MkIV Male Fascine Carrier

[Kingsman]

The build of this one has been blogged over on Work in Progress.  Tank I.51 fresh off the train at the railhead before Cambrai.  I can't find the photo of it on line, but it's in one of the books about WW1 tanks.  No visible serial.  I wanted to find a genuine identifiable Male fascine carrier, which is harder than you might think.  The only other one I could definitely identify was "Auld Reekie", also on the same train.

 

So it's come off the train, had the sponsons and guns installed in fighting position and had the fascine mounted in operational position.  On the train they were moved back a bit and more heavily lashed down.  Black weathering on the tracks?  Railway yards were often surfaced with cinders, which are essentially black.  It's actually a mixture of black, brown and grey pigments with some model railway coal.  It's ready to move off the assembly area and so hasn't got very grubby yet.

 

As ever, all comments appreciated.

 

  

[BlackMax12]

Brand spanking new, looks great.  Lovely job on the un-ditching beam and I see it comes loaded with storage too.

The tracks look great, cast iron with just the right black tone for cinders, nasty stuff that. The fascine must have been a chore but looks real.

 

You will have to add the grousers before sending this one into your mud bath at the front though, LOL.

 

Take care,

 

Lloyd

[Kingsman]

I've had enough of mud!  Hence a clean one to finish off the mini group build.  It's not intended to be factory new, hence the slight tonal variation on the paint.  A tank that's seen previous action but been withdrawn to the rear and been cleaned and maintained before going into action again.  That tended to be how it worked.  It might well have changed identity as tanks were often re-allocated between Companies because of shortages.  In the photo the area around the numbers looked as if it had recently been washed or repainted, possibly indicating a change of identity.  But I couldn't think of a way of replicating that without it just looking like gash varnishing.

 

The folded tarps on the roof are the ones that would have been sheeted over the withdrawn sponsons: the photo shows it with them withdrawn and sheeted.  The boxes were stowed inside by the crew for transport but then put up on the roof to make way for themselves.  Spud Box has a full set of grousers/spuds (I think they're technically grousers) ready for use.  That rear stowage box was officially for them.  Wrapping the asbestos tape on the exhaust was such a pain on the Female that I just ignored it here.  As far as I can tell it wasn't universal anyway.

 

Yes, the fascine was a PITA.  Many people show logs, but AFAIK this was not done: a big enough roll of logs would have been far too heavy - there's a lot of air space in a fascine.  Two yard brooms were definitely harmed in the making of it!  £60-ish for a resin blob fascine?  No thanks........  I did think of a crib but these were rare on MkIVs and the Model Cellar one I bought was so poor I would have ended up using it as a scratchbuild pattern for real wood and metal.  The unditching beams are real wood and real rusty metal.  Very hard to replicate effectively any other way.

[fredben]

Very nice build. Not over the top with weathering.

[Kris B]

Super, not often you can see the with fascine. 

[Kingsman]

On 11/24/2018 at 9:32 AM, Kris B said:

Super, not often you can see the with fascine. 

Try making one and you'll know why that is!!  On reflection, I think the front chains could have been a little shorter, meeting the fascine lower down.

 

I discovered today from someone whose WW1 knowledge I trust implicitly that recent research indicates that all Fosters-built tanks were factory finished in Brunswick Green (i.e. what is later called British Racing Green).  This was the colour they used on their civilian machinery and they initially had the pigments in stock to make it.  With the Admiralty and War Office seemingly not specifying any particular colour they just carried on using it.

 

That would be a lot darker than the green I've used, which was initially quite dark but I didn't like that and toned it down more into the khaki range.  In WW1 paint sets, the AK Interactive French Green No1 is a nice Brunswick Green but there will be loads of others.  So mine isn't a Fosters tank: good job I didn't pick a known Fosters serial!

[PlaStix]

Very impressive modelling again DA. Well done! 

Kind regards,

Stix

[Buzby061]

Nicely weathered & loaded. The fascine looks very convincing. 

 

Pete

[bigfoot]

Lovely finished model. The fascine and beam are real highlights of this build and you've achieved a very good and natural finish in the tracks. Top work! Your whole series of WWI builds are superb.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Incredible work 

[Badder]

Excellent work, most especially the fascine.

Brooms.  You can't beat'em. I have one with the same bristles you've used, and one with dead straight 1.5mm dia. nylon bristles. Both are proving themselves to be worth much more than their price would suggest.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Kingsman]

It's just a shame I feel the need to keep the thread bindings in place, which weren't there in real life.  But I don't trust the chains not to part under the pressure of the bristles and I wanted to keep them reasonably scale size.