Landships II

Hi Sid, thats very interesting, I shall try and get a copy of that and check it out.
I was hoping to use an emhar MK V but the hull profile is quite different so in the end a scratch seemed to be the only way. Luckily with WW1 tanks most things are flat plates so fingers crossed wont be too hard
I still might get an Emhar and borrow some parts. Tracks will be fun, hope to make up one good link and get a mate to cast me loads, paid for with beer !

I suspect the hardest part to scratch might be the track tensioners as i want to show some of the main return wheel there. Yet to see a tank with tracks so tight you cant see the wheel.

The female at Bovi still has some of the gear on the back end, but for the life of me i cant work out what it did lol.

Ian.

-- Edited by T140 on Thursday 3rd of March 2011 04:32:11 PM

Hi Mark.
Didnt realise that there were tensioner covers but that makes sense I guess to keep some of the crud out. My main aim is to have some of the return wheel showing between track and hull, rather than the tight rubber band apearance that you tend to see. Even some of the resin tracks I have seen have a tight curved look to them.

The pic you posted highlights something else that i have been pondering, and basically that is how all that crane gear worked ! It seems a very odd set up. A link was posted by someone for me (cant recal who) to the Brisbane club site where there is an article of a 1:72 model built, male version with the big A frames on the sides. Now that model shows a winch on the roof half way back, and the pics do seem to show the cables going to about thtat point, but cant make out a winch as such on any contemporary photos. However the female design seems far more elaborate but why?

On the rear of Ol'Faithful at Bovi there is still this odd rod / tube thingy on the back end as per the pics below. Its got a nut on the end so seems to be adjustable, but then its not stright at the top and the top seems to be fixed, so whats being tensioned ?
By chance when you go inside the tank the rear top hatch is open, and you can see the other end. there is what looks like one end of a universal joint, but again as you can see here its fixed so cant have turned. What does now make senses to me is that the hatch is in the ideal position to bring a cable down in to the tank and it could have had a drum etc driven off the engine / gearbox quite esily. That would keep all the control for the crane within the protection of the tank and not exposed on the roof. But the rest of the arrangement baffles me.

Seeing your sides reminds me of a dream I'm been thinking about. A computer controlled water jet cutting set up that would easily knock out plastic pieces like that, including the holes from the rivets and all. I need something like that!

Hi Dave,

water jetting is expensive,  a desktop router is good for plastics, wood etc.  Or learn CAD and send files to a laser company.

Mark Hansen wrote:

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I think using the Emhar or, if you can find it, the Interus kit for parts would be the best way to go. Scratch building the track tensioners may not be too hard. Bovingtons example has the covers off the tensioning gear. Simply model it with the covers in place and it should be relatively easy. At least one picture shows the female with covers in place.

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Hi Mark.

Could you point me towards a pic that shows the tensioner covers, I'm struggling to find anything that isnt the same as the machine at Bovi. The tensioners i think look different to the MK V, or at least the very edge of the hull anyway where its cut away. Some form of cover could save a lot of grief lol.

cheers for the prompt reply

It isn't advisable to cut styrene with laser cutters - the fumes are not good for you. However there are plastics which can be cut without edge melting quite successfully.
The plastic that's sold as Plastruct is one of those.

The cutting accuracy and resolution of laser cutters is quite phenomenal - cut lines around 0.01mm.

Regards,

Charlie

CharlieC wrote:

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It isn't advisable to cut styrene with laser cutters - the fumes are not good for you. However there are plastics which can be cut without edge melting quite successfully.
The plastic that's sold as Plastruct is one of those.

The cutting accuracy and resolution of laser cutters is quite phenomenal - cut lines around 0.01mm.

Regards,

Charlie

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I have had plastics cut by commercially by laser for years, the first google hit I just tried brought up this company.  http://www.ashplastics.co.uk/page7.html there are many others.

There are desktop lasers specificaly for cutting plastics as well.

 

Going bit off topic here but I can see a bit of an issue in the future. As technology improves and becomes affordable whats going to happen at competitions. There was the recent post on here with the Vickers Independant, drawn on cad and "printed" out parts. Superb for accuracy but if you were to make a scratch model this way and enter it in a competition how would it be judged? Should be good in the future for a few arguements lol.

