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Dammit Jim I'm a Doctor Not a Sculptor:

Well er not a doctor either but a mechanic and the bottom line is, 'Don't quit yer day job Blackadder.

Below is my attempt last night to try my hand at making the treads I so much covet; not so easy as it would seem............

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


Funny how a photo solidifies imperfections your eye compensates for or ameliorates, this skull looked pretty close to my 3D perception...... Not!

http://i.imgur.com/D4Q3xcB.jpg


However the generic tread seems satisfactory.

The new treads are 3,0 CM as opposed to the FW cast originals which are 2,5 CM wide.

Now that I have a prototype I figure it will take me about 15 minutes per tread to manufacture the generic treads if I make cutting jigs and start an assembly line.

I figure I will require 12 skull treads and 36 generic not counting the 32+ blank treads I shall need for the bottom run.

Carving from a piece of plastic? Interesting approach. Must be some bigger skulls on a GW kit somewhere that you could use?

The problem is, not even going into the prohibitive cost of purchasing kits just to get skulls, most of the skulls in the kits (besides being too big or too small) are 3D relief not bas-relief. The tread of necessity must make a relatively flat contact with the ground whereas one foot+ diameter skull shaped hemispheres on each fourth segment would put too much PSI on the links when in contact with hard surfaces which would destroy treads quite quickly. It was just this problem that the German tanks in WWII ran into with their heavy Tiger and Royal Tiger tanks with cast steel treads. The American tanks with their lighter overall weight also had rubber inserts on the link surfaces for running on roads.

http://the.shadock.free.fr/sherman_minutia/tracks/vvss_tracks.html

I can't pretend that I understood much of that - I had to google 'bas-relief', but it's always good to broaden one's mind

I would say (if I wanted to flog a dead horse that is) you can get individual kit parts from the various 'bitz' sellers out there rather than buying a full kit - however, it could be hit and miss to find the right size / type of skull for this and I'm sure you have the expertise to create what you want from scratch

Could you buy the right sized skull and cast up a set of them as a way of saving some money.
And its all for personnel use so no problems on legal :-)

Only 78 More To Go:

Well it seemed like a plan making these treads the hardest part being carving the skull. The tracks themselves are easy albeit tedious but I see no way of casting them without compromising the detail.

http://i.imgur.com/rMmTfg2.jpg


The two that are done didn't take all that long perhaps a half hour tops.

http://i.imgur.com/uGPWti7.jpg



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can I get a triple 'A' please?

You're going to carve each skull then? Wow, that's a brave move - we'll see you next week then...

How the Skull Was Made:

No one asked (which is surprising) but I'll give the procedure anyway.

I started with a strip of styrene 6,3 MM X 2,0 MM which would give me a skull about a millimeter larger than the original; that would be about a fifth again larger.

I then used my #11 Xacto tip to auger out two small holes where I estimated the eyes would be. The holes were much smaller than the finished eye sockets.

Then I augered the hole between the eyes for the nose(again much smaller than when finished).

I could see then that I had to add some small pieces of styrene to the strip for the cheek bones which I cemented on and allowed to dry.

Once dried I began to shape the dome of the skull. Since I already had the size estimated it was a simple matter to scrape away the surface copying the contours of the dome and face until I had a rough facsimile of the skull shape.

I then set about carving the eye sockets using the edge of the skull for a guide the outer rim of the eye socket would be paper thin.

delicately cutting away the excess enlarging the socket ever so slightly until again I had rough sockets cut, I did the same for the nose recess,

Again with the #11 knife I scraped the character contours in the forehead and cheeks and incised deep creases on either side of the nose to create the muzzle.

I pared down the styrene on either side for the jaw recesses. This where I stopped:

http://i.imgur.com/D4Q3xcB.jpg


I brushed the entire surface with styrene cement to smooth the rough knife scratches, the thin cement not the glue, and allowed to dry over night.

This morning I cut the final detail and undercut the jaw for where it would be separated from the stock strip.

Blimey every skull hand made.....

Just suggested casting as well a lot of skulls needed. And I assumed if you can build what you can build casting a few bits should be easy.

Well of course I'll try to cast them first..........

If that works out, so much the better.

It's a Blackadder Masterclass in patience, perseverance and painful fingers (after all that carving)

There's your problem; try carving with a knife, not your fingers.

Yankee Ingenuity:

Yessir thanks to Henry Ford and his assembly line idea I'm moving great guns on fabricating these treads.

I have all the skulls made and partially sanded down to the right thickness and I have a good start on the skull tread. I've got enough segments for 26 skull treads which is a lot more than I need but there are always a few crips so its better to make spares plus I can always hang the surplus on the turret for spares.

http://i.imgur.com/D8F547E.jpg


I made 16 skulls last night which should suffice for the time being no point in wasting greenstuff although each skull requires about a BB sized bit of greenstuff.

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


You can see I have to trim down the skull thickness as it protrudes too high above the tread.

I thought the skull segments would be the hard ones to reproduce but it appears the generic treads are/will be the labor intense ones.

I'm actually saddened to see that you aren't individually carving each skull, but this is certainly the most effective way to go.

Okay so now we know that Ruglud is the Marquis de Sade's pen name. Had the castings not come out so well I was fully prepared to carve each one but I'm not a masochist even if you have a sadistic bent. I seriously doubt I could make a minimum of twelve of these that accurately.

I just look down at the dozen little sardonic faces and think "I'm really glad I didn't have to do this twelve times!!!!!"

