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1/35 Poplavko Jeffery Armoured Car - Itchin' the scratch, - it's up on some wheels ...


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5 hours ago, Model Mate said:

(brass maybe?)

 

Multimedia me thinks - brass, plastic, and some resin.  I like working with brass.

 

There is a cunning plan germinating in my grey mush, not as cunning perhaps as Baldrick's most cunning plan but at the least it doesn't involve a pumpkin, shooting a pigeon, or wearing a ladies frock.

 

A couple of my favourite books are Ken Foran's Model Building with Brass ( I think you might like that one ), Simon Bolton's Scratch-Building Model Railway Locomotives and Scratch-Building Model Railway Tank Locomotives.  Lots of food for thought, techniques, and ideas much of which is transferable to other mediums.  I don't have any plans to build a locomotive but you never know.

 

cheers, Graham

 

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On 06/02/2022 at 01:06, ColonelKrypton said:

I have been following the fabulous scratch builds of @Model Mate and @Gorby  of WW1 AFV's and was smitten with the itch to scratch. 

 

Following  @Model Mate lead of turning card model designs into plastic scratch built models, I had a good look at the free to download card model designs on http://www.landships.info/landships/models.html  

 

I was looking for something with simple lines that shouldn't be too difficult or take too long as there is an upcoming group build starting in March that I want to participate in. After much thought the die was cast and the Poplavko Jeffery armoured looked like an interesting subject.
 

p?i=bb8daf6cb2cf0157af5ff9f74188c3ae

 

I decided that I would have a go at scratching a Poplavko Jeffery armoured car. It's design met my criteria and as a bonus there didn't seem to be too much reference material around which should lessen the desire to add infinite layers of extra details. In fact, after spending a lot time looking at the designs of these early WW1 armoured cars I seem to have developed a desire to build not just one but quite likely several more.

 

The card model is a design by Andriy Romanchuk. It is quite well done but there are no instructions which will require a bit of extra thinking on how all the bits and pieces will fit together once converted from card to bits of sheet styrene. It was also in 1/43 scale so required scaling to make in my chosen scale of 1/35.

 

http://www.landships.info/landships/models.html#

 

A bit of background - in a nutshell and some links

 

This armoured car was developed by the commander of the 26th APV, staff Captain Victor Poplavko and the first prototype built in November 1915, and deployed on the South-Western Front.

 

It was an improvised armoured truck was based on the American Jeffery Quad 2-ton 2x2 truck chassis. The Jeffery Quad was also known as the Nash Quad. The Quad became quite popular during World War I and was used by the USA, Russia, France, and Britain and was built in quite large numbers; apparently over 11,000 in 1918 alone. There were 31 examples built of the Poplavko Jeffery armoured car.

 

Lukgraph in Poland made not only a nice kit of the Poplavko Jeffery armoured car, they also produced a couple of different kits of the Nash Quad as well. 

 

https://lukgraph.pl/en_GB/p/Jeffery-Poplavko/100
https://lukgraph.pl/en_GB/p/Jeffery-Quad-Ammunition-truck/96
https://lukgraph.pl/en_GB/p/Nash-Quad-Artillery-truck/76


http://derela.pl/jeffery.htm

http://icvi.at.ua/forum/87-374-1

https://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/russia/Poplavko-Jeffery.php

http://pioneerflightmuseum.org/vehicles/quad.html

For my build I will be using the Evergreen kit 

 

First Steps

 

First step was to scale the 1/43 scale card model to 1/35, an enlargement of approximately 122%. Once the enlarged drawing was printed I could begin cutting outing various bits and pieces as patterns and try and figure out how everything will fit together.

 

p?i=03691222ffe7af72e47d6e55f1ab3b8f

 

And then onto cutting some sheet styrene.

 

So far my enthusiasm is running high. Simple design should make for a simple and relatively quick build.

 

Will I be able to maintain that high level of interest long enough to finish this build? 

 

Will I get stuck on some minor detail and endlessly fuss for days and get nowhere?

 

Stay tuned - to be continued in part 2.

 

cheers, Graham

 

 

Hello Graham


I can only agree with your first post-the MM and Gorby models are top notch and now your contribution adds to that 👍

I don't have much time to post at the moment, but I regularly look at the WW1 posts because I am also a big fan of this topic.
With the rivets you have proven a long breath-respect!

Also many good tips!

 

BTW: if you should ever choose a ship from this era to build-the hull of the Titanic had over 3 million rivets 😁
MD

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Still plugging away at the Poplavko armoured car build but at a somewhat slower pace. The weather has been up and down, spring is just around the corner and I have been distracted by too many other things.

