Old Git

Pete, I work in 1/6th scale because the eyes (and now the hands) can no longer cope with the fiddly stuff in smaller scales. But also because I've been collecting all the parts of an old MoD model Bailey Bridge which happens to be 1/6th scale. It's like a giant Meccano set and so far I have a fair bit of bridging and a full set of Pontoons (it's a very, very big thing). But there's no point in having Bridge if you don't have something to dress it with hence the need for a good looking Cromwell. Baileys and Cromwell's give you the 'great swan' up through northern Europe (and I might add the 'great swan' was very much faster than the much vaunted 1940 German Blitzkrieg in the opposite direction). However, the further up the scales you go the harder it is to find stuff that works effectively well in that scale. With 1/6th scale there's a small, but determined, market which can be plundered for ancillary stuff like figures and whatever to dress your model. They're not always ideal but they can be made better if you're prepared to invest the time and effort. I'm sure that sounds familiar to a lot of vehicle restorers. For instance I have a section of 1/6th scale sappers that I intend to place on or about my bridge when I set it up and a couple of Tankies in denim tank suits for the Cromwell (when it's finished). In addtion to that there are things like fuel cans, weapons such as Brens and .50 cals which can all be added to the model when complete. So, 1/6th scale is a good scale to work in if you want to look at completeness. The only problem with it (like a lot of military modelling) is that it's dominated by German equipment, followed by US equipment. For instance you can buy Tigers, Panzer II's, IV's, Shermans, Kubes, Schwimmers and Jeeps all in 1/6th scale but there's not much in the way of British vehicles and if your in anyway nationalistic (wot like I am) then that can stick in the craw a wee bit. So, we have to make our own and hope that others catch on. If my Cromwell turns out to be rather good then I may look at the possibility of offering it for sale as a kit...but that's much further down the line at the moment. There are guys over on the UKTC forum (that's a forum dedicated to RC vehicles in all scales) who have got stuff from 1/16th scale all the way up to 1/4 scale. However, the 1/4 scale stuff is very rare and precisely because they tend to be one off labours of love made by some chap working on an old lathe at the back of his garage! Again when you get to those very large scales you do find that you also need to be able to hand make a much more passable figure to stick in the turret as a commander. That said though, there are now companies who will scan your head and print you a copy of your own head in whatever scale you want. This can then be added to a torso and arms and used as a tank commander. Now that would be cool, a 1/4 size tank with a commander sporting a copy of your own head! Add some animatronics and off you go!

Pete, thanks for that mate, that's a cracking picture (the best I've seen) and answers several questions I've had. It goes a long way towards explaining what the naked FD cone looks like, below you'll see a picture of the one I made based on what I could deduce from various drawings and pictures. The thing that always flummoxed me was the top, flat part oft he cone. Without any specific knowledge I had to guess... I don't suppose you have any info on what size the gear wheel and pinion wheels were and how many teeth they had? And, just as importantly, this picture also appears to show the Newton Type s.600 shock absorbers. The original shocks seemed to us a split casing, with one smaller diameter casing sliding up and down inside the other. From the drawings I have here it would appear that the later s.600 type had a single smooth casing but I could not be sure of that until is saw a picture and here it is on this picture! Even The 'spring casing anchorage' and the trunnions apepar to be different from the earlier versions. God but these Cromwells are confusing... an anoraks delight though! Here's a pic of the shocks on the Centaur and as you can see it's made of two casings, one which slides inside the other. The drawing I was working too showed the s.600 in sections and seemed to imply that it was a single casing, which of course implied a different design to that used on the early Cent's and Cromwell's, but I wanted to see a pic before I made that decision for sure! As it happens, last night when I was looking for the Rolls Royce book I found an old box file which I went through this morning. In the bottom of it I found a much better drawing of the Shock from a Cromwell IV. I must have had this from the Tank Museum library and, not appreciating its worth at the time, filed it away. It literally was the last page in the bottom of the box!!!

Presumably the Cavalier swing arms looked differently too, or did they look identical? Here's a couple pics of my new model, swing arms...

Between pages 68 - 70 in the RR book there appears a copy of a RR memo dated May 26th 1942 and part of this memo contains a list of works 'initiated by Belper' but being 'carried out by other companies'. One of these is "Improved Shock Absorbers - Newton & Bennett". My interpretation of this memo would suggest that these improvements were destined for the Cromwell III which was due to enter production in November 1942. So it would appear that the shocks were upgraded during the development of the Cromwell which may explain why the ones I saw on the stripped down Centaur look different to the drawings I have for the shocks on the Cromwell IV

