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Wolseley CP armoured car


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Greetings All.

For those of you who saw my recent Whippet:

and

I’m pleased to say that your fantastic feedback has urged me to get cracking with the next proper project. So here we go – obscure WWI scratchbuild!!!

I’ve selected this…

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For a number of reasons:

1.       It’s got flat armour.

2.       It’s got covered wheels (no spokes)

3.       It’s got virtually no info about it available (as far as I can tell).

 

I’m new to scratchbuilding; the Whippet was my first and I don’t have a toolshed full of lovely treats like lathes and milling machines – so everything needs to be do-able with just a few simple tools, especially at the moment under re-located lockdown.

 

Scalpel – check. Pin vice – check. Tweezers – check. Glue – check. Right, let’s get cracking!

 

This vehicle makes it as easy as I can get it, and with very little reference material, who’s to say I’m wrong? No worrying about whether I should model the 1916 pattern leather belt flange spronglets, or the 1915 tin and papier-mache versions with overlapping fringe dongles….. nice!

 

First (and possibly the biggest) challenge – wheels.

 

I used Alexandr Bondar’s excellent card model instructions from the landships II website - http://www.landships.info/landships/models.html#

Scaling these up in photoshop to an estimated, and as close as I can get by eye, 1/35 (fingers crossed), the wheels scaled out to 21.6mm internal diameter (inside of the rim), and 28mm external outside of the tyre. As luck would have it, a furtle around in my plumbing spares came up with some 22mm plastic speedfit pipe. The bends and connectors unscrewed to reveal a bunch of 28mm diameter O rings. Sheer luck, but I’m taking it as a good omen.

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I studied the 3 photos and instructions that appear to be all that is known about this vehicle and concluded that as with most other WWI era British armoured cars, double tyres were installed on the rear wheels, with minimal if no tread. The O rings have it!

 

So far, so good, but a tricky bit had to occur somewhere, and in this case it’s the rear wheel itself. The solid centre of the front wheel is clearly flat, but the thicker rear is dished, with a conical plate – hmm. Not so straightforward. I cut a few over-sized circles and sliced them to make cones. A few experiments and a couple were glued together, held in place while the glue set by mounting them within the cut sections of tube that will form the rims. On releasing them, it was clear that the join wasn’t perfect, tending to meet at an angle rather than curve, so a bit of milliput will be smeared in with plenty of water to smooth it.

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All this wheel work required a few circles to be cut out of 0.5mm and 0.2mm plastic card. Here’s (one of) the way(s) I do it – pin in a pin-vice, scribed repeatedly ‘round a circle template. Snap out the circle and clean up with sandpaper.

 

All ok so far, but don’t hold your breath – this could take a while….

See you next time!

 

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Wolseley update

To recap; my wheels currently look like this….

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Ok, so I applied a dab of milliput to the join in the dished rear wheels and smoothed it around as best I could with plenty of water and a mk I finger….

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They look a bit crappy here, and to be honest, they look a bit crappy in real life too. The jury’s out. I’ll splash a bit of paint on to see how it looks under a coat.

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I need to get a fresh ink cartridge before I can print out the card templates and get on with the main bodywork, so in the meantime I started on the chassis. 0.5mm plastic card sides and cross bracing with microstrip top flanges. Most, if not all of this will be unseen, so I’m not too concerned about accuracy other than the overall dimensions matching the plans. That said, I’ve found some engine pics of the base vehicle (at least I think that’s what they are), so I may need to make sure the engine bay is roughly correct if I decide to add a motor.

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It's not the stiffest frame in existence, but it's surprisingly solid considering the thin card it's made from.

 

A Diorama plan is evolving in my head…. (often the way). I have a bunch of WWI British tank crew and infantry as well as horses left over from my mis-scaled Whippet, so I’m picturing a broken-down armoured car (hence engine hatch(es) open) being towed by horse(s).

 

Hmm, more pondering to do.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Model Mate said:

It's not the stiffest frame in existence, but it's surprisingly solid considering the thin card it's made from.

 

So long as it's square, that's the main consideration. Neat work.

 

John.

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Printer cartridges have arrived, so I should now be able to get on with the main bodywork – once I’ve sorted the rivet conundrum….

 

I scaled Alexandr Bondar’s card model template sheets up to 1/35 using photoshop and printed them onto A4 paper.

 

When I built the Whippet, I glued the paper templates onto A3 plastic card and, which allowed me to drill on the rivet dots and cut on the lines. However, I found the (PVA) glued paper had a tendency to wrinkle a bit (which wasn’t too much of a problem) and fall off (which was). The layout of the parts was also not particularly economical in terms of plastic card, with quite large gaps between pieces. I’m super-stingy with this sort of thing, so this time I’ll cut out each paper piece and transfer it to plastic as I go.

 

I’ve been having a think (and a few experiments) with rivets. They are the bane of the scratchbuilder’s life. ….along with wheels, tank tracks – actually, quite a few things to be honest.

Here are the alternatives I’ve considered:

 

1.       Drill and insert plastic rod for each rivet – pros: consistent size (if you’re careful). Well adhered (plastic on plastic).  Cons: massively tedious and time-consuming and “Square” (i.e. non-rounded) rivet heads.

