fatty

The one set of plans are Jecobin plans from a refit in the 70's, and the others are from the ship. The company I work for was contracted to dispose of Intrepid at Liverpool, so I had plenty of access to her and below decks. A hole load of drawings and plans were found on board, so after an hour of flicking through them I came away with some scale deck plans. I know Fearless went to Gent for dismantling, she was done in water, unlike the dry dock we have.

I started this build a few years ago from some original ship plans, the first attempt at building her (as seen in the back ground) was solid in construction and it did weigh alot....... Well Ive decided to rebuild her, looking at the 'official' plans i'm going to build the hull hollow and in 'would be' sections with a spine running up the middle of the hull. Once all the 'ribs' are in place i shall run 6 or so strips the full length of the hull. with these in place i can then add the sides in sections. Unlike the first model, this will have a complete hull instead of from the waterline. Heres is where i am after today.....

Im happy to say that its complete...... I shall await till tommorow to post up some pickies. Good night and Merry Christmas to you all...

The digger is now complete..... All that is left is to make the securing chains and add the marker boards....

Wooohoooo it now has tracks..... just got to weather them now....

Well the tracks are nearly complete, I have just got to wait for the glue to set and I can post some pictures..... I still went for indiduall track plates but conected them differently instead of using indivdual pins.... What I went for was to adhear them to a continous band, difficult to explain but you will see on the pictures......

well with my pint of Carlsberg at the ready i think its time to start the track links...... :-/

well the glass is in and the cab is attached.... painted the rear engine cover in matt black. Ive started to add some of the detail to the hydralics and electrics too..... Yes I know i still have to tracks to build........ leaving that till last :-/

yeh it looks like a yellow digger....

well I did a little bit of detail work to the cab, added some hinges, handles and door locks before painting. I also added the white paneling to the side, kinda hides a nasty slip with the scalple lol Well its all gone yellowy now! managed to spray all the bits in the genuine Case parts spray paint...... "boy it smells good, i can see pink elephants dancing in the sky!"

Finished the interior cab detail now, bit of mud, the Sun and Sport newspaper, a spare pin for the bucket and various car dash decals for all the buttons and knobs

Thank you all for your kind words and complements. Its strange really as when I would love to be able to build planes, as when ever i build them they always come out with fingure prints and glue every where... lol when I went around SMW at Telford looking a the planes (can recal a large harrier with all the wiring etc inside) and thought i would love to be able to do that kinda detail...

This was from lastnight. the cab interior is almost there....

here you can see how the plasticard can deform..... cut straight through Doh! easy repair, just put a strip over it...... (artistic licence allows me to do that) ;D Heres what the cab should resemble once complete.... Basic layout so far..... Best make sure it fits lol All i need is an opperator lol

For the cab i have constructed it with 4 pieces. you have the base, which will have the cab interior mounted to. 2 sides with the windows cut out. and the front/top and rear panel, this will be all in one to keep the curve of the cab in flow. Here I am cutting out one of the sides, which will act as a template for the other. Once finished i was able to put the two together for some costructive sanding to ensure both sides are identicle in shape. A quick line up to make sure its ok..... all ready for assembling... And then they can be put together..... the last piece added can be sanded to be flush with the sides once the glue has set.

The altogether shape is virtually done, just been adding a little more detail....

The main chassis is complete now, all tha is needed is the top and bottom rollers. Add some primer to show any dinks and marks, there is some fillering required, so while it dries off im gonna start on the cab.

I must admit they can get a little too large, that lowloader im buildiing is 32" longe with the display case. Im planing on making a flat with hiab with an MAN F2000 and a Volvo Flat bed recovery too.....

looks brilliant, i wish i could build bike to that quality.... great job

wow this looks fantastic. great job there so far.

well the plan today was to get lots done, but when plans are made we all know full well what happens..... so this is all i managed to get done tonight. I took some drive wheels from a 1/24 tractor unit, cut away the rim leaving the hub and the flat part of the wheel which takes the wheel nuts. once cut away and sanded down i wound around the hub some thin platicard to ecpand the width of the hub to match the drive spocket on th machine. once dry this wa adheard to the "out riggers" of the chassis. i have only added teeth to the visable part of the drive wheel. this is because it will be fix but it will still allow the tracks to move freely. Here you can see the basic shape of the chassis taking form, once it dries tonight i shall be able to get most of that built tommorow. One thing that did occure to me was "does it actually fit on the trailer?" after all this time this is the first time the two have been together, luckily for they do fit.... ;D

ive never seen a trailer like that before.... looks cool.

Change of plan.... I found although the penny was perfect, it wasnt lol.... I had difficulty in adhearing it to the spindle, and to be honest it wasnt really strong enough. so i made one from Plasticard.... So i had a look at the plan again and change the build a bit... created a twin box section..... Alot stronger, and closer to the 1/2 scale version....

Thank you for the complements. Have a look at Kit Foirm Services web site, as they do a wide range of conversion kits.

Ok so i have plucked up the courage and have started the chassis. Looking at the diagram I recon the best way is the start with the main parts: the two box sections that hold the drive and adjuster wheel. So I managed to make the two sections, but I need to make a perfect round wheel..... what have i got kicking around that I can use to save me sanding down some plasticard? perfect.... Now on the real machine the adjuster wheel does just that, its slides from front to rear to remove the slack in the tracks. Although this model is way smaller that the the real thing its going to have the same problem, so this will need to work too. Here you can see the box section that holds the spindle. once glued the wheel can be mounted to the spindle and then to the chassis..... .....and voila! an adjustable wheel that slides in and out.... one down one to go..... ;D