Hi all, time to start another build/review blog, another Scammell here, this one from IBG, the R100 artillery Tractor:


First produced in 1927, the Scammell was designed as a 6×4 off-road vehicle for use in timber and oil industries in Britain's colonies where good hard surface roads were scarce. Although it lacked all-wheel drive its combination of a suspension with great travel movement and excellent traction along with its low-revving engine gave it impressive pulling power over rough ground at low speeds. In 1932 the Pioneer was offered to the British Army, who initially showed little interest apart from the 20t Tank Transporter version TRMU20. Near the end of 1936 the British Army ordered production of the R100 Artillery Tractors, and during 1937-1939 performed development of the SV/2S recovery vehicle.

The R100 was a fully modernized version of the of the 1927 model and was significantly different than that original model. The truck bed was customized for artillery units with space for 9 crew members and ammunition. The crew seating was arranged with two sets of forward facing double seats directly behind the cab and another 4 seats on the sides. A small door and a foldable ladder where provided on each side of the bed behind the cab with a trap covering the window above the door. The rear of the cab was formed by a half bulkhead that separated the drivers compartment from the bed. The center of the bed housed a manual hoist for handling the heavy ammunition.

A total of 786 R100 vehicles were produced and used throughout the war and continues to soldier on until 1950 when they were replaced with the Leyland Martian vehicle.

This all new 1/35 kit from IBG Models share sprues with IBG's other Scammell variants and comes in a sizable size box with the excellent box art we have come to associate with kits from IBG. Inside the box you are fourteen sprues moulded in a light grey plastic (including three doubled up sprues), one clear sprue and six tires moulded in the same light grey plastic. There is a total of 299 parts plus a brass photo-etched fret with another 51 parts.










Overall casting quality looks excellent with some nice details, with very little in the way of flash or ejector pin marks. There are some tide marks in the plastic but these should not show through the paint.

The instructions come in the form of an A4 glossy booklet with the construction broken down into 39 steps. At the rear of the instruction booklet are five paint schemes to choose from, and as a bonus, I had two complete decal sheets in my box.

1. Scammell Pioneer R100 from 52nd (Bedfordshire Yoemanry) Heavy Regiment, Royal Artillery of III Corps of British Expeditionary Forces, France, 1940.

2. Scammell Pioneer R100 from 61st Medium Regiment, Royal Artillery of I Corps of British Expeditionary Forces, France, 1940.

3. Scammell Pioneer R100 from 18 Battery, 56th Heavy Regiment, 2nd Army Group of Royal Artillery Italy, December 1943.

4. Scammell Pioneer R100 from 52nd (Bedfordshire Yoemanry) Heavy Regiment, Royal Artillery of British 2nd Army, France, September 1944.

5. Scammell Pioneer R100 from an unidentified Luftwaffe ground unit, Crete, 1943.

Paint references are supplied for Vallejo Model Air, Hataka, Mr Hobby (H & C), Lifecolor, and AK Interactive.











I also have this little gem to assist me:


Hopefully as I go through this I will be able to point out any accuracy or assembly issues. Stay tuned!

Now that my T-90 is done I can start on this one! This will be my first softskin so please bear with me , until now I have been a committed armour modeller. The first step is to do the wheels. Each consists of 3 styrene pieces, the outer tire and the inner and outer wheels that are molded with the tire sidewalls, a rather (in my thinking at least) unusual way to do things. Cleanup first:

It feels like the outer tire treads seem to be molded from slightly softer styrene. While the way the sidewalls are molded with the wheels struck me as odd, it works pretty damn well, the pieces snap together almost without the need for glue and the seam is pretty much invisible:


There is quite nice detail here. The next step was bending the PE mud guards but I will put that off until I actually need them, so onto the fuel tank. The locating pins are a bit sloppy so care is required to get the two halves to line up properly. I also noticed that some of the step detail is a bit crude compared to the real thing:


So I shaved off the molded on steps and filled in the resulting hole from the top one and ginned up new steps from sheet brass and also added the fuel cap chain and lock bracket:


In retrospect I should have drilled out the fuel tank sight glass before putting everything together, I`ll see what I can do from the outside.

A little more progress. I went back to the fuel tank and drilled out the gauge, painted white then added some markings and filled with a drop of Future, I think it looks much better than the blank plastic.

Now the storage rack under the cab, IBG gives a nice PE piece for this:

But it's completely flat, and looking at references the horizontal slats slats are welded to the face of the vertical slats with visible protrusion:

Now I wasn't up to cutting all the slats off and rebuilding, so I just added strips cut from thin sheet copper to the horizontal slats to give them that 3D look:

All together but there's still a problem...

Too late I clued in that the bottom two horizontal slats don't go all the way across, as can be seen in the reference pic they stop at the last vertical slat, so I cut them off:

A minor thing but something obvious in all the reference pics I have seen and shouldn't have been missed, just like the clumsily molded steps on the fuel tank which could have easily been provided out of PE.

Colin,
I’ve got a Scammell project coming up. I plan on following your progress with great interest.

Cheers,
Paul

Thanks gents. Matt, those are counterweights (ballast), used on the wrecker version with the crane.

