A Tale from the Tin Shed,28mm Traction Engine & 8"Howitzer from Cereal Packet

[tin shed gamer]

Moving swiftly on.
A simple but but golden rule of scratch building field guns,cannon,etc.Reguardless of materials used is build the barrel first.
Its easy to build to the diameter of the finished barrel .But not to build a barrel into a set gap.(no matter how good you are,you will always waste time in the fit).
The barrel is 6cm in length.As for construction There are two methods that work well with card.
The first will fill the air with sounds that would make a nun blush,and is really for someone with a sound skill base as card is unforgiving when rolled tight.
You form a small tube with a full length but joint to make the inside of the barrel ,then repeat with multipul layers until your happy with the thickness of the tube.
The second is quicker and easier.Roll a peice of card into a tube glue the full length edge down .When dry sand back the ridge of the flap to smooth out the profile of the tube.
Then paint the inside of the tube.Glue card over the muzzle end,trim it to the barrel profile.
Then find the centre of the covered muzzle (circle of card) puncture a small hole,in the centre,enlarge the hole with a cocktail stick,then a ballpoint pen,untill your happy with the hole size/muzzle bore.
Its best to rotate the cocktail stick and pen,as if they were a drill bit .As you'll get a much smoother hole.

[tin shed gamer]

I think it's easier to post a quick drawing of a basic side plate rather than try to run through it in words.This should be enough to construct a basic.gun shape as every thing else on the gun is down to personel taste.But I will.post pictures of the guns carriage as I build it.If people are unsure.Otherwise I'll wait until I've finished the whole gun.

[Constable Bertrand]

Matthew asks for pictures as you go please Mark. Just post them all at the end to make it easier for yourself.

Cheers
Matt.

[tin shed gamer]

Sorry Matt I've not replied sooner this month has gone off in directions I didn't expect.
 I've been asked to fit in to my work load a couple of Viking longships for a display game at York.There to be made in card of all things.

Right back to the. field gun.
You'll need to make the sides of the gun carriage side plates four ply. So in total you'll need eight sides of card.The trick is to make a template similar to the line drawing.Then make only four copies by drawing around it ,and cut out the shapes.Then glue the four shape on to card and cut around the raised shape.You'll end up with four double thickness side pannels.Then glue two of these four pannels to gether to form a pannel four peices of card thick.Now join the remaining two double thickness pannels to gether to form the otherside of the carriage.
Why not just cut out eight pannels and layer them up to form a side?
The method I use my seem a bit odd.But cutting out the same shape eight times and having them all match is very difficult to achive.
How ever this method cuts down the number of preform parts to only two at every stage.even though you still actually cut out eight pannels.So the margin of error is reduced and the fit made easier as there is never more than one application of glue and only two parts.At each stage.(You've only got two hands to hold parts together so why make more than you can hold in one go.)
So with that old world logic done.I'll post some pictures of this Stage tomorrow.As my technology is rebelling once agian.
Mark.

[tin shed gamer]

 Sorry I may have had the odd glass of red with my last post .

[FramFramson]

Stone the crows!

[Constable Bertrand]

  I think that does the trick...
So that's where you've been hiding these last weeks! Very impresive!

Here's my humble, scrabby, uneven and poorly constructed engine


Cheers
Matt

[dampfpanzerwagon]

I like the progress on the gun.

Tony

[tin shed gamer]

Matt,I think your daft .I think it looks great and fits well with your figure.The colour choice and weathering look great(wish I'd used them.)The point is you've a painted traction engine,which cost next to nothing to do.Alright in your case an alarming amount of the evil glue .

[Constable Bertrand]

Haha too right Mark, even so a box of cereal I'd have eaten anyway, and $2.50 for glue! Not bad

[tin shed gamer]

Sorry Matt alittle unfair of me.With out looking through all my posts,I don't think I mentioned that I use the bottled evil glue,rather than the tubes as its easier to control the flow,and same volume of glue lasts a lot longer than it does in a tube.
But its not a bad return on your investment.
You'll be able to make a train using the same methods.Which shouldn't cost much more than the traction engine did.
Mark.

[Constable Bertrand]

The size of the nozzle and the small areas I was working on were the real issue Mark, perhaps a bottle could help, perhaps it would be just as messy.

Thanks Mark, through the entire build I was wondering how stryrene would go, I think my next build will be trying those techniques to scratchbuild some railcars in styrene. Thanks Mark! The finish may be smoother with styrene.

Then I can try a tri motor

Cheers
Matt.

[tin shed gamer]

Its not a material I use very often.I know jimbibbly is using it to build a castle(actually James make's me look like I've got A.D.D.the amount of time and effort he's putting into it.either that or he's locked in a tower somewhere with no mini bar or tv ).
Card modelling is my low tech CAD system for when I need to problem solve.As its quick to do and if you can make it in card you can make it in plastic.
Right back to the point.I'll paint the thing up and post the pictures.But I'll be leaving the land train for a while as I've a couple of card long ships to make for the York show.
But I'll post a workbench topic on them as I build them as they'll need a few other bits and bob's to make them show worthy.
Mark.

[Constable Bertrand]

Looking forward to it Mark its a joy to see what you come up with and it's certainly inspirational as well to cut items smaller and try more detail.

Cheers
Matt

[tin shed gamer]

Here's a couple of pictures of the finished gun.I used the whole thing in a convoy game today.It'd fair to say I sculpt better than I roll dice.