Scratchbuilding C&Cs Mammoth Tank

[Munty]

I'll pm you now blimp, would be awesome if you have the plastic bits going unused Still stalling on the material purchase but think I will probably go with the 5mm foamboard soon if noone has anything bad to say about building with the stuff :p If I get it wrong it'll be a pretty early death for the project though so please give me any feedback possible before I go ahead!!!

[Munty]

Finally got some advice on Foamboard from a guy called Jon at graphicair (very nice guy if anyone needs supplies ) He's told me that foamboard is good for stationary builds but not so recommended for moving ones. Also there's a possible issue with taking it outside as it's somewhat absorbent if left untreated. It probably would be treated if I were to use it but that's besides the point.

Essentially it seems to come down to two things. How much I'm able to spend and how much I'm willing to compromise...

As plasticard will be an 80 odd quid order I'm leaning heavily towards the foamboard which is less than half that delivered. The possibility that it may be unsuitable for rigging up as an RC vehicle is very disappointing though so I'm not sure what to do from this point on. If anybody out there knows or a cheap source of plasticard PELASE let me know as right now I'd be happy to spend £50 on the stuff but no more. I need a lot but it's still just plastic, I don't see why I should spend such a fortune on the stuff.

Anyway I'll give this thread a few more days and hope to attract some good websites for this stuff and failing that I'll start another one asking for it specifically as I can believe not many people who know about it are reading this thread! As always advice is vital, it's why I'm here! Thanks in advance for any help.

[blimp]

I rephrased the search as 'styrene sheet' . . . and . . . http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trks ... Categories" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; any better ?

[Munty]

Thanks Blimp, scrolled down past a lot of teeny tiny A4 auctions till I found this :- http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Styrene-Plasticar ... 500wt_1156

I'm absolutely certain he's mistyped the auction as you'll notice the sheets are supposedly '92cm x 610cm (just over A1)' and I don't think I need to point out that an A1 sheet is a bit less than 6meters long It's possible he means the sheets in piles and the measurements are supposed to be 61x92 which makes sense (A1 being 59.46 x 84.09cm)

If that's the correct dimensions then lets do some maths... I need 18 A3 and 2 A2, round that up to 10 A2 as I'll save on wasted offcuts and then a final figure of 5 sheets of this stuff will be more than enough. That would net me everything I need for a touch over £40 delivered and that's a price I'd be happy enough to pay. It's only 1.5mm but I could use the spare material and offcuts to double it up in places and reinforce joins and so on.

Just looking at this site too as advised by Dylan http://www.trylon.co.uk/products/vacforming.htm but I'm not sure which of those plastics is the right kind to build out of. If one of them is right though the prices are rock bottom Think we may be back in business thanks to you guys and all the great help

[dsvirus]

I have only just seen this build. Looks good. I am a gamer too. Cut my teeth on red alert back in the day and used to play link games via 2 playstations and two 2 tv's. Now I play Company of Heroes! Its a great game with lots of tanks!

So do you need plastic tracks and gearboxes etc?

This is going to be an interesting project.

[Munty]

I love company of Heroes, great game I do indeed need plastic tracks (for now) As a temporary solution I'll be going with SaxonDog's suggestion of double tracks and wheels and such. I'd like to think they'll be replaced with custom made parts someday but that can wait until after I have a finished build I think!

For even the most basic construction though I'm going to need 4 pairs of Tiger tracks (chosen them as they seem to be the most commonly owned and upgraded kits) and 8-16 drive wheels from the same kits. 8 will do as I can use them on the visible outside tracks but ideally I should double that for 2 on each width of track for more drive and consistent appearance.