Pete, thanks for the recommendation on that book mate but I have it already. The problem is that (for whatever reason) David Fletcher decided to make that book about the Cromwell I and I'm trying to track down the differences for the Cromwell IV. Not always easy but since I've been on this forum I've discovered a lot of very, very interesting bits of information that you just can't get from the books or the drawings! You just can't beat very good pics of stripped down Cromwells, Centaurs and Comets for giving a good indication of what's what. I have a drawing of what I believe to be the Newton S6 shock absorbers and I've found some pics of a stripped down Centaur with the road springs and shocks exposed. The shocks on the Centaur don't look anything like the S6 shocks so from that I deduced that the later Cromwells had their shocks upgraded as part of the Fighting Spec. Thanks to the referral to the Rolls Royce book I found this on pg 184... This appeared in a section on giving a "resume of the work undertaken by Belper to improve the Original Cromwell". Incidentally, I bought my paperback copy of that Rolls Royce book for £15:00 direct from RRHT (Rolls Royce Heritage Trust). I now see the same paperback edition on Amazon for a whopping £82!!! I'm sure it can still be had from RRHT though at the normal cover price?

Ah, now that's one I haven't come across before!!! Thanks for the heads-up. I have that book (somewhere) I'll just go see if I can find it (no mean feat in the cubby hole I call my office!) Pete

Thanks Pete, looking forward to it mate! I hope you got those files I uploaded for you mate? Let me know if they're OK. Adrian thanks for the reply mate, you looked like you were about to type Instruction Manual but then thought better of it, or is that part of the model number? From what I'm reading the Cromwell IV used a two-way hydraulic shock absorber but from the pics I've seen of a stripped Centaur it would appear that they used a different type of shock. Of course I'm no expert but it does look different to the drawings I have of, what I presume to be, the S6 shocks. If there was a change I presume that it was part of the FS upgrades?

Paul, can you recommend a place to buy these spray cans? I've just been to the FoW web site but can't find a listing for Bishop Green. TiA Pete

Does anyone know what the difference was between the shock absorbers on the Centaur and the Cromwell IV (FS)? Were they both made by Newton & Bennett and would you happen to know what the model numbers were? Any pics of the Cromwell shocks would be most welcome as well? Rgds Pete

Pete, do you have any pics of the business ends of the roadspring and shock absorber cases? The parts were they connect to the frame and to the bell-cranked, swing arms? I've got the drawings and some basic pictures but I'd like a few up-close shots so I can see how they actually look! Apologies if I'm being a pest mate but it's all going to a good cause. I'll post up a few pics of the running gears parts that I've already made so you can see what your pics have helped me do!

Fantastic Picture and video Pete! I love the gubbins! You can look at all the pretty pictures of spruced up Cromwells (and they do look nice) but seeing nice close-up shots of under the engine deck and inside the fighting compartment are even more beautiful. Keep 'em coming mate...I'm hooked!!!

Pete, that's fantastic mate, it's just a kick ass sound recording it's also a fantastic up-close video of the running engine. All round beautiful mate. Thanks a lot mate, I can certainly make use of that!!!

Well done chaps...what a fantastic sound and a great video recording too! I am deeply envious...my little 1/6th scale model seems quite paltry now! Thanks also for the info on the side plates Rick, I shall have a look for Kevin's Centaur pics!

I've got a quick question re the OSP's (outer side plates) on the Cromwell. These are the plates that cover the road springs. I know that they hung on the side in four sections but how did the mate together, if they mated together at all. Was there a 'lip' where the plates met or did they simply butt up together? Can anyone shed any light on this? Anyone got any pics?

Shame about the bearing mate but better it went now than later. Great news about the engine though, I do hope Pete can get it recorded, I can't wait to hear it roar. I'm loving those pics Rick, especially that internal shot of the mantlet...In the words of Frank Carson "that's a cracker!"

That's a lovely close-up of the commanders Cupola Rick, not often we get such a good pic of an essential piece of the Cromwell. Got any more close-ups? Those brass rainwater channels for instance, or shots of the underside? Rgds Pete

I agree, I am saving all these pics for the same reason as I eventually plan to model the Bedford QL in 1/6th scale!

I'd love to see all your pics, if you don't mind sharing them?

Fantastic Pictures Rick, I'm loving these mate!!!

