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 The_Blackadder wrote:
They're 30 millimeters wide, over six scale feet the track links are wider than a man is tall.

A Rhino's tread is only two feet wide scale, about a centimeter.

Blimey looks at rhino and feels like my armoured moterpool is severely lacking.
I top out at land raider!
A mere 70 tons but aslk round av14

Dude!

Insane!

I know some decent psychiatrists if you ever want to seek treatment for that skull obsession.

But seriously... This is a mad project. Looks good so far, and can't wait to see it completed.

MB

How It's Done:

Or how I do it anyway; I'm sure there's a better way but I don't know of it.

I'm about ten minutes away from finishing up what I hope is sufficient number of tread links so it's a good time to take a break and show my production line; this time for installing rivets:

First you have to cut the rough cut rivets and for that I use the half inch Xacto chisel (Center right on the board) and I cut about twenty at a time from the 1/16th inch diameter rod center board just below the cement bottle.

I have two tread links just below that; the upper one is a completed link that I use as a guide to maintain the correct spacing and the one below that is the uncompleted work piece with one rivet already installed.

http://i.imgur.com/lseMphu.jpg


The pieces to the right are the tracks that are yet to have rivets installed; only eight left.....

and to the left twenty four links I just completed this hour.

In the close up image below i'm trying to demonstrate how I pick up the rivets because no one can pick up the individual rivets by hand and install them with their fingers without going bats**t crazy or with tweezers either for that matter.

No , what I do is just touch lightly the individual rivets with the sharp point of my NEW #11 Xacto blade and brush a drop of glue onto the area of the tread link where I want the rivet to be and lightly press the rivet on the Xacto point into the glue drop and hold slight pressure for a few seconds....

http://i.imgur.com/7vjYGDd.jpg


Withdraw the knife and the rivet stays glued to the tread..........

Do that operation 128 times and you're done.

Easy, Right?

Oh the joy of rivets - no matter which approach you use it can be a tedious job at the best of times, but looks so damn good once done that it makes it all worth while

Well you have to look at rivets as a minor part of the overall scratchbuild. Granted it's tedious but if you listen to talk-radio or sort of watch a movie/tv or (god forbid a sports event) while you do it you'll be surprised how much you will accomplish subliminally. I use to watch my grandmother knitting afghan doilies while watching TV and think how can she do this without slashing her wrists but it does work. You'd be surprised how much you can accomplish without consciously putting your mind to it.

You've seen me at work before, haven't you?

Excellent piece of craftmanship. I've made a scratch built cupola turret from plasticard and that took me most of a day, so I can only imagine how many weeks went into making this beast. Hope you finish it, I'm looking forward to seeing it with detail added.

Oh I'll finish this now that the treads are a realization. The rest will be a cake walk........thanks for the reply.

Tread Links 1.02

Okay so the tread links are cleaned and the excess bits of plastic sanded and cut away; the rivets filed down to a uniform height, we're ready to install the front end link plate. I glued all the link to continuous strips of styrene leaving a slight gap between so I can cut them separate once the glue dries. this is so much easier than cutting each individual piece plus all the front strips are of a uniform height.

http://i.imgur.com/llrREyj.jpg


A closeup of the rivet rows and the tread pattern reveals slight anomalies in the spacing and placement but the casual observer will not notice, "Hey that rivet is half a millimeter too close to the other."

http://i.imgur.com/DMHHxGy.jpg


Government Work.

Yup, the rivits are a bit off here and there... And some of the raised treadwork is not precisely straight either...
Like you said, government work.

Add some muck, grime, and weathering and nobody will ever notice.

Helpful Tip On Filing Rivets:

The key is where I said "rough cut", (if you look at the second picture [previous post]you will see the cut rivets are nowhere near uniform in size or shape.) I glue them on and file to the proper height. The problem is the type of file. Small rivets require a steel emery board (Diamond fingernail file)



or they will drag off. Larger rivets naturally can take a coarser file.

Rivets are certainly a very good way of adding a lovely final touch to scratchbuilds I have to agree! And you are definetly right.... a good dvd or tv programme.. even music can help burn away the tedious time it takes to apply them. Well worth it in my opinion!

Just a small tip perhaps, Just looking to offer out some advice. But I did a thread a little while back about rivets and I have found that 1 and 2mm "Nail art" beads that are semi-circular are a great and easy way to produce uniform rivets at a very low cost. IMHO they have been a life saver and saves a lot of time with cutting and filing.

Just thought I would bring it to your attention if you hadn't been aware of it.

Those tracks are looking rather glorious though I have to say!

Take it easy.

That's a great idea I'll have to check these out but I have to say that if a woman actually had growths on her fingernails that looked like this she would be high-tailing it to a epidermatologist post haste.



Gross!

haha... I have to agree with you... EEWWWW!!!! Definetly check them out, like I say they have been real life & time saver... I have a few images in my gallery so you can have an idea of what they are like and ease of use etc.

good hunting

Cheers,

SUPER WOW STYLE!

Magos, is this one?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-viewimage.jsp?i=601442&m=2&w=800

Because they look brilliant.

 MagosBiff90 wrote:
haha... I have to agree with you... EEWWWW!!!! Definetly check them out, like I say they have been real life & time saver... I have a few images in my gallery so you can have an idea of what they are like and ease of use etc.

good hunting

Cheers,

Did you post a thread where you made this? I can't find it?

Hi sorry,


http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/591094.page

Thats the original post I did... and the pic is from my Macharius MK1 I am currently doing and a Malcador I built. These are the 2mm nail beads.

There are some links in the thread to sites in the US you can buy these from.

Any issues let me know.

Cheers,

Most excellent, thank you for sharing this resource! Do you have any particular sources you like to get them from?

commissarbob wrote:
Most excellent, thank you for sharing this resource! Do you have any particular sources you like to get them from?