2.       Slice plastic rod and glue on – pros: no drilling needed. Cons: as above, plus without drilling holes, alignment can be a bit hit and miss. Length of rivet head non-adjustable other than by filing/sanding.

3.       Indents on thin plastic card or metal foil – pros: quick and easy (once a decent template/female former has been made). Convincing rivet heads using foil. Cons: having to laminate the entire model surface. Could be tricky to align everything. “soft” detail using plastic.

4.       Blobs of PVA – pros: quick and easy. Domed rivet heads. Cons: getting reliable sizes is really tricky if not impossible. Could be susceptible to damage.

5.       Applying tiny balls – pros: reasonably quick and easy. Convincing rivet heads. Cons: may be difficult to glue solidly. Finding reliably regular sized balls.

 

Option 1 - For my Whippet I went with this. The rivets on that were pretty chunky, and the model was slightly over-scale, so the final effect was ok, but this armoured car is made of (presumably) thinner stuff, and from the photos, the rivets are rather more subtle than on a battlefield leviathan.

 

Option 2 – to my mind, a step down from option 1. Also, sanding down very small diameter plastic rod inevitably results in snapped-off or split rivets.

 

Option 3 - I really don’t fancy making two sets of bodywork panels (carcassing plus a riveted veneer) and laminating them could be a right pain.

 

Option 4 - I tried a few experiments with PVA blobs. They weren’t too bad, but I found that to get a decent 3D relief, a few applications were needed, so size inconsistency gets worse and worse. To try to address this, I made a very simple template in the form of regular rows of holes in a strip of plastic card, with the PVA trowelled in to improve positioning and size. I left the resulting rivets to dry upside down so gravity wouldn’t flatten them out too much. It sort-of worked, but they were still rather flat – back to the multiple application problem.

 

Option 5 – tiny balls (ooh Matron!). There are a few you-tube videos demonstrating this technique on you tube, but all seem to suffer from having a source of small balls that vary in size, particularly if you want small (.05mm or so) rivets. I did a bit of Ebay wandering and found micro-caviar balls for dressing up one’s fingernails in the latest fashion…. Whilst my fingernails do sometimes attract attention and occasionally comment, it’s always because they’re covered in glue/paint/filler rather than glittery bling. These balls appear to be regularly sized and importantly, cheap. I ordered a bunch of 0.6mm, .08mm and 1.0mm examples, along with .05mm, .07mm and 0.9mm drill bits. My theory is that by drilling holes very slightly smaller than the balls, they should sit on/in the surface with a consistent height and rounded heads. Once everything arrives, I let you know.

 

So still no bodywork. Ahh well, on with the chassis:

 

I stuck the leaf spring templates onto 0.5mm plastic card, drilled fixing holes and trimmed the parts.

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Then cut 2.0mm wide strip into reducing lengths.

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These were glued on to the main part, laminating between each with a 1.0mm wide strip to separate the spring elements.

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In progress....

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Ending up with this after a few bits of rod and tape. I’ll replace the tape with metal foil for a slightly thicker set of straps I think.

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I also stuck some bits of tubing and card etc. together to make the rear axle.

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I think relying on those thin brackets to support the weight of the whole car might be hoping for a bit much, so I may add some spurious additional brackets to hold the axles in place. They should end up immediately behind the wheels so not be too obvious.

 

Next time, I hope my nail-caviar has arrived and I can wow you all with my show-stopper fingernails – later sistaz!

 

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Nice.

 

May I suggest spray-on photograph adhesive rather than PVA for sticking the paper plans onto the plastic. It’s cheap, goes on smoothly and washes off easily with white spirits.

 

Give it a try. 👍

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thanks Steve, yes; I'll have to give spray-mount a go; makes perfect sense.

 

I've high hopes for my nail caviar for rivets - still means drilling a million holes, but a considerable effort saving over the plastic rod treatment. I'm thinking of doing a Mk VIII international heavy tank next and that's huge, so coming up with a productive rivet technique is a must!

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55 minutes ago, Model Mate said:

 

I've high hopes for my nail caviar for rivets - still means drilling a million holes, but a considerable effort saving over the plastic rod treatment. I'm thinking of doing a Mk VIII international heavy tank next and that's huge, so coming up with a productive rivet technique is a must!

Yes, I’m watching with great interest in how your caviar method works out. It could be a very useful trick. Interesting that you are thinking about the Mk VIII - it’s on my list of possible, one day, who knows when, subjects and, as you say, a good riveting method is a must.

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5 hours ago, Model Mate said:

“soft” detail using plastic.

Just as well I'm less of a perfectionist. :wink:

 

I'm interested to find how your tiny balls fare. Would you need to drill all the way though? I would have thought that just drilling a shallow dimple into the plastic would be enough. 

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I was reading your latest update and I have to admit, your pressed rivets tlook really sharp. I don't have much thin card to play with and I really don't fancy laminating the whole lot though.

 

I'm planning on using a drill bit that's very slightly smaller than the ball - 0.5mm drill for 0.6mm ball. I'm hoping that way they'll all sit at the same height. We'll see....

