It's difficult to use the Aluminium from cans because it's an alloy with significant amounts of magnesium, manganese and silicon which make the aluminium
sheet difficult to form. The alloy used in cans is designed to produce a can by deep drawing with the minimum wall thickness and maximum strength.
Heating will help somewhat as you found. The best sheet for this sort of application is nearly pure aluminium - this is sold as "tooling foil" in the US in
various thicknesses. For small jobs the aluminium seal on the inside of coffee cans is quite usable as well.
Charlie
-- Edited by CharlieC on Monday 18th of June 2018 01:43:02 AM
You mention the internal join in the front steering ring. In reality, wouldn't this ring have been made from 2 pieces top and bottom? It has flanges top and bottom to keep it in place, and so must either have been installed before the side frames were connected up or made in 2 pieces inserted from top and bottom and then bolted together.
I made some modifications on the roof and springs of the trackrollers
I replace the plastic corrugated roofpart with a metal one made of a can of coke
I used the plastic part to get the right corrugated shape
I first had to heat the material before i could get it in the right shape.
and then finished the roof part. later i wil put some rolled up tarpaulins to the sides of the roof
greetz Ronald
I have been thinking about the roof on the Holt, does anyone have a clear photo of the roof from above (or a tractor on it's side!).
I am doubting if the roof would be a single piece of corrugated iron, it would, like anything else I've seen constructed from that material, be made up from 3' (990mm) sections, so there would be noticable overlapping joints along the roof. That is 3' across the corrugations, though the lenghts can vary.
jh
-- Edited by jch_in_uk on Wednesday 22nd of August 2018 01:46:11 PM
I’m about 2/3 into building this kit and as others have commented lots of heavy mold lines to remove, flash and sink holes. The instructions in several places leave you wondering if the illustrator actually tried building the kit using their instructions. Especially where parts go for the engine several arrows not making sense. I used Mr Surfacer 500 and brushed a very small amount along the roof seam and used sand paper and a round file to blend it all in. I built the 8” howitzer kit first and it’s quite simple compared to the Holt model.
Am finding myself thinking during the entire Holt build ‘I hope this all fits together’ as the positive locating points for the large assemblies just aren’t there.
I’m now adding the tracks a lot of flash but the look fine after they are on 27 per side just FYI. As one builds this kit double check the front wheel parts before you glue them. The illustration is correct but the part numbers indicated are wrong.
Good luck with your build; while I had all the parts the vertical push rods had one broken off and the other cracked in half. I send a photo of the broken parts and a photo of the part from the parts layout and it took a couple days to get an email response. They said the replacement parts were being shipped. Being the patient guy I am, I fabricated the missing part of the push rod and made another rod out of Evergreen rod. Am sure you’re finding the instructions are a little challenging and a few parts, while correct in the drawings have the wrong part numbers. I’d use Mr Surfacer 500 and a small brush and filled in the sink marks in the roof and when dry had to go over it a second time. The next day I smoothed out the putty with Emery paper and a round file and it turned out well.
I built the 8” howitzer first and the parts are worse with that kit than the Holt. Tons of flash, sink holes and mismatched seams. I’ve built Roden’s 1/48 B.E.2c which is a well designed and detailed model so I was quite surprised by the Holt Tractor and howitzer being as bad as they were.