fine, then lobbed a few ghosts and ghouls in, plus a few hidden cctv cameras with two way audio
just in case ralph ( the fat kid) decides to mess about
it will be nice to have it all done early as this year its the school holiday week, so some children like to arrive early, then pop back later
hopefully the big lug will be going to a local auction room afterwards, make a nice christmas present for a mad person !!
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well he made it to the auction house
hopefully he finds a loving home, and LINC get some money
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