Hah, you meet all sorts on the internet

One Down 79 To Go:

Well the first track link is completed. Start to finish I'm guessing it took a half hour to build from scratch including glue drying time. Once I get jigs built and get an assembly line going I'm sure I can finish the next 79 in about eight man hours but of course I don't have that time to devote consecutively so over the course of a few days give or take should see them assembled.

The first image shows the back of the link; strangely I only took the one and no close up.

http://i.imgur.com/b0xUsuC.jpg


This next image shows all the skull treads ready for the final assembly and a segment of a Baneblade track for a size comparison.

http://i.imgur.com/xFU3uLk.jpg


The image below shows a closeup of the thickness of the link. The standard Baneblade link is 4,25 MM and my link is just about 6,0 MM.

http://i.imgur.com/20C9ghv.jpg


A close up of the tread detail, each tread has 27 individual pieces of plastic including the skull. It's a very labor intense construct.

http://i.imgur.com/rQi5MiQ.jpg


And finally the bogie wheel compared to a Baneblade bogie.........

http://i.imgur.com/2m8BKsq.jpg


God what a monster this tank will be.

Wow!

Your skills and dedication are absolutely insane, and also an awesome inspiration!!

Thanks, your words are a more than kind substitute for the more clinically termed; "obsessive compulsive behavior."

68 To Go:

Well the ones I deemed the hardest to do because of the sculpting and number of pieces are ostensibly complete in their basic assembly. There are some that think I should have cast the prototype and be done with it but my way proved best albeit much more labor intense because although the components remained more or less locked in stone size-wise subtle shifting of the components position-wise was and still is necessary for the best artistic appeal.

http://i.imgur.com/bIB8Dux.jpg


Case in point, originally I cast two different sized skulls and eventually went with the smaller which was about 1,5 MM shorter in breadth.

Here you see the skulls glued in place and on the individual frets they look adequate and I was satisfied but seeing them all together as shown here they are wrong; especially when paired up with the generic tread links, lower right in the above photo, where it will be subsequently revealed that the skulls need to be re-positioned.

http://i.imgur.com/GdB8tMM.jpg


And so it turns out lunacy does have it's purpose.

I'd say your crazy but a good, mad scientist form of crazy :-)

Not like a bane blade is small, yet this just a moving city block.
Get a good cover save sheltering behind it :-)

I admire your persistence - I'd make a mold of those tracks a long time ago and just cast them...

Well there is no need to mould/cast the skull treads and I find the tread of the generic quite tedious plus I do have a minimum of 68 to make. I shall probably cast the 'generic' at least the track face.

The problem is 'Instamould' has a tendency to stretch when pressing 'Greenstuff' into the negative; does anyone know of a way to soften 'Greenstuff'? The batch I have is quite stiff when mixed.

Buy a new batch

Seriously though, how about making the mould out of Greenstuff - that usually works for me as I don't have this fabled 'instamould' I keep hearing about.

Thanks for the replies,

Tread Factory:

After a few failed attempts at making a decent mould/casting I decided to go back to my original plan of making treads by hand. there is just too many problems with casting at least in the way I am geared up to do it. Were I into the manufacture of these for profit I would engage a qualified mould maker but since it is a one shot deal I decided to tough it out.

Below is my tread assembly line in various stages of production so you can see the progression.

http://i.imgur.com/aRx4q2Q.jpg


And I couldn't decide which image I liked best so here it is again......

http://i.imgur.com/5dXu9eI.jpg

Well, I guess repetitive and monotome is better then.

BUT...

If you even slightly considered to make more than one of the beasts in the future...Or looking to build something other, thats in need of multible something part.
I'd be happy to help with a master mold, drop me a PM if interested.

Thanks, I appreciate the offer but as long as I am replicating FW material I think it best to not make a product with FW characteristics. If ever I do something original I take you up on your generous offer.


Hitting My Stride;

Well the first ones were tedious because I didn't know where I was going with these.

After I finished the skull treads I knew what the basic tread thickness and the overall size would be and I did have the prototype for the generic tread pretty much nailed.

Yesterday I played around with speeding up the production process and it was kind of a down day production wise but this morning I hit my stride and accomplished quite a bit in the hour I devoted to production.

I glued the strips together the six long strips to the right. That represents the amount of track necessary to do each strip being cut into 11 segments 3,0 CM long 66 in all; probably a few more than I need.

http://i.imgur.com/kes7Wb7.jpg


The five generic to the left are completed track faces and still need the back side of the track installed and the 3 center rows are pretty much what I accomplished in the hour this morning..... easy peasy

http://i.imgur.com/8AWq65s.jpg


I hope to be half done today with the track faces.

Then I can start on the blanks for the bottom run of the tracks.

I can certainly relate with the tedium of making treads from scratch. I have done similar work doing scale historical modeling. Maybe someday I will tackle another tank of my own...

Thanks for the AAA bump,

And You Guys Thought I Was Crazy:

Well I figured out a way that I do not have to make 80 individual treads, I probably don't need any more than the 44 presented here.

Of course I have to make the bottom run but that can be all one piece except for the inner track segments which is really quite simple

http://i.imgur.com/pbJ9a0g.jpg


So now I can go back to twiddling my thumbs and toes Ha, Ha!

Still rather a lot of tracks. They must make rhino tracks look so tiny.

Gonna be a good tank though

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.

Wouldn't fancy changing one of those on a battlefield and under fire !