This is an elegant design solution to scale model wheels/tires! I hope this spells the end for those awful tires we've seen on so many models that come molded in actual rubber!

Started working on the engine, while it is nice, it does seem to be a bit lacking in detail, especially when compared to the Thunder Models version. The basic block and oil pan comes together nicely, but the air intakes on top of the cylinder covers are molded as solid blocks:

While the real things are open:

Also notice the cylinder heads do not have an indent along the side as molded on the model (numerous other reference pictures also show straight cylinder head sides). So a bit of fill work and bending some new air intakes out of copper sheet:

I then added the fuel injection pumps and fuel tubing:

Still have some lines and linkages to add on this side, but flipped over to the other side for a bit. The manifold clamps are not provided (they are supplied as PE in the TM kit) so I made my own out of extra PE strip and bolt heads:

Installed with manifold bolts:

Still a lot more to go! I definitely feel the motor is a bit oversimplified for anyone who wants to display the model with the hood sides up (which I plan to do). If the hood is buttoned up it is fine of course. As a bit of a break I put together the radiator which is quite nice:

Thanks Matt, in terms of engine detail the Thunder Models kits certainly has this one beat, we'll see how the rest of it stacks up, I'm sure they will each have their ups and downs. Meanwhile I have created a monster and must keep feeding it...

I have fabbed up and added the fuel filter, injection pump supply line, air resevoir, lube oil filter and lube oil lines, oil fill neck and cap, dynamo and shaft. Apart from the fuel and oil lines, all these parts are included in TM kit. This is turning into a scratchbuilding exercise as much as a build blog/review.

Lovely work going on here Colin. You’re making me want to pull out the Thunder Models Scammell I’ve got in the stash. I have to get my Dieppe Churchill done first but the temptation is huge.

Paul H

Keep feeding that monster, it's worth it with a softskin engine

Matt

Still working on motor details, but figured I better get going on some other bits. Assembled the rear differential, went together all right, a bit of filling needed (still needs to be sanded better) and had to add a strip around the differential cover flange to give it the proper shape and some stretched sprue to better represent the axle bushings.


Started on the front axle & leaf spring as well. There was some significant flash around one of the axle jaws although it seems to be an anomaly compared to the rest of the kit.

Disappointingly, the axle hubs and jaws are molded as a single piece along with the leaf spring. Combined with the steering pull and push rods being molded in a single piece means it is going to be a bear to get the front wheels poseable...although considering what I've done with the engine I guess I better figure out a way...

got some figuring to do...

So, done did some figuring and being the impatient person I am, went ahead and cut the cap off the top of the axle jaw, drilled a hole through the jaw and hub, carefully cut the axle hubs out of the jaws and then pinned it all back together and glued the cap back on, voila, positionable wheels!



On to the other side after it dries.

A good solution to the problem, worked very well indeed

Matt

Bravo on making the front wheels positionable! That is the way the kit should have been constructed anyway.

Thanks guys! Continuing on with this, I had to modify the tie rod and push/pull arms. I cut the molded on arms off, carved out some new ones from strip styrene and then made some pins from 0.010" brass rod and discs punched from copper sheet that I soldered together:

Then I assembled the rest of the front suspension and now I can position the front wheels rather than just have them pointing straight forward.


Seems to be a bit more work to get to this point than for the TM kit, I really think IBG took the easy way out. Don't get me wrong, I think it will still build into a very nice representation of the Scammel even without all the corrections I am doing, but I think it is definitely simplified compared to the competition. I guess it comes down to what the modeller wants, and I haven't checked how they compare price-wise.

Thanks Matt, this is turning into more that I had bargained for lol. Finally finished off the engine detailing I think:


Things are moving slower than I planned but I did get the ladder frame assembled:


The frame went together reasonably well although there were times when a third hand would have been helpful.

Colin,
It’s coming along very nicely and now you’ve got me wanting to do a wheeled vehicle! I have the Thunder Models tank recovery Scammell with trailer in hand, but I don’t have time to give it proper attention yet.

Instead, I’ve started on the IBG Marmon-Herrington MK II as serving in the Middle East. While I won’t be going to the same level of detail on it as you are on the Scammell, I hope to steal some techniques and methods for the project while following your build!

Cheers,
Paul H

Thanks Paul, looking forward to seeing your Marmon-Herrington! Made a little bit more progress on this, adding in a lot of missing detail on the rear transaxle.

Also got the winch and gearbox done, again I am finding the detail somewhat lacking, being merely 'adequate'.

Colin,
More lovely work! I’m really enjoying watching you build log.

I’m moving petty slowly on the Marmon-Herrington since I’m waiting on the Part PE set to come in from Europe. Hopefully they’ll be in soon.

My self-flagellation with this kit continues..like the steering, the front suspension was fixed in place. It was easy to add a couple of pins to make the sing arm movable, something IBG really could have done without too much trouble.


I also completed the brake linkages to the rear differential, hopefully I can move on to the cab soon.


Now that spring finally appears to have made an appearance here in the GWN, it will be hard to find the time to work on this but I will try!

Colin , superior craftsmanship , heck the engine is a build in its own right . Love your attention to detail !!!