Nice find Mike.

I know this one is a D8, but I guess the seat springs are the same (for those who may wonder how they look )

Amchitka, Aleutian Islands, July 1945 :

http://www.hlswilliwaw.com/aleutians/Amchitka/images/Pospisil-charles/AmchitkaJuly28-45TwoOfEight-edited.jpg

H.P.

That seat has seen some hard times!

Restored 73 year old Caterpillar D7:

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/08/08/news/mid-maine/pittsfield-man-restores-73-year-old-caterpillar-bulldozer/

A lot of paint touch up was done to the tractor and of course the blade is all fresh paint so more weathering will soon be in order.

It's coming along nicely!

Would love to start on the armored "beach dozer" next. Besides the armored shell it has that big Hyster winch hanging out the back and the narrow "inside blade" hydraulic plow in the front.



Problem is I already am in the process of ordering the Diamond T dump truck from Mirror and I have the Diamond T wrecker, a White cargo truck/semi tractor conversion and the 20 ton low bed trailer on my work bench right now!

OK here it is with more than a little weathering added - dusty Northern Italy I think rather than wet n' muddy Western Europe!





Gotta work some silver into the lower portion of the blade to indicate paint being worn off and bare metal showing through.

I have been wanting to point out another slight difference between the Mirror offering and the MiniArt model:

It is neither right nor wrong to have these but the MiniArt model has what I will call "track skates" and the Mirror vehicle does not.




MiniArt is on the left. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mirror Models on the right.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Some Caterpillar dozer/tractors had them - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - and some didn't.



The vehicle with the track skates was inherently more stable. On rough ground or hillsides the track pads themselves could only lean so far on the road rollers before encountering the side skate. Also when going cross wise on a hillside it was much harder to throw a track when you had the skates installed. The side ways force acting on the track would force the track chain to the side but it would encounter the skate and it couldn't go any farther. It was much easier for the track chain to come off the rollers without the skate to contain it.

I once saw a Stuart try to cross a medium sized stream and then climb out the other side on a very steep and muddy embankment. The tank got half way up the far embankment then started to slide sideways back down. As it got cross wise on the hillside it threw BOTH tracks. The crew was just lucky the tank did not roll over and end up inverted in the stream! If it had flipped over the stream was deep enough someone would NOT have walked away from that alive!

As luck would have it, both the tank and the crew lived to fight/reenact another day!

Recently I happen to notice on some of the historical photos; the double winch on the rear of the Caterpillar Bulldozer SHOULD have brake bands wrapping around the drums.*

Well it is a long story but I just happen to have two sets of metal etched brake bands left over from the winches on two Dragon Wagon** kits I have in my parts bin, soooooo . . .

(While the DW winches were built by Gar-Wood and the Caterpillar by LeTourneau the brake band design is the same. In all likely hood the metal and riveted asbestos brake bands were all made by Bendix and supplied to both winch manufactures.)



The bands need to be shortened but otherwise a near perfect fit!

____________________________________________________________________________________________


*You can find photo reference to these brake bands in the Doyle/Ampersand book on pages 13, 106, 108 & 109.

** My scratch built 7 1/2 ton Mack NO required parts from TWO Dragon Wagons to build. I was very lucky to find two together, up for sale cheaply in an eBay auction. One a failed build attempt and other a perfect, new in the box, untouched kit. It was Kismet for the Mack build and left me A LOT of spare Dragon Wagon parts. (Anyone needing a DW replacement cab or other major parts - please let me know.)

The Devil's in the details.



There should be two rather large bolt heads holding the rear overhead A-frame onto the left and right upper corners of the winch gearbox. A small piece of some Evergreen hex plastic rod fixed that problem.

Also don't forget to add on a small rectangular piece of metal welded to the outside of the cable drum to act as an additional cable guide. (Most Cat Bulldozers had them.)

On the left side of some of the winch gearboxes there would be an up-turned 45 degree elbow pipe fitting with a square head screw-on cap. It is the oil filler/level check for the winch gearbox. (Reference for this: see top left-hand photo on page 112 of the Doyle/Ampersand book. (Warning there are three DIFFERENT Dozers depicted in these reference photos so details will vary from vehicle to vehicle, especially regarding the overhead A-frame and how it attaches to the dozer.)

Main winch installation complete:


I am going to blacken the brake bands but not paint them OD so they will show up a bit better!

(Again please note the large added bolt heads and the oil filler spout. - I think perhaps the oil filler cap needs a touch of red paint!)