Further down the line I'm going to need 4 gearboxes, one for each track, and a way to turn the turret as well. I may or may not allow for cannon elevation but the model doesn't really provide a solution for that so would need modifying slightly. I also did some measuring last night and have figured out some staggering numbers. The cannon on my Tiger is about 21cm long from end to end, the ones for the mammoth will be almost twice that size and measure in at about 40cm each making them longer than the entire Tiger tank The barrels have an external diameter of 30mm and I'm as of yet uncertain as to how much I can narrow this down without it looking disporoportional to the rest of the model. I imagine I'll be able to taper it to at least 25mm over the length of the barrel with an internal diameter of maybe 20mm giving the real-world equivalent 320mm (or 12") guns! The largest tank armaments fitted to date are around 120mm I think so that's a rather substantial shell lobber lol Bear in mind it would be a 14" shell if I didn't taper the barrel :p

I also spent yesterday figuring out exactly how much material I'll need for the main bulk of the build and have some figures now of A3=uselessly small, A2=9, A1=4. On top of that I can get by with 4 sheets from a guy on ebay but it's only 1.5mm thick or 9 sheets from Trylon (thanks to Dylan on this site for his advice) and both seem to be around the £30 mark which is brilliant if correct! Going to give them a call today and hopefully it will result in an order being placed!

That means the build can commence in a week or so depending on delivery times, so if anyone out there has some plastic tiger parts please let me know what you want for them as I need to start stockpiling

[Munty]

Order placed! Managed to get hold of 9 sheets of 2mm HIP sheet at 457x508mm which is bigger enough for both the turret base and hull floor to be made as single pieces. I figure I'll probably reinforce the biggest parts with thin ply or similar for further strength though (especially as the hull floor will house all the hardware and it's about 70cm long :p)

Should have the delivery with me early next week but there may be one final delay with starting the build as I also got confirmation on an order of scenery for another project which is due to be delivered at about the same time... As the other project is nearly finished it clearly takes precedence over this one which hasn't even started yet so I'll probably be a bit slow getting into this build but it is at least definitely going to happen now which is very cool

Some things which I'd like some advice on before I start out are aspects of detailing. I'd like someone to tell me about welds, rivets and additional armour plating. Consider that my track guards are over 30cm long and will be formed by a single piece of material. That's way too big to not be formed out of several pieces of armour plating and in this example there will actually be 5 plates per corner so I need a few ideas as to how is best to make them. My thought would be a thin modelling card or similar but I'd like something that looks as good as possible at the joins as the largest plate on the track guard will still be over 10cm long at it's extremes.

Also going to need some rather man-sized rivets for some of the track and turret plating so advice on that would be good too (I guess it's just a case of sticking a little thingy on but that's a bit vague :p) Last but not least, I love how some of the guys here have added weld lines to their kits and think for something this big I really need as much detail as possible to avoid it becoming a plain wall of steel in places. For this though I not only need to know how to make the welds but also where they're typically found on real life tanks. I'm looking at late cold war technology if it makes any difference but like I said, it's all about adding detail to something that originates from a very old game that had very little of it

[Von kraftwerk]

Me again trying to get you into plastruct,Hex rod from 1.5mm to 4-5mm for Bolts,rivets went out of vogue mostly in WW2 they shear when hit and the internal part becomes a projectile inside the tank,welds are where ever armour plates are joined to each other or where cast sections are joined to plate sections facetted turrets like M1 Abrams dont have much in the way of visible welds on some surfaces,some plates are made by bending and or made of laminated chobham,future technology may not involve welding as we know it and may undergo some bonding process that involves knitting together sub atomic particles and moleculer fusion,so artistic freedom here,bolts would still be used to attach and remove skirts,racks,bins,and other bits,but a future tank designer will seek to make the armoured shell as homogenous as possible,plastruct square and rectangular tube will make good reinforcing ribs internally,

[Von kraftwerk]

ps,if you dont want flat plain armour how about panels of mesh like stuff to reproduce a futuristic protective material,this could be a complete coverage like WW2 German zimmerit,or in replacable panels,designed to diffuse IR,laser,or thermal guided or thermal imaging,maybe its a mutable material that absorbs the impact of a future particle beam weapon,an experimental US tank has a main gun that has a diamond shape cross section,just food for thought :)told you I was bonkers

[Munty]

Thanks Von K! I'm not looking too far into the future as the original game that featured the Mammoth tank was set in the 90s and it's originally of Soviet design (fictionally of course) I think I can almost build the armour plating as if it's simply a later addition to the design as that's how it looks in some of the images I have. So I can have these armour plates quite literally bolted onto the original structure just for some additional protection. The carriages are heavily plated ant the top of the turret is too but most other places are without additional armour so this could quite easily be treated as a post-production development. I'll decide as I go but the welds are something I'll need to decide before beginning construction so I'll take a look into that tomorrow!