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After a long weekend of (Finally) cruising the canals again, it’s back to the Wolseley.

I took the opportunity (while waiting for some essential supplies to arrive) to make up a couple of useful tools. These are thanks to the very helpful pointers gleaned from various Britmodeller WIPs – thanks to all of you!

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A circle centre-finder and a jig for cutting bits of rod/tube etc. to set lengths. The circle finder came in useful immediately to find the centres of my wheels.

 

I made up the front leaf springs and axle to go with the rear ones and fitted them to the chassis. I replaced my earlier masking tape straps with thicker lead foil ones – much nicer. The front axle is probably way too thick, looking more like an RSJ but I’m hoping it will be mostly out of view at the end.

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The rings on the end will be the wheel mounting points effectively. I have to admit to making this all up for the most part. There’s no steering mechanism and some of it is pretty chunky…

 

And my nail caviar has arrived, hurrah! I can finally sport the blinging talons I deserve!

 

For those that may not have read earlier posts, I’ve been looking for a source of tiny, tiny balls to carry out some rivet experiments. I found “nail caviar” – tiny balls you glue to your fingernails in order to transform your appearance (apparently). I ordered some 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0mm balls and at the same time, 0.5, 0.7 and 0.9mm drill bits. I’m hoping that by having holes slightly smaller than the balls, they’ll sit at a uniform height in/on the plastic – let’s see….

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I drilled a few holes in a piece of 0.5mm plastic card and popped in the beads. They’re so small that static becomes a bit of a challenge and I found it a little tricky to get them off the cocktail stick I was using and onto each hole. Got the hang of it in the end though.

 

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The 1.0mm (silver) beads appear to actually be a bit smaller than advertised, though maybe not as small as the pink/gold ones. They did fall straight through the 0.9mm holes I’d drilled for them though, so they were fixed onto 0.7mm holes. This way, they appear to sit a little higher than the pink/gold ones (0.8mm balls).

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The 0.6mm (black) balls are tiny and do vary slightly in size – the ones I used were on the larger side. In all cases they settled easily into the holes and a dab of Tamiya extra-thin appears to fix them. Whether they are plastic or whether the melted plastic card in the holes holds them in place I’m not sure, but it works!

 

I also experimented with dropping the smallest balls into oversized holes to see what they’d look like for hinge fixings and so on.

 

I splashed a couple of brushed coats of Humbrol olive green enamel, a Klear coat and applied an oil wash to see how they’d look as a finished product.

The oil wash cleaned the balls – I was a bit impatient to see the results so everything probably wasn’t completely cured, but it may pay to use a primer on the balls. I don’t usually use primer, but maybe it’ll be a good idea for this.

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I dabbed a few drops of lightened base coat on. It’s a bit garish, and for the real thing I’ll drybrush instead:

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All in all, I’m really pleased with the results. Rivets stick in ok, they look regular and they don’t take too long to apply once you get the hang of it. I’ve found that being so small, they behave rather strangely – static maybe, but I’ve found a reasonable way to handle them.

 

1 – dot a bit of extra thin cement in the hole

2 – touch a cocktail stick to your tongue and pick up a few balls

3 – manoeuvre into position

4 – dab a little more extra thin on

 

I’ve also been applying glue to the rear of the open holes. I don’t know if this is strictly necessary, but it doesn’t seem to hurt.

 

Here’s the first of the folded panels – the bonnet section – with rivets applied:

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onwards and upwards!

 

 

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yes - for this project. For bigger stuff the larger balls look better. They're more reliable in size. I'm thinking of doing a Mk VIII at some point and I think the larger balls will suit that. The balls are only a couple of quid per pot and there's thousands of balls in each, so it makes sense to get a selection.

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And that Sir looks like a stunning success! 😀

 

I might be copying that in the foreseeable future. I presume I’ll have to pay generously for the use of your intellectual property? 💵 

 

 

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I’ve spoken to @Gorby and he’s assured me he would gladly pay that much. In fact he’s happy to pick up the tab for me as well. Just to simplify payment you understand.

 

In fact why not send him an invoice right now for - say 500 rivets in advance - $25,000 just so we can get started.

 

Thanks Gorby - very generous of you.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I’ve spoken to @Gorby and he’s assured me he would gladly pay that much. In fact he’s happy to pick up the tab for me as well. Just to simplify payment you understand.

 

In fact why not send him an invoice right now for - say 500 rivets in advance - $25,000 just so we can get started.

 

Thanks Gorby - very generous of you.

I'm sorry to say that after reading that, Gorby died of a ruptured wallet. :who-let-rip:

 

RIP Gorby  :violin:  :weep:

 

Feeling guilty yet? 

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I feel terrible! the world will be robbed forever of a bonkers civil war behemoth in 1/48...!

 

err, I know it's a sensitive time, but who's his executor? ...just to tidy up the financial loose ends you understand...

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12 minutes ago, Model Mate said:

err, I know it's a sensitive time, but who's his executor? ...just to tidy up the financial loose ends you understand...

Errrmm.... He's feeling a bit better now. 

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