 

I spent time sorting out how I will implement the front wheel wells and gun ports. A couple of prototypes where knocked out and I now think I have some reasonable dimensions and method. No pictures at this time however.

 

Much time was also spent on fussing over how I will make the wheels. Oh those wheels - a number of interesting pictures showing their general shape and up until recently only a vague idea of their real size.  Judging by the base card model this build was based on the size of the model's wheels would be around 25mm diameter overall with a tread width of about 5mm.

 

Just the other day while searching for information on the Nash Quad truck I stumbled across some good details.  Jefferey was the manufacture of the original Quad truck but was soon bought out by the Nash company around about 1917. The Poplavko armoured car would have been based on the Jefferey truck. The wheels on the Jefferey truck had a smooth outer profile whereas the later Nash version has what look like reinforcing ribs around the center of the wheel. 

 

Searching for Nash Quad I stumbled across some very interesting information.

 

Did you know that the Jefferey / Nash Quad ( hereinafter simply Quad ) was a four wheel drive vehicle ( 4wd ). Not only that but also had 4 wheel steering and could climb a 49% grade ( about 26 degrees ) incline. All of this in a vehicle powered by a 4 cylinder 4.8liter engine of 28hp having a 3m wheelbase and a 8.5m turning radius. The axels are fixed with the drive shafts above the axle turning reduction gears in the inner side of the wheels hubs. 

 

p?i=7caf1b03f310f6a1af134bf4713eb929

 

There were many post war versions of the Quad including utility vehicles as in the picture above, dump trucks, delivery trucks, and so on as well as numerous variations in military service during the war. In fact,  I have found enough interesting data on the Quad that I am tempted to build a model of same.

 

p?i=aa1de91e8860231b0029a920d8a3dd54

 

But back to the wheels.  In my searching for Quad information I found a pdf of an operations manual for the Quad as well as data indicating that the wheels where 36 inches in diameter with a 5 inch tread ( width across the outside edge of the tire ) so now I have some dimensional data with which I can scale my wheels.

 

https://radionerds.com/images/3/3d/HANDBOOK_OF_THE_NASH_QUAD_TRUCK_4017-A_AND_-L.pdf  for anyone interested

 

Have a look around that website, there is some vehicle information there too and not just about radio fitments.

 

Within that manual is some very useful details on the wheels and how they all work.

 

p?i=154a1200e1aaf0cd60c1c3e0938cc616

 

p?i=178c87916a5d6df9378a9f611c41d0d0

 

Just goes to show what can found when you turn over enough rocks.

 

It is too bad that I had not found this much details before I started my build as I might just have spent a lot more time starting with a details chassis and drive train. In any case this build started as and was meant to be a quick and simple scratchbuild of an interesting WWI era armoured car. 

 

I am surprised that there is not a mainstream model kit of the Quad after seeing how much used the Quad was. Lukgraph has or had a couple of expensive resin kits and there is an interesting 1/48 scale Quad as well.

 

https://lukgraph.pl/en_GB/searchquery/quad/1/phot/5?url=quad

 

hps://wisemanmodelservices.com/O-SCALE-1-48-NASH-QUAD-FLAT-BED-TRUCK-KIT?search=quadtt

 

Copper State Models makes some very nice 1/35 WWI era vehicles as does Roden - perhaps once the mess in Eastern gets sorted out there may yet be hope for a mainstream Quad kit.

 

cheers, Graham

 

Edited by ColonelKrypton
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  • ColonelKrypton changed the title to 1/35 Poplavko Jeffery Armoured Car - Itchin' the scratch, Chapter 4, fussing over the smaller details ...

Good Sunday to all.

 

I had a minor set back today.

 

Seems I somehow managed to delete a some data on my computer which contained almost all of my model stuff reference material including all of the photo's and drawings of the Poplavko Jeffery armoured car. A bit frustrating but I am looking at this as a good opportunity to start fresh as my model stuff file dumping ground was not well organized and it was beginning to get difficult to find things. 

 

This means I will have to rely on my memory for some of the small details and the handful of photo's and drawings I had already printed. Should be enough as I am getting close to the point where all but a few small details are not yet complete and the biggest bit yet to finish are the wheels. Thankfully I did have a couple of drawings of photo's of the wheels printed out with scribbly notes.

 

Some time was found to spend at the workbench today and I cut and fitted the gun shields and started work on the making the fenders for the rear wheels. I had previously finished the front wheel wheels and fenders but lost the pictures in my minor set back.

