Hello Gilles,
That looks like a real challenge to build! And great that you found the old kit.
I hope you give us updates on the build every now and then.
Best regards,
Willem
To Charlie C : You're right! The Gallica technical manuals are especially useful for many materials, the one upon the St Chamond provides very nice drawings! I use this source as often as possible!
Regarding the 340mod12 St Chamond itself, I consider it is especially interesting because it should be used on specific bases, not on railway. It show he earlier design of the railway artillery, and I hope somebody will produce the more modern Schneider designs anytime.
Regarding the 340mod12 St Chamond itself, I consider it is especially interesting because it should be used on specific bases, not on railway. It show he earlier design of the railway artillery, and I hope somebody will produce the more modern Schneider designs anytime.
....
 The Saint-Chamond and Schneider designs represent different solutions to utilising spare naval guns in land warfare. The problem of using naval guns as railway guns is that naval recoil systems are designed to reduce the recoil forces enough so that any residual force can be safely absorbed by the structure of the ship. Rather than re-engineer the guns to reduce the residual recoil forces as the British and Americans did the French solutions handled the residual recoil forces by (1) remove the naval recoil system and jack the carriage up onto auxiliary rails and using the friction of wooden blocks on the rails to absorb the recoil forces (Schneider) (2) keep the complete naval gun and embed the carriage in a massive wooden foundation (Saint-Chamond).Â
I'm building the two trucks supporting the frame. The resin parts are good engouh without deformation, but the injected parts are rather crude, more on the short run moulding side!
I decided to separate the springs and the axles to make the parts easier to adjust on the frame;
The trucks claim for detailling especially around the roof where all the riveting is missing.
I turn to the main frame. The kit provides both PE and resin parts to built it. The PE is really nice even if the St Chamond logo is over simplificated and should be replaced as soon as possible.
The assembly is rather easy but I wasn't happy enough with the parts because, if not wrong, most aren't detailed enough especially on the rear and front areas.
I rebuilt those parts with CP.
The original. Note I don't use the resin parts to assemble the frames but turn to CP because I just HATE filling with putty:
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The new ones :
Well a bit better maybe, but there will be million of bolts to add!
-- Edited by lostiznaos on Saturday 4th of February 2017 10:41:43 PM
The point is you have to decide at the beginning wich one you want to depict. At first I wanted to built one of the two transfered to the US troops fall 18, but according to the models I turn to "Mireille" from the 22 battery of the 77 RALGP.
Thank to a friend, I could add the plate on the truks :
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The finished model on the railway (even it will be eventually emplaced) :
add painting on scratchbuilt models or even heavy conversion could be a pity regarding the work done, but to be honest my interest in modeling is always more on the "memory side" and I try, as far as I can do, to depict the real operational thing...
The big gun is no painted...
The display is only provisional : for transport position the barrel itself should be locked quite horizontal.
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The weathering is rather light as those heavy guns received a lot of maintenance and mostly suffer from the dust raised by the blast.
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I especially like it in the transport mode so I built the model to be as mobile as possible... Any day I would like to scratch the St Chamond loco tracteur and the two specialized trucks necessary to move the 160 tons of the beast...
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I'm now completing the display and the ammunition truck that should be added on the rear of the plateforme in firing position.
-- Edited by lostiznaos on Saturday 27th of May 2017 11:54:49 PM
The whole model have been painted with hand brush. I'm afraid Masking woulb be a nightmare on such model!
From other point, I always prefer use brush on vehicles originaly painted by hand, my idea is to depict some "brush finish" I'm not good enough to obtain with airbrush.
The whole model have been painted with hand brush. I'm afraid Masking woulb be a nightmare on such model! From other point, I always prefer use brush on vehicles originaly painted by hand, my idea is to depict some "brush finish" I'm not good enough to obtain with airbrush.
As I have some trouble with Photobuckets, most of my 340 pictures are lost, I apologize...
I add some news of the work with some remaining...
During the assembly work I was thinking about the scenic display and turn to the idea it was not very realistic to show the gun in firing position without an ammo truck and decided to add one.
The point is there is no kit from those trucks even there is one preserved in the Satory camp near Paris. After some investigations I decided to scratch one...
The main body is just a... Box!
The base is a bit more complicated, especially if you want to built the interior :
The truck completed :
The camo is more in the St Chamond factory scheme, just like the one painted on tanks.