Leopold - a challenge
- Thread starter ebay mike
- Start date
Zerogee
Clencher's Bogleman
stockers said:
That was a very good price, Alan, even with the shipping - I've seen these easily fetch £150+. If you were VERY, VERY lucky I suppose you might find a rough one without its load, or otherwise damaged....?
An expensive item to cannibalise for the bogies, as I said much earlier - BUT it would save an awful lot of work, so it's swings and roundabouts.....
Jon.
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
A little progress. Sides cut out of 1.5mm plasticard. These will be braced with 10mm square balsa to keep the weight down. Playmobil coach chassis and barrel roughly positioned to give an impression of overall size. Steel rule is 600mm and the figure 1/24 Chinese import. The forward chassis has had the truss removed in readiness for installation of an underframe to carry the 5 axles and the rear buffer pockets trimmed.
Attachments
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
Just been having a quick furkle in the garage for some electrical bits for the son and came across half a dozen or so of these, plus two Revel Unimog fire fighter kits complete with crews. Looks like they`ll be getting their call-up papers. A little remodelling of the helmet and a coat of matt grey and bob`s your uncle they`re in the Wehrmacht. Should be able to muster a crew of nearly 20, which although significantly under the real life allocation will do for my purposes.
Attachments
a98087
Registered
Just to add a tiny bit of vaguely relevant info , the lgb version does come in at the +£100 mark. I should know I bought one 2 weeks ago 
The Bogies and end handrails and standard lgb mouldings as widely used throughout their range, and are available as spares from dealers
Also if you need any photos of the lgb model just ask and I can provide you some.
And good luck with the build, please keep the updates coming
Dan
The Bogies and end handrails and standard lgb mouldings as widely used throughout their range, and are available as spares from dealers
Also if you need any photos of the lgb model just ask and I can provide you some.
And good luck with the build, please keep the updates coming
Dan
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
Thanks for that Dan. I'm renowned for my frugality (tight, the wife calls it) and hope to build most of this from stuff knocking about in the garage and the spare bits box. I've parted with almost £15 of hard earned cash so far on a few sheets of plasticard plus a couple of lengths of balsa and hadn't planned on sticking my hand in my pocket again if I could help it. At worst I had hoped a score would cover it.
Trainman58
When I grow up I want to be Compo- minus the feret
There is really interesting book written by Charles S Small about the Californian Railway guns that describes the recoil factors involved in firing these guns.JRinTawa said:
Trainman58
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
After a week on lates finally got a day off yesterday. Some progress made with the bogie frames. Bearings installed and chassis now ready for the wheel assemblies before final detailing. Have decided to use pivoting bogies each end with a floating centre (fifth) axle. The bogie centres will be offset - so technically they won`t be centres! The whole lot will be masked by dummy side frames giving the impression all axles are fixed. Hopefully all will become clear once in place and pics posted.
Attachments
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
Have only had short periods where I could get on with this project so have been manufacturing components for the dummy side frames. Initially tried to carve the leaf springs from a single piece of plasticard but it wasn`t very successful. Had to bite the bullet and build up leaf by leaf from strip. One pivoting bogie is partially built but I want to make sure it actually works before posting a photo.
Attachments
CoggesRailway
Registered
Looking good! Keep it coming
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
Another day off allowed continued progress. After much head scratching, hacksawing and juggling of components a workable solution emerged. This has been tested successfully on R2 curves and worked faultlessly. The cradle for axle 3 is fixed but allows lateral displacement of up to 8mm. The bogies have the pivot points under axles 2 and 4. Vertical movement is available for axles 1 3 and 5, so in effect the wagon is balanced on the wheels of axles 2 and 4. This also means that they also bear the weight but as the gun carriage structure is much lighter than it appears this will not be an issue. When inverted everything is very much Heath Robinson but once on the track most of the blatant inaccuracies will be masked by the dummy side frames and somewhat oversize axleboxes. Will add photos later - tablet is playing up and must leave for work.
Attachments
Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
S'nice 
CoggesRailway
Registered
this is awesome!!
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
On 12 `til 12 today so time for a dry fit as weather nice for a change. Once together I was a little disappointed as my interpretation and selective compression have meant it`s lost some of the lean and long look of the original. Still, it`s a relative monster compared to my other rolling stock. Length over buffers is 820mm and then there will be the overhang from the barrel. I also intend to build supporting vehicles to make up a complete train.
Attachments
ebay mike
Retired, but still hoarding. (GOF)
Got a few days off and SWMBO has gone shopping so making hay while the sun shines (and it is too, for a change). Aluminium cradle constructed to absorb shock and stress transmitted through the bogie wagons. Inserted inside the shell and started to apply outer casing. Centre well for gun barrel has had inner walls added using short lengths of balsa as spacers. Looking forward to being able to slap some grey paint on this.
