The Bluebird Project

I agree, it was all a little too obviously stage managed but IMHO you are being a little harsh in some of your criticism of the tank itself.

If JCB "weld, not rivet" then they probably no longer have the facilities do carry out something that isn't relevant to their core business. I'm sure the skills do still exist somewhere to have riveted the hull if a 100% accurate replica had been the aim of the exercise but I wonder how many such firms were falling over themselves to sponsor the project?

As for the choice of engine, even if a runnable Liberty could have been sourced within time & budget, it would still have only been accurate to the time period, not to the MK.IV tank and there would still be the matter of the transmission....

In the end (being very cynical now), this clearly wasn't intended as an in-depth documentary about tanks and WW1; it was all about making a mainstream TV programme within time and budget constraints and about finding ways to push the media brand that is Guy Martin so that people would watch 5 minutes of adverts every quarter hour. It's a shame, I like Guy as a presenter but he really wasn't playing to his strengths this time.

Another sticking point was that 99% of the work was completed by JCB and the team of volunteers at the Norfolk tank Museum. Guy turned up and attached one roller then dissapeared.


None of the volunteers got a mention


That boils my juices something crazy.

I quite like Guy Martin, he is a real character, and there simply aren't enough of them about. I too feel that as good as his TV stuff is, it can give the impression that he is almost single handedly completing the projects..

Must only be me then. I liked the JCB approach and well done to whoever pitched to them to get involved in the first place. May as well laser it out and weld it then add fake rivets with plug welds - why not? It looked right.
Did we insist that our planing wedges were milled by hand by some old-boy in a brown dust coat with half-moon spec's and a half smoked cigarette behind his ear?
Or did we have them cut by a 5-axis CNC machine from a CAD model?
I thought it was good telly and I learned a lot.

I agree with the comments made above. While it was always going to be a pretty loose interpretation of a replica tank, after all it was done using a set of CAD drawings taken from photographs! The blueprints MUST still be available with the IWM or similar. There was also little detail on the build itself & the people who actually did the work. I don't however believe that many people are daft enough to believe that GM does it all himself in his shed in Grimsby

It was an entertaining program that raised awareness of WW1 & WW1 Tanks in the mind of a lot of people who probably knew nothing about the subject at all. Any TV program that is viewed by someone who knows a subject well is riddled with inaccuracies & BS. It's just that these usually go un-noticed because the viewer knows nothing about the subject.

I remember a similar debate on a program about farming in WW2. It was getting a slamming by self appointed "experts" who were saying this & that were incorrect, "they knew, because they worked on a farm just like that when they were a nipper". The same people were saying that a similar program made by the same company & introduced by the same people about a Victorian farm was "excellent". They couldn't see that once their experience was taken out of the equation they were just punters watching a TV program that was probably as riddled with inaccuracies as the WW2 example.

Same applies to any other subject. TV is made for a mass audience, not a tiny clique of "experts".

Seems the current model is a kit of parts....just 100 more magazine issues and I can start glueing it together.

Oh hell! another pile of broken bits of tank, done one of these already... Here we go again.

Yep...sorry.... a lot less broken on this one, and being a Mk2 it’s more civilised to run / maintain.

This one has its original factory TL numbered engine too.

Might just weld the armour back on though, as I don’t rivet.


Tracks are mint but the pins are all snapped due to extreme sub zero temps where it was sat for many years.

Pins are easy enough though. !

So when we getting started? Really enjoyed the last one...

I have a stack of rusty junk under the mini in the garage, a usual sight for a mini, however, in this case the rusty junk is bits of tank. I have a stack or reproduction fuel tanks which I need to fuse the ends with my Tig. just the usual fair.


like I say, this one is in far better state than my first one. Also there is no time constraints so I am in zero hurry.... after the last time the getting things done in a hurry was somewhat costly (and ultimately sealed the vehicles fate for being sold on to pay off debt........a lot of debt).


in any event I am stuck with Jnr's mini as he does not want it. So I have a 1966 Mk1 mini currently in its roll over jig, I better get that finished first I suppose.





As an aside, if we are not busy in sept 2019, there is a trip to Arnhem planned again, but this time we are taking a Cromwell and a brace of carriers if you fancy it

and hopefully Italy in May 2020.

its all go as they say.