Last message here from me, don't want to Hijack The_Blackadder thread here...

Ebay is your best bet.... plenty of stores on there offering some exteremely affordable deals! Take it easy,

Post away; fascinating work.

A Big Dividend:

More than likely an exercise in complete lunacy but to have accomplished this pays me a big dividend; thumps chest over heart, here.

I gave up on this project half a decade ago because I couldn't conceive of making treads and by treads I mean plain old run of the mill tank treads, not FW Baneblade treads. I really, really, really, coveted those skull treads and every so often I would look at this uncompleted model and think, "Someday I'll make this work."

Well today just a few minutes ago it became a reality and as I savor the result and a well made Martini I am sharing this moment with all of you.

http://i.imgur.com/njFbp76.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/zECI63y.jpg


Cheers,

That's fantastic

Well worth the effort, they look cracking! Enjoy the martini... although I am posting this the day after so I guess it is well gone by now!

 MagosBiff90 wrote:
Well worth the effort, they look cracking! Enjoy the martini... although I am posting this the day after so I guess it is well gone by now!

Yeah, consider it gone, these treads were a real thorn in my side; if I couldn't make them work I was going to scrap the project. cast treads this intricate without an injection mould would have looked dismal ( bad enough I had to cast the skulls but they were just cupcake mould castings; easy peasy). As it was I hade to add a strip to the back of the skull tread link giving five frets instead of four but that can be rationalized as compensating for the extra weigh of the supersized Baneblade.

I would say that would be a very understandable explanation, however I didn't even notice there were 5 frets on the unit until you pointed it out to me!

Moulding and casting has been something I have wanted to have a go at for a while, I think once I have finished the Macharius MK1 I am working on currently I will have a look more seriously at it as I quite fancy having a go at building a Fellblade of some kind... or perhaps a Sicaran... Anyway....

Cant wait to have a look at the tracks fitted to the tank! IMHO the tracks really ad a lot to an armour model and can really make it stand out from the crowd!

Moulding to my mind is a lot of work and time invested for the casual hobbyist. It is far easier to bit the bullet and build redundantly. Unless you have some way to pressure the casting medium into the two halves of the mould negatives you will end up with bubbles and voids that have to be repaired or you can 'cupcake' mould and sand off the backs and glue the two mold plugs together. I've yet to see that satisfactorily done.

Then you have the ethical issue of casting someone else's work; that is why I make my own hand-made rendering of the object to be duplicated. That at least is not stealing intellectual property as long as I make it only for my self. Were I to sell it is a different story.

I first built this tank many years ago where all I had to go on were images on the internet and at that time there was only the Armorcast Baneblade available. I made my best guess how big the model was and based on that built the hull from printer ribbon cartridges. I turned out my estimate was a quarter again larger than the original Armorcast Baneblade. When I decided to make this version of an expanded FW Baneblade I knew the tracks would be too small to bear the weight of the "real" vehicle so applying the 'square/cube' law I made my tracks a third again larger which ideally is insufficient but demonstrates I was at least aware of the 'mass to surface' ratio plus although my work looks very much like the original it is a third again larger and therefore I can rationalize that it is not a theft of intellectual property...... any more than if I went to a museum and made my own painting of the Mona Lisa............as long as I don't sell it.

Looking very good, enjoy your martini of triamph :-)
Well your making it for yourself, and its not for mass production so I see no ethical issues at all.

Even if ever sold its 100% a one off unique model, so would that be een a problem?

 jhe90 wrote:
Looking very good, enjoy your martini of triumph :-)
Well your making it for yourself, and its not for mass production so I see no ethical issues at all.

I dunno, my bartender gets pretty upset when I make my own Martinis in his establishment??????????



Bogie Chassis:

Revamping this tank requires a new set of chassis for the bogie wheels. The original chassis were pretty primitive and my skills have increased over the years.

These will provide much better attach points:

http://i.imgur.com/XUH53pe.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/7V2tYPM.jpg

This is remarkable, both in terms of your skill, and the detail you're going into showing the process. Some of those details are scary.

That's all I got to say, I guess. Right on.

Great job making the tracks.

I find with moulding and casting pieces, it's worthwhile doing proper moulds (silicone for example) if you want 50-100 copies or more of something.

Less than that it's a balancing act between using press-moulds (in GS, Oyumaru/instant mold), which can get annoying for many things, or just making them all by scratch as you have done.

For the average hobbyist, I can't see many wanting 100 of something for themselves (maybe unique shoulderpads but that's about it).

You can't/shouldn't sell casts of bought items, but if you are making something unique and only want some yourself, you can always sell the excess. This is a reasonable way to make the hobby pay for it'self, but it won't make you rich.

 The_Blackadder wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
Looking very good, enjoy your martini of triumph :-)
Well your making it for yourself, and its not for mass production so I see no ethical issues at all.

I dunno, my bartender gets pretty upset when I make my own Martinis in his establishment??????????

Lol I ment the tank, don,t think anyone will sue you for casting a few skulls, gw don,t own that IP yet :-)

Though from some models there trying!

I knew that, I just couldn't resist.......Ha!

The Track Blocks:

My original track blocks were an abysmal failure and I discarded them. These new ones will be much sturdier and easy to work with.

http://i.imgur.com/IBxX1Re.jpg


Note the 6,3 X 2,0 MM centering strip I am using to align the bogie wheels, much better than the centering spine of the original track block.

In the image below I know the centering strips don't look like it (I had to measure myself) but they are 12,4 MM from each track well wall.

http://i.imgur.com/AUVcPWr.jpg


So now we have a true and sturdy base on which to mount the wheels.

http://i.imgur.com/9GPvGfV.jpg


Next; The manufacture of the drive and idler wheels: