Hi Steph,

Glad to see you're up and running, look forward to the build.

Hi Nico,

Great progress from both you and Dick on the scratch builds.

Hi Simon,

Off to a good start.

My parts arrived for the 3rd wagon so the Draisine can continue.

Cheers

Al

Thanks Al,

Good luck with your progress, I have just discovered AttWox produce a wood deck for the Tiger, there may be a slight hiatus whilst I try to get my hands on one.

May stat the Salmson in the meantime.

Si

Hi Simon,

As I did when following your build of HMS Kent in the earlier Great War campaign, I did some research on HMS Tiger. I was surprised to learn that her boilers were fired with coal and oil both. Were both fuels used simultaneously, or were some boilers fired with coal only and others with oil only? To a non-naval person it seems a curious mix, and I know that keeping a coal-burning ship in trim involved a lot of shifting of coal between bunkers.

Cheers,

Dick

Hi all,

A brief update on the Paris gun build. Still working on the base, adding details which don't look like much but require a lot of time, especially with so few dimensions to work with. Looking at the thing on my work table, I wondered if I wasn't subconsciously modeling something out of Star Wars, the Millenium Falcon perhaps.

I finally worked out the traversing mechanisms which are built into the base. The low-speed traverse used gearboxes mounted between the rails in the center of the base, transmitting muscle power through a pair of drive shafts, each with two universal joints, to gears which engaged the ring gear on the fixed base. The high speed traverse mechanism was mounted on the outside of the rotating base. According to Col. Miller, with two men on each of the four cranks of the low-speed gear boxes, the gun could be easily turned to point in any direction. The high-speed traverse was mainly used during setup, to rotate the carriage 90 degrees after it was lifted off the railway trucks.

The low-speed traverse drive shafts can be seen in several photos of emplacements for the Paris gun and also the Lange Max 38 cm guns, and are truly massive for something which in the case of the Paris gun had at most 4 men turning each one. I wonder if they weren't parts originally intended for the battleships from which the 38 cm guns came. The Paris gun used electric motors to elevate the barrel to firing position, and it was lowered to horizontal for loading. Traversing was always manual. Once the direction to Paris was set, it was never changed until the gun was moved to a new location.

The first photo shows the rear side of the base oriented as it would be as the gun carriage was rolled onto it. The two low-speed gear boxes between the rails would not have been there when the carriage arrived, and were mounted later, after the carriage was rotated 90 degrees and lowered onto the base. The cranks were made from straight pins.
The pair of tall hydraulic jacks in the foreground have pumps at their bases and were connected through pipes to the pair of low jacks on the far side. They were used to lift the carriage off the trucks. I did make handles for the jacks but they didn't look right, and I'm trying to come up with something better. I have to keep in mind that a 1 mm diameter rod equates to 72 cm at this scale.


The next photo is of the opposite side of the fixed base, with the moveable base rotated 180 degrees so it is still in the same position. In this view, the low jacks are in the foreground. The drive shafts of the low-speed traversing mechanism are to the left of the gearboxes.


The next photo is a side view, high jacks on the left and low jacks to the right, with the gearboxes for the low-speed traverse in the middle. Parts for the yet-to-be-installed high-speed traverse are in the foreground.


The last photo is a vertical view of the base with lifting rings installed, one in each quadrant.


Still a lot to do, but the base is nearly finished.

Cheers,

Dick

Hi all ,

A brief update on the Wilhelm Geschütze, or Paris gun. The base is now essentially complete with the addition of the high-speed traversing mechanism, which is on the near side of the base in the two photos which follow. Still some detailing to be done, securing the crank handles, cleaning up putty, and increasing clearances in a few places, but it's nearly ready for paint.





In the above photos, the base is resting on a roll of masking tape. When installed in the future diorama, the rim of the fixed part of the base, the part with all the holes, will be just at ground level.

The final photo shows the gun and carriage dry-fitted atop the base, with the counterweight in place above the breech. The gun is a little too far forward on the carriage, but I didn't catch that until the pictures were taken. The thing looks truly wicked with the barrel horizontal. Make a hell of an anti-tank gun with a 100 kg shell moving at 5,500 fps (1678 mps). Even in 1/72 scale, the thing is huge.



Next step will be the anti-sag rigging atop the barrel, and then comes the part I'm dreading, the gantry crane. For that I have no drawings at all and only two measurements, the track gauge and the distance between the parallel tracks on which the crane travels. Unless I'm visited in the night by the ghosts of Vice Admiral Max Rogge and Gustav Krupp to tell me how I should do it, the rest will have to be scaled from fuzzy photos.

Cheers

Dick

Looking Impressive Dick, keep up the good work.

some paint on the Tiger's Hull,



I have tracked down the artwox deck, it is winging it's way from the U.S. so this will be on hold. As I picked up the GasPatch Salmson at Telford I have started thet. The package, the sprues, the instructions look amazing, so here I go.

Some paint on the inside of the Fuselage halves, there is an option to have engine cowls off, which I took.



As a lot of the interior is wood I have undercoated the parts with Tamiya dark yellow, and will brush some darker brown over the top.



More soon

Si

That's an interesting question. Both oil and coal are unrefined fossil fuels and can actually be burned together. The consumption rate for the coal would normally be much slower than that of crude or mildly refined oil. Both fuels burn dirty, and I would think that would make big mess that would be difficult to deal with.

Hi Jeremy & Dick,

Yes the Tiger was built "duel fuel". She was intended to be totally oil fired, but there were concerns about the supply of oil, Prince Louis Battenburg, who was First Sea lord at the time lacked the force of character to insist on the ship being all oil fired and with small tube boilers, which would have potentially given her a top speed of around 33kts.

For the time being, on with the Salmson.

Ribs added to port fuselage half.



Ribs also added to the starboard half and the internal rigging under way.



So far so good, the ribs fit will, I have also added the floor to the post half, and test fitting, no issues.

On with interior, and it is complete.

Si

Port side details added to the observers station, seat, and Aldis lamp in it's holder.



Starboard side details, wireless battery, aerial real and tube, also Morse key, magneto and pump.



The floor section, with fuel tank, rudder bar and control column with linkage.



Port side cabane struts, and rudder control wires in place.



The seat frame and seat fitted, along with the fwd starboard cabane strut which supports the seat.



Included in the seat fittings is the control column linkage, which somehow the elevator control wires need fitting, more on that when I have worked it out.



Si

Hi Simon,

Amazing detail in that model. With the controls, it looks almost flyable with the right engine and a really small pilot.

Regards,

Dick

Thanks Dick,

It is a really great kit, I bought it more because I was intrigued by the kit than the subject, especially as it is from a new manufacturer.

Si

Nice work Simon.

Al

hello,
Simon superb work. I will say that my ford T is complete.
steph

Hi Steph,

Nice work. Will you be adding some troops?

This is a photograph of the GBS 18pdr base with some paint on I borrowed from the Resicast site.



A coupe of developments there are that some of the GBS dio items are now available as separate accessories kits and I noticed that as well as 35.1237 the 18pdr and limbers, the kit also appears to be available as gun only under 35.1238.

I got around to doing my 3rd wagon.



Cheers

Al

thank you Alan, not immediately, my kit is 1/48 and ww1 is a bit forgotten .
steph

Hi Steph,

In that case perhaps a small sign post would fit the scene?

Eduard have a set of 1/48 scale RFC personnel. If you ignore the chap in the flying suit the rest might work OK in your display.

Cheers

Al

http://www.eduard.com/store/Eduard/Plastic-kits/Other/Figures/1-48/RFC-Personnel-WWI-1-48.html

Hi Steph,

Really nice work on the ambulance, but it needs a driver to be perfect.

Cheers

Dick

Hi Folks,

Came across this link on another site, some interesting colour pics, mainly French and German so far

http://www.retronaut.com/2011/10/colour-photographs-1914-1918/

http://www.retronaut.com/2012/02/colour-photographs-of-the-german-front-1914-1918/

Observation Tree

http://www.retronaut.com/2012/09/observation-trees-1914-1918/

Al

These look interesting too.

http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/

Al

Still waiting for deck for the Tiger, so more on the Salmson.

Elevator cables fitted to both halevas along with a couple of other bits and pieces.



Fuselage halves joined.



Internal cross bracing added along with the mounting frame for the spare magazines drums for the observer, The box to take the drums is the brass construction next to the fuselage.



The spare drum box fitted along with top frame, the camera I have chosen fits directly to the top frame. When the top decking is fitted even more of the interior will disappear from view.



Si

hello,
Thank you Richard,
Alan thank you for the sharing
steph

Hi all

A little more progress on the Wilhelm Geschütze, aka the Paris Gun. The photo below shows the gun carriage with the catwalks and railings installed. The railings (gray plastic) are from the Leopold kit, and needed only one transplanted upright to adapt nicely to my build. The decking forward of the ammo hoist bridge is also from the Leopold kit.


The next photo is of the carriage dry-fitted to the rotating base. The ladders still need trimming and are not cemented in place. The short ladder is from the Leopold kit; the longer cast metal ladder was purchased many years ago from Walthers for a never-built mine model.



The next photo is looking toward the aft end of the gun carriage, showing the ammmo hoist machinery and bridge.



Since it was a nice sunny day with no wind, conditions were ideal to give the finished parts a coat of Rust-oleum primer. The coat is a nice uniform gray, although the bright sunlight makes it look uneven. Having everything the same color ties the assemblies together very nicely.





Aft views of the gun carriage, showing the ammo hoist bridge & machinery. The white rectangles atop the middle of the carriage are for the gun's trunnions and were masked during painting.



The low sun angle brings out a lot of fine detail, and the teeth on the ring gear improvised from a cable tie show up nicely, as do the rivets.

Still a lot to do, but we're getting there.

Cheers

Dick

Hi Steph and Dick,

Excellent progress folks, both builds are looking grand so far.

Lovely detail in the builds.

Cheers

Al

Well! All of you are doing fantastic work!
I intend to launch into this sometime in the new year. What was the consensus on dealing with the 1/35 Emhar Mk IV treads?
Thanks in advance,
Sean H

Looking impressive Dick.

Picked this up from the Post Office this morning.



Soon had it in the workshop and picked out all the cut outs.



And fitted, the layout meant there was no trouble lining up the superstructure parts.



I have not forgoten the Salmson, I have doe some work on the instrument panel but nothing to photograph, will update that shortly

Si