1/16 Scale Field Artillery Tractor Part Deux

[Michael Mash]

The work has that perfect clean metal appearance Dave.
With nice rivet detail as well.
Its a pleasure to see more progress here.
Mike

[Don Boose]

Looks terrific, Dave!

Don

[missileer]

I am completely blown away by this "ensemble". (OK, public apologies for the terrible pun).

John

[airdave]

Moving forward...or rearward...to the tail end of the Carriage.
Which is actually the forward end when its being towed.

So...the Tow end then. lol

Its a fairly complicated arrangement of plates, angled plates, and contraptions for the Towing connection.
But I have decided to do my regular thing and dumb it all down to less pieces...less parts...and simpler construction.

Please keep in mind...this is early design...some of these parts are already redesigned or will be fitted slightly differently in the final design.
Since I am gluing parts in place to keep the design going, what you see may not reflect the final design.

First...an underside plate.



...
Then a top plate at the tail end, which wraps over the end of the carriage.

I've also formed and fitted the side extensions.
These are two layers...scored and folded.
Although, to be honest, a rod fits inside these extensions, so the fold could be rolled around that rod, instead of sharply folded.



...
Side plates are added to the (side)tail end of the carriage...
these have a couple of cuts and folded angles, before they are glued to the frame rails.

Then the rear "shovel" plate is added.
I think this is one of the ground supporting plates...like a skid plate...but it may also have purpose behind the Towing connection.



...
I have installed those rods into the side extensions.
I'm unsure what they are for...maybe just handles/grips for rotating the carriage?

You can see how the paper extension needs to wrap around the rods (instead of being tightly folded).
At first, I tried to make the rods out of green coated florists wire.
Unfortunately I had trouble gluing them in place, and getting them lined up properly. (Too stiff and resistant to reshaping once installed.)
So I switched to plastic/acrylic rod...which is so much easier to cut and form.
It bends easily...and I was able to flatten the ends(frame mounts) to match the real thing.
But as usual, I cannot colour these plastic rods. Paint will not stick. Neither will art marker ink.
I've tried clearcoating the rods first...since paint will stick to the clear, but everything just wipes off.
I tried finishing them with a coat of art marker ink...but they look pretty rough.

You will also see in these next two photos, that I have completed most of the Towing components.
I'm sorry but I didn't photograph the individual parts here since I was unsure of what I was designing.
It was all a bit of an experiment.
I've already made a few design changes, so what you see isn't exact. (but I'm not going to rebuild this prototype)

[Vermin_King]

Outstanding work, sir. I can hardly wait to see someone build this at 1/100

[Don Boose]

A brilliant combination of realism and buildnicity.

Don

[airdave]

another marketing slogan!

"brilliant combination of realism and buildnicity"

[Michael Mash]

I enjoy it . . . . outstanding work.
Mike

[CharlieC]

The Australian 25 Pounders had 3 sockets with locking tab around the towing hitch so a bar could be inserted to move the gun in traverse. The gun sat on the turntable when it was in battery so coarse traverse movements were by swinging around the gun.


The angled pieces sticking out of the trail are the anti-jacknife arrangement.
When the limber is hitched on the bars on the limber match exactly with the pieces on the trail. (Took me ages to figure out what they were for).


Regards,


Charlie

[airdave]

I have plenty of reference photos and access to two MkII 25pdrs.
Walkarounds / MkII 25 Pounder Artillery | airdaves-photos

One is displayed with the turntable and all the extras,
one without (which is nice to get an obstructed view of things).
If I get real stumped on something, I can even ask the owner.

As I said, I'm going to try to represent the obvious, but I need to dumb it down a bit.
Once again, I am faced with the fact that 1/16 is not always "big".
There are still a lot of very small things!