 

The gun shields are made from 1/8" Evergreen angle stock cut the length using my RP Toolz chopper.

 

p?i=7d6b4a2dbdad81f915cd1200937c50f2

 

The 1/8" Evergreen angle plastic is a bit thick at around 0.5mm so it was necessary to thin them out a bit.  No problem, use a simple holder made from the square ends of a couple of cheap bamboo chopsticks to hold the pieces and sand away.  I was able to reduce the plastic quite nicely about 0.015".

 

p?i=d2adf64baef8f2e3cb886517977a695e

 

The angles where then trimmed to size using a couple of simple jigs.  Jigs are very helpful, some can be very simple and others quite complex. One side of the angle needed to trimmed in width. This is where a jig that was nothing more than a bit 0.75mm plastic card was used, stood on it's narrow edge, straight edge tight against the jig, remove jig and trim angle piece.  If there was only one such piece to do then making the cut by eye without the jig would have sufficed but there were a total of eight to do and it was desirable that they all the same.

 

p?i=ab51546581abe1f0a3d529a455178481

 

The ends of the remaining wide side then needed to be trimmed so that the narrow bits extended past the ends. This is where the second jig came into use.  The angle piece is aligned against the side of a straightedge, the jig is put in place so that the end can be cut consistently on all eight pieces, first one end, then the other. A bit of trimming up some sandpaper and the gun shield would be done and could be glued in place.

 

p?i=f71d6cfbe7f5a72516c4b102229bc8ed

 

 

As previously noted, I lost my earlier phots of the front wheel wells and fenders being made. The basic steps where to cut a piece of 0.75mm plastic card to the shape of the opening and then glue a strip of plastic strip around the edge.  I first tried 0.010" plastic but it looked too thin even though it close to scale for the original's approximately 8mm thick steel. After three attempts I arrived at a suitable shape and settled on using 0.015" plastic card as it looked right. Gluing up the fender piece to the former was an easy matter using my 123 blocks and another suitable weight in the form of what is called a bench block. I find a bench block very useful - it is weighty, has a V groove for holding round shapes for drilling holes, and can be used as a small anvil when the need arises. Bench blocks are commonly used by jewellers, watch makers, and gunsmiths. 

 

p?i=68da85e783844ecc11928182081b3210

 

The photo actually shows one of the rear fenders being glued up.

 

The gun shields are in place just needing some rivets to be added - four for each of the gun shields at the ends of the narrow bits, front fenders and wheel wells are in place. Rear fenders are work in progress. This is where the build is now at.

 

p?i=20163321f4cbdd05155427056fa4ea59

 

The photo also shows the patterns I made for the front and read fenders. Patterns like this are easy to work from.  I trace around the pattern using a narrow tip Sharpie. Cut out following the middle of the Sharpie line and then carefully sand back the edge until all of the Sharpie marking is gone - perfect every time!

 

The M3/M4 group build starts next weekend and I have plans for building something for that activity. I may have the rear fenders in place and a few more smaller details done by then but I don't think I will have made much headway on the wheels.  I plan on working on the M3/M4 group build project and this one concurrently. Loosing most of my reference material will permit me to not fuss so much over this build so perhaps that is a good thing in it's own way.

 

Til next time - same Bat time, same Bat channel ...

 

cheers, Graham 

 

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Good Monday all,

 

Time for another update.

 

I am still fussing over how I am going to make the wheels for this vehicle but I have been playing around with some ideas. As an interim step I hacked together some simple wheels using wood rings and some plastic bits just so I could get the armoured car up on some wheels so I could start to measure up and fuss over how the wheels will be installed and to get the sit of the vehicle looking right.

 

p?i=3eb9238458eee582c01c62090314e284

 

The hacked up temporary wheels are a bit too large in diameter but overall width is pretty close so they will help when I am making and fitting the proper wheels.

 

Some of the smaller details like the gun port shields and some riveting has been done - the riveting just never seems to be complete and there is still some more to do. Details like the drivers visor, radiator cover, handles, and so on will be added after the wheels are sorted out.

 

The M3/M4 group build has started and I have started something for that activity.  The Poplavko armoured car will be set aside for a while as work on a M3 Grant. Whenever I need a diversion from the M3 I will fuss over the Poplavko some more but in any case updates will less frequent.

 

to be continued ...

 

cheers, Graham 

 

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  • ColonelKrypton changed the title to 1/35 Poplavko Jeffery Armoured Car - Itchin' the scratch, - it's up on some wheels ...

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