But your not "making" it, you are drawing it and a machine is printing the parts out. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for accuracy and CAD sure does that, but I can see a few tiffs ahead at shows lol.

LincolnTanker wrote:

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It's 'can of worms' time. 

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and 'egg and chicken' time too
I don't think these "show tiffs" are very much against the use of tools like electric mini drills, hobby lathes, mills etc., or are they? Or against electricity at all?
Computer-driven mills and lathes already exist for quite some time, and I don't see that much difference between these and a CAD programmed cutter. If it's affordable, they save a lot of time and tedious serial work, and the result is superb. But of course, everyone has his/hers personal limit where 'making' ends and a machine 'takes over'. Great models have been made by people who somehow didn't have modern tools at hand, but modern productions and methods are no less fascinating, I can only envy people who can handle new techniques, usually better than I do

 

Looks really good. If you trimmed the sides off another track plate you would have a master for the narrower plates.

T140 wrote:

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...I do need a camera that does good close up shots, my compact thing is not really up to the job, pics are very grainy.

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But there is an advantage with such a camera. Fake period shots of your models.

T140 wrote:

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...I do need a camera that does good close up shots, my compact thing is not really up to the job, pics are very grainy.

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Yeah me too. Tried everything I could think of - selecting maximum picture size (in the hope that might give the electronics zoom finangling the maximum headroom in which to operate), manual close-up mode (I'm normally a strictly "auto" mode snapper), even text mode. How the heck can text mode photo not give adequate resolution? Ah well, for anything without much depth the flat-bed scanner of my "all-in-one" printer does a reasonable job. If I hang a blanket over it like something from 1890. Such is progress.

No prospect of another camera. Maybe a USB "microscope" attachment for my computer is the way to go? Like http://www.tech4u.com.au/handheld-usb-60x-microscope-p202931.html - cheaper than a camera. Max 60x (that ought to adjustable to lower magnification). I believe I've even seen kitform ones - ah yes http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_101654/article.html - hmm... 3200x, several hundred dollars, nope, maybe not.

Yep did try that but its focus, seems my camera simply wont focus as close as I need it. Its great for anything from a few feet away onwards, but less than say 3 feet and its poor. Ta anyway.

T140 wrote:

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Yep did try that but its focus, seems my camera simply wont focus as close as I need it. Its great for anything from a few feet away onwards, but less than say 3 feet and its poor. Ta anyway.

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 I recently saw a friend taking close-ups of fullsize truck details with a compact  using a magnifying glass in front of the lens, the  live back let him check the focus, worked surprisingly well! 

Potatopanzer wrote:

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Hi LincolnTanker, if you have a 35mm camera:film or digital you need a "Macro Lens" to get good close ups, I found out the hard way, bought a Canon Rebel XS and went AMPS in Auburn Ind. last year thinkin' I'd take some good close ups with my new camera NOT!!!!

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 Hi Pototopanzer, yes I know a macro lens is what's wanted. I was pointing out that it if one didn't want to buy yet another digicamera or lens it is possible to to hold a magnifying glass in front of the lens for the few times a very close photo is required. Take several photos and there is a good chance a you'll get a result .

Also check if your camera has a closeup setting for the focus, usually tulip type flower symbol, remember to change back to the mountain symbol when finised though 

I have a, Canon 400D , Canon Rebel in the US, and find the same as you, it's too bulky and has no live back, so I use my Canon A470 compact.

LincolnTanker wrote:

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...Take several photos and there is a good chance a you'll get a result ...

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 The wonderful thing about digital photography. You don't need to go through miles of film and developing costs to get a great shot.

BLOWHARD wrote:

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Say, what sort of detail so your axle ends have on them? Or are they still stubs at this point?

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Well once i get that far I'll probably just put a very small piece of square road on the end to show something like the pic below. However, have had to go back to square 1 and do the sides again as I found that the stubs were about 1mm too low. Dosent sound much but thats 35mm on the real thing of course and it put them too close the angle that runs round the bottom edge. This whiole thing is a bigger learning curve that i thought it would be lol. Accuracy is key and I'm learning as i go, not having scratched before like this.

The white strip in the pic is 100mm long to give you an idea of scale (held on with a mgnet )