Crawler 1/35 scale freelance design with a touch of the Holt about it!

[Ken Hamilton]

Wow!  What a great lpiece of work!  I'd like to see construction shots, too,
especially an assembly-line sequnce on those gorgeouos tracks.

PS:  When Rick Marty sends you a batch of pictures, be prepared to do some building......

[Chuck Doan]

Very nice Gordon! It looks just right.

[Gordon Ferguson]

Thanks for all the positive comments, glad it has appealed to a few people.

Will try to answer at least some of the questions in the this and the next post . First a few comments on the modifications:



This shot shows most of the work, the 2 kit body sides were spaced out with a piece of 5mm square tubing............ with hindsight this is actual too wide probably 3 mm would have been better. The moulding on the kit sides, louvres etc were sanded off and an over lay of 2o thou plastic card was added, height was increased with 2 pieces of 60 thou card. The track was increased by 6 mm after adding some tubing and then the kit end plates were glued on to the tubing and the housing covering the gearing at the end of the axles was built with epoxy putty. At the aft end the kit moulding at the end of the hood/bonnet was cut off and an extended piece of oblong tubing was added. At the front the moulded "sump" ? was cut off and a new flat area created then a new front spring was fabricated using plastic micro-strip, with new support fittings added at the correct place on the the side frames. The side frames were modified by changing the shapes of the cover plates, adding some rivet detail and the kit tracks sanded off......I took the tracks of to the level of the moulded track links, cutting what was left of the track flush with the outside edge of the track links. All the rest was scratchbuilt .  

[Gordon Ferguson]

OK track construction, the following are my notes I wrote to remind myself of the correct order to build them in ............ I think they are pretty accurate but until someone tries to follow them and end up with either with a load of track shoes or a mess I won't know.

I have added some thoughts at the bottom for changes/improvements to this process

Crawler Track Construction

1.   Place 2 pieces 0.010 x 0.156 parallel with each other 40thou apart(this will give scale 12" wide tracks)
2.   Place piece 0.010 x 0.080 @ right angles to above, then space following strip at 4mm intervals( this will give you a track link length of about 8 scale inches and should match the track links left on the kit moulding.)
3.   Drill 2 holes 20thou dia @ centre of intersection of above*
4.   Fix 30thou ¼ round rod butted against bottom edge of cross piece
5.   Fix 40 thou ½ round against top edge of cross piece
6.   Butt 0.040 x 0.010 vertically against back edge of ¼ round
7.   Trim outside edges along edge of 0.156 strip
8.    Cut individual links off, cut tight against ½ round edge

•   Optional, decide whither holes or ½ round bolt heads are required
Using Evergreen strips 14" long cut in into 2 x 7" lengths. 3 x 14" strips cut this way will supply sufficient individual track links to cover Tamiya track with about 20% to spare
On one set of strips you need only drill holes/apply bolt heads to outside of track, you can also miss out step 6 .............use these track shoes to do bottom of tracks.

Only got a couple of shots of the construction but hopefully with the above notes it will make sense



This is what the individual track looks like when you have trimmed it



When you glue the track on the 2 prongs slide under the link in front leaving a "square hole", when you get to the ends you need to adjust by decreasing the overlap so the the "square hole" becomes more rectangular ..... I have no scientific way of describing its one of those touchy feely moments till it looks right.
When the tracks are are dry I then sanded down the edges and rounded over the profiles, a picture might make more sense here



Edit. please don't ask which is the right way on for the shoes, the photos I have show some that face one way and other the other way, don't know if it makes a difference what sort of surface you are working on ......... mind you I have at least 2 photsos where the left and right side have the shoes facing different ways ......... so who knows?

Things I would change or do differently;

I would cut my own strips so that I could at least use one set that was 5thou in thickness , then the combined thickness of the track would be 15 thou which in 1/35 would be nearer a scale 1/2inch.

I would space the pairs of strips closer to gether to cut down the waste on the 1/2 and 1/4 round pieces

I would probably use a narrower strip than the 0.156 strips to produce the more common track shoes width of 10 inches ( I took the cartoon route here as I wanted emphasise the tracks as they are such an intregal part of the crawler image .......... 12 inch tracks did exist but were not very common.

Still to solve the last bit of the look, if you look at this realife track shoe you can see there is a raised portion over the linkage




....... I have tried to model this by using an arc of a plastic tube but cant get a way of repeating with sufficient accuracy over all the shoes  .......... and even my old eyes spot the difference of a fraction of a millimetre on a run of tracks.

So hope all that boring stuff helps somebody else ......... here is where I am now

 

[finescalerr]

Thank you for the useful posts and the model update. Adequate. -- Russ

[Gordon Ferguson]

Thanks Russ .......... am still aiming for that "satisfactory", one of these days 

[marc_reusser]

Interesting and informative SBS on the tracks. Thanks.

....and I am really sorry to have to ask this, but, what the heck is going on with that paint thickness, orange peel, and sheen? Are you going to leave this? (IMO it's doing a dis-service to your wonderful scratch-building)

Marc

[Mr Potato Head]

Plans? I have two plans, one is my Holt75 plan which is in ¼" scale and I gotta believe that the early tracks for the 75 and the 1&2 tons were close to the same. I also have an early CAT parts catalog and it has a very nice drawing, and it also has drawings of the individual links for the tracks as well as for most of the parts. I have not scanned all the pages, but most are too large for this forum, send me an email and I will send it to you
MPH
PS thanks for that SBS, it's going to be very helpful!
Gflores1099@yahoo.com

[Gordon Ferguson]

....and I am really sorry to have to ask this, but, what the heck is going on with that paint thickness, orange peel, and sheen? Marc

Thought it might get a reaction from you ................ I picked up the wrong rattle can & the paint was on the model before I knew it!!

Its currently soaking in some oven cleaner which I am hoping will take the paint off and that is all, if not I will get the opportunity to correct all the errors ............ think positive

[marc_reusser]

That sucks...but glad to hear it's correctable, and getting so. If the oven cleaner doesn't work, you can also try 90% Iso Alc. Thats what I use whan I have this problem...errr... I mean if I were to have a problem like this...theoretically speaking.

M

[Gordon Ferguson]

Thanks for the tip Marc, glad to know you have this theoretical knowledge ............. did think about seeing if I could get away with it, the picture is a bit cruel in real life as its only just over 2 inches long it was not so bad.

[Gordon Ferguson]

OK 2 steps forward and 1 back , ......... or maybe 3 steps back who knows





Could someone pop in tomorrow and see if Marc is OK after seeing the above  .... bit worried about his old ticker.

[Malachi Constant]

That's already a big improvement in showing off your neat construction on the beastie.  -- Dallas

[Andi Little]

I think it's showing its potential now, with some rust, mud and rubbish; perhaps the odd tool left on the seat or there-abouts. You have the object now it's time I think to give it its character .................. as ever Gordon - bliddy well done my son!

Excellent Job.

[Ken Hamilton]

This is getting better and better.
Those tracks are the bomb-diggity.