Work'n now on building the fiddly little etched pulley blocks. (And yes, I know I have the line threaded incorrectly - this was quickly done just for photographic purposes. The second photo has the cables photoshopped in which I think looks much better!)


The assembly instructions talk about gluing the blade pulley to the blade only after making sure you have it positioned at the correct angle. I thought - that's silly, just drill through the blade clevis and through the base of the blade pulley block and hinge it just like it is in real life.

So I did!

A WORD OF WARNING:

The rear A-frame will mount to the winch housing facing either way. However the notches on the top of the A-frame need to face just one way in order to match up with the pulley housing.

Unknowingly I put my A-frame on backwards and ended up having to do some very chancy freehand rework on the top of the A with a jeweler's saw.


F Y I - the rear pulley shieve is supposed to lean like that. Leaning in that way feeds the overhead cable more directly into the winch.

The Mirror instruction sheet shows the cable from the dozer blade going down through the two right hand pulleys of the fairlead structure, which I admit was the common practice. However, many reference photos from the era show the cable that comes from the blade as going directly down from the overhead pulley on the A-frame to the righthand winch drum. Which is what I intend to do.

You can do it! I am getting myself another Sherman to fully trick out, an M40, Dragon Wagon + trailer and just started on a 1:350 Iowa class battleship with a buttload of PE.

This with 6 Sherman projects in various stages of progress on the workbench, two 1/72 airfield dioramas, a 1/32 Spitfire and a 1/144 An-124 of which the fuselage is currently glued together.

Oh I left out the fully custom Kelly's Heroes diorama I am about to embark on, at the moment this means figuring out what the dimensions need to be and then start working on the tunnel entrance.

Nice to know someone is in as deep as I am!

Tell you what I forgot the Academy M36B1 that's also waiting in the wings. Buggered the TWS interior set for that as the rear wall needed to go on my M4A3 project.

Got the overhead rigging in this morning now I need to finish off the winch assembly and the line work.





It is time to work on those tracks!

The Mirror instruction sheet shows the cable from the dozer blade going down through the two right hand pulleys of the fairlead structure, which I admit was the common practice. (By the book.) However, many period reference photos show the cable that comes from the blade as going directly down from the overhead pulley on the A-frame to the righthand winch drum. Which is what I intend to do.

Standard practice - By the book!



In this first photo the blade cable is fed down to the winch WITHOUT going through the fairleads. (In fact this Cat dozer is missing it's' fairlead structure altogether!)


Another example, if you will look closely you will see that the blade cable is bypassing the fairleads altogether.


And again in this present day restored example:

Of course if that is the way you want to thread the blade cable do not despair. That is the way the vehicle came from the factory so it is perfectly alright to do it that way. Many operators stayed with the factory arrangement.

However . . . .

If you want to add still more visual variety to your model then do the blade cable the way I suggested, going straight to the winch drum, but then thread the left side winch cable through the fairlead as the instructions say!



You see, except when towing the LeTourneau scraper where both winch cables were required, the left side winch drum had very little to do. It could be used for stump pulling or light recovery but the only way to safely direct the winch cable in any direction other than straight up was to run it through the left side swiveling fairleads.

My plan is to go straight to the winch drum with the blade cable. But for the left side drum I will take the cable up thru the fairleads and put a recovery hook on the end of that cable and hook it somehow to the tow bar below.

Keeping the hope alive that I will make it with all three pieces to the Dayton Show but my time is running out!



Don't know what class to put this rig into??? The tractor by itself could go in the "Scratch Build & Conversions" class. The trailer and the Bulldozer are more or less "Out of the Box" soft skins with many, many extra details added.

Could be that I will split them up with the White tractor going to one class and the Cat + Trailer going to another??????

Some progress this evening:

Finished the right hand winch and attached the blade cable from the winch to the top of the A-frame.



Finished the majority of one track and weathered it to know how it would look when complete.



I also formed and painted the etched radiator protective grill. (To be installed later.)

Mirror Models continues to amaze! Check out the coming new releases here at:

http://armorama.com/forums/238700&page=1#2013803

Interesting article published on the "Daily Mail.com" webpage:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509208/Britains-rust-belt-Vehicle-graveyard-runway-closed-RAF-station-features-military-vehicles-machinery-dating-World-War-Two.html






All photos from Daily Mail.com - Copyright Medavia.co.uk - for discussion purposes only.

Something interesting from the "ClassicDozers.com" website:


Backhoe attachments have really come a long way since then.

Thanks for the link Mike A bit gloomy if you ask me...The pics remind me of those you can find in this book :



H.P.