Landships II

Rob · Legend

Retrokit 1/72 Rolls Royce Armoured Car

Rectalgia · Legend

Rob wrote:

...the e-mail address given in the instructions doesn't work - anyone have another contact for them?...

Evidently not. Purely from an e-mail technical point of view - the contact@ address seems to have been listed 'en clair' in numerous places on the internet for some years and I'm supposing has become so spammed as to be useless even with ferocious filtering and is certainly inactive - if that's the one you're seeing. No guarantees but the address Marc[dot]Urwicz[at]solfig[dot]fr is theoretically deliverable, just replace the representations in square brackets with the respective characters.

I'm not overly confident, the website is unreachable at the moment - but the email routes quite differently, through hotmail which is rather good at spam filtering, all consistent with my guesses so worth a try, IMO.

HTH

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

Rob, thanks for posting this 'mini review'.

The filled in cargo bed is going to be a bitch to excavate! (Sorry!) You are right, the doors in the back of the crew compartment need that space to open.

For replacement/missing parts maybe you should try the company that supplied the kit.

Rob · Legend

I contacted the company that supplied the model, who gave me another address for Solfig which i've tried. As much as i'm within my consumer rights to, I don't really want to keep pestering the supplier for parts etc as I already sent back the tropical version as I wasn't happy with the casting on that (spokes of the front wheels detached from the rest of the wheel), as well as the hull only being able to be modelled as shut down with the armoured visor and radiator doors shut, although the turret was the open version.

When/if I get around to doing the kit, I don't think i'll bother trying to excavate the cargo bed, instead hoping the stowage either side of it will hide it a bit! Shame really as I was hoping for a decent WW1 pattern Rolls Royce - even the Reviresco kit was better in that it had a proper tray and the radiator doors were poseable

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

In my opinion, the best kit of the RR is still the Milicast one. Peter has reviewed it on the Landships site, but since then it has been re-tooled. I have one model of each tooling. The first (early) tooling is the one Peter reviewed and, yes, the chassis was warped. But the new tooling is excellent; it has fewer parts and comes with some flimsies.

It is the 1920 pattern so there are parts to change; the armoured radiator covers, the visor in front of the driver, and the wheels. The turret, although slightly taller on the 1920 pattern versus the 1914 pattern, looks slim. Slim enough to look right for a 1914 and 'wrongish' for a 1920. The radiator covers and visor are just flat pieces of plasticard; easily done.

The wheels I made from drilled out shirt buttons with a PE insert (the PE of spokes is available from Scale Link). But I have read that someone made a set of them from the wheels of a WW1 aircraft kit (I think it was Ironsides?). Peter made his wheels by taking the wheels from an RPM kit.

For a hopefully complete list of RR kits look here:
http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?aBID=63528&p=3&topicID=23016477
if you are going to be doing some chopping, you may as well buy a cheaper kit? I guess it is a 'trade-off'.

Rob · Legend

Hadn't thought about the Milicast kit, although it does seem like a good option - the fenders are slightly different too but they're changeable - in fact a kit bash with the Reviresco kit to get the cupola and visors could be an option. The more I look at the Retrokit 60 pounder i'm not too happy with it either - the barrel seems warped and the recuperators seem too far apart, looking at the real thing at the IWM they seem to be much closer together than depicted in the kit.

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

The reviresco kit doesn't show up in normal searches on the main site. But here it is:
http://www.landships.freeservers.com/flake_rollsroyce.htm

and the tender:
http://www.landships.freeservers.com/flake_rr_tender.htm

and the Talbot:
http://www.landships.freeservers.com/flake_talbot.htm

-- Edited by philthydirtyanimal on Friday 15th of January 2010 12:58:08 AM

Rob · Legend

Started making this after receiving a replacement turret, and front wheels. I really can't work out how to attach the rear wheels - can anyone see? Could just be that there is no rear chassis and it just affixes to the main casting

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

Rob, this answer is just judging by the Milicast ones that I am working on.

'Affixes to the main casting' is about right. There is a box-like construction at the rear and underneath, and the rear wheels of the kit attach on a short stub to this. Picture (using one of your photos) of the approximate location attached. I suggest drilling out a small hole and sticking some plastic rod into it. Just judge by eye what looks like the right place.

I don't know how this worked in real life; maybe there was a box built around the rear differential to protect it from being bashed when the vehicle went over rough ground. They do it on some current off road vehicles and Rally vehicles.

Rob · Legend

Cheers mate - that certainly seems about right, without checking references having the wheel hub in the lower corner (as you look at it, with the front to the left, the lower left corner of the chassis box) seems to be the right position for it.

Aside from the filled in rear box, it should look good when finished - going to have a go at making the small shield for the Vickers and the chains for the rear wheels