Grant

[ALPHA]

Liking that hinge technique Nick ...great results....those rivets... man that's some dedication....think when I do mine...I'll just get some seamstress needles/pins ....what the Heck... I'm Lazy


ALPHA

[NickDonitz]

Got rivets on the brain , again they arnt the right shape and if im going to all this effort I want it to be right

[ALPHA]

Got rivets on the brain , again they arnt the right shape and if im going to all this effort I want it to be right

A friend of mine uses HO scale rail spikes...the shapes the head with pliers ...not sure if that suggestion will help..but they come out pretty nice

ALPHA

[NickDonitz]

Which brings me to bogies. The early North African campaign Grants were fitted with the early vvss bogies on both the petrol and diesel engined versions used by the 8th Army. These were interchangeable with the later bogies with the trailing return rollers but the HL Sherman chassis comes with the even later cranked return rollers which seem to be a 1/16th standard set up for Shermans

[NickDonitz]

Firstly I removed the bogie taking the plug out of the centre and unscrewing it, very neat little units, Its a shame to cut them up but needs be... I separated the parts which just pull apart with a little gentle persuasion then cut down each side removing the trailing return roller arm. Then cut across the bogie just above the hole used to mount the bogie to the chassis, this gives the correct width and height .. You end up with a flat piece from the front shaped using the outer raised casting edge (being hard to describe there are four strengthening vertical's the two outer's give the shape).... the outer's as I shall call them I trimmed down... these would be formed again by the side panels I had to make to give the right shape to the bogie. In the picture (a little fuzzy sorry) you get a better idea of what I mean. the same trimming was done to the rear piece when it was sawn then sanded to the correct width it leaves what you could call a tab each side which I hoped would add stiffness to the structure A flat connecting piece was glued to these side panels the front and rear were put together with the two metal bars holding it and the sides and centre were glued on , care taken not to glue it to the back as it needs to come appart

[NickDonitz]

Now I had the right height and width had to make the mounting for the return roller which I decided should be out of brass for durability. I worked out the shape id need to give the right position and cut and folded them from the appropriate thickness of brass. A slot was cut in the centre piece the right width and two vertical slots were cut matching up to the inner casting lines I mentioned earlier, this gave it enough ridgidity to take what pressure the track bouncing on it might give out, a similar mount is made for the rear. Sounds quick but it took ages. But not to worrt only six sets to make.

[NickDonitz]

Im now at the stage of having the right shape bogies with the right top roller brackets. This needs to be mounted the the Grant hull. Having chopped through the mounting point of the original I drilled a hole in the hull wide enough for the threaded rod I was about to glue in the bogies. the pic shows an up turned bogie with the rod sitting on the folds from the roller mounts, with the front and rear pieces slid together

[NickDonitz]

Just some clarifying pics from the earlier development of ideas for making this unit, which might fill in the gaps. They are here because I didn't use the method in the end but thought id show them to give you an idea as to what I was thinking. As I couldn't use the original springs I had to think of alternatives so I made two spring holders, that can be seen in the last pic. These mounted in the suspension arms as can be seen, the idea being the central spring would fit over and them and the spring held in place. The pictures also show the front and rear pieces just after they were cut up but before they were trimmed to accept the side panels. Anyway the spring wanted to shift to much and rather than keep reworking the idea I binned it

[NickDonitz]

One of the previous pictures gives a good idea of the difference in shape of the two bogies, to get the front panel correct at the bottom where the cross pins go through I had to gently dremel them to give the correct shape, in effect it looks like the bottoms are lengthened whilst the tops are shortened.

I sealed up all the holes and gaps in the bogies and greased the inside of the back plate, and filled them with casting resin. What was a relatively frail structure is now a durable strong block holding the threaded rod and roller mounts all firmly

[NickDonitz]

With the basics finished and all the bogies on their way I added a cast effect and foundry marks. Theres still a lot of work to do on them like spring mounts and nut details not to mention working springs MK4