3D printing has been around for a while now, it's also know by the term rapid prototyper or additive manufacturing. It's a simple process really. You take a spool of ABS plastic and feed it as a filament into the head of the printer where it is liquefied as it is laid down. As someone said earlier it builds up the component, micro-layer by micro-layer and it cools quickly as it's laid down; in so doing it can build quite complex shapes. In fact it can be used to build a solid housing with a working spur gear mechanism inside, like a ship in a bottle, only everything is made in situ and works as it should do. It's because it layers the component from the bottom up that it is called 'additive manufacturing' as opposed to traditional technologies such as machining which 'removes' waste material to make the component. At the moment the high-end machines cost in the region of $6,000 to $10,000. The $1500 machines are cheap and dirty hobby machines and they're pretty much defined by the slowness of their printing process and the roughness of the finished article. However, they will improve and soon 3D printers will be something everyone has at home, much like everyone has inkjet printers at home today. To give you an idea you have to look back to the early days of desktop printing. Anyone who worked in an office enviroment in the 70's/80's will remember the large, heavy iron, dot matrix printers that we first had. These things were massive and pounded out their print jobs. They were so noisy we had to keep them in sound proof boxes, in separate rooms. And this was before the madness of health and safety...we put them in sound proof boxes because we HAD too! The Dot marix printers got smaller but they we're still very basic and we needed a break through the first came with the Lasert printer and the first of those, released commercially about 1981, cost in the region of $17,000. By 1984 HP were making the Laserjet desktop printer for sub-$5,000 and today you can have one at home for a couple hundred quid. It, took more than 20 years for the tech to filter down but then the computer industry was still in it's infancy and the desktop PC hadn't really taken off. By the time the desktop PC takes off it took the printers with it and they, inevitably, became cheaper. I was involved in writing printer drivers for very many printers that appeared throughout the 90's and the work my colleagues and I did helped to pull the complexity out of the printers and thus make them even cheaper. We wrote printer drivers for HP, Xerox, Canon, Microsoft, Compaq, Samsung, Oce, Man Tally, Olivetti, and Epson! Remember those fantastic Epson Stylus printers which produced stunning colour pictures...we did that! They made the piezoelectric inkjet heads but we got the absolute best out of them, that was our thing and we did it spectacularly well for Epson. If you looked in the 'About Box' of any of their printer drivers back then you'd have seen the name of "Software 2000, Oxford, England"! In fact it's probably still there in the current crop of drivers as I'm sure they're still using our code. Anyway the point is that once the pressure built up the behind the printer, the need to own a printer started to drive resources and ideas to solving the practical problems and..., the prices came down. The same is happening with 3D printers right now, there's an Israeli compnay making sub-$6,000 3D printers and the low-end hobby machines are improving all the time. The pressure is building up behind them and now all that's needed is for someone to invent a type of piezoelectric head for the 3D printer. It will not be long before everyone will have one in their homes(Think Star Trek replicator, to go with the communication devices (mobile phones) and the Powderject hypodermic). The tricky bit about 3D printers is the need to master a 3D CAD program such as AutoCAD, Solidworks or Solid Edge (which the part above was first designed on). These are very high-end packages and as someone I wa talking to recently said, "cost more than my blimmin house!". But, I'm not sure that everyone will need to learn CAD. What I believe will happen to 3D printers is that we'll use them to replace broken parts on items we own. For instance if you break the tray on something like a Blueray player then you simply go to the manufactures website and type in your serial number. If you're still within warranty then you get the CAD file for free, if you're out of warranty then you pay for it. To protect the copyright you won't get the CAD file to download instead it'll be delivered direct to your printer and once printed the file is deleted from the printer and you're left with the part you need. Simple! This will revolutionise a lot of things in as much folks will throw away less stuff when it can be so easily repaired and firms will slim their overheads because they won't have to keep stocks of spare parts to service their products in the field! I see Women sitting at home designing new shoes for themselves by combining pre-existing CAD designs for soles, heels, uppers, straps and buckles etc. When they're done they send it to the Printer and go to bed, when they wake the next morning the shoes are sitting on the printer waiting to be worn. Your own magic elves! Your Kids will never be able to play a computer game again, because when your wife can design her own shoes no-one else is going to have a chance of getting on the family PC!:nut: A lot of people find CAD programs very difficult to deal with, for some the concept of working in a 3D landscape on a computer screen is too much to take-in, especially when their whole computer experience has been 2D. However, once you get past the shock of that CAD programs become easier to use and I predict that the CAD programmer of the future is where the money will be. But right now it's very cheap to hire a CAD programmer, about $50 - $80 will get you an experienced professional who will take your drawings and turn them into a working CAD file of a relatively complex component. The price varies between CAD programmers and based upon how complex the item is to lay down in CAD. And whilst some my balk at that price remember that's the whole price and the CAD design and the copyright all belongs to you when he's done! Also, it's cheap compared with teaching yourself something as complex as CAD. CAD programmers can be found advertising their services in the forum attached to the Dutch 3D printing company who did these parts for me. They're called Shapeways and they can be found at www.shapeways.com, just browse to the website and look for the link to their forum. Somewhere in the forum will be an area where these guys adverise themselve and you'll also find a review and feedback area so you can see who is good and who is less good. If you want to learn a CAD program I'd recommend going to your local FE and signing up for a class; very many FE's and Universities offer these course as either p/t evening course or extra-mural course respectively. If you wanted to play with CAD now, then you can download Google Sketchup, which comes with a tutorial program. But give yourself plenty of time to sit and learn, you're not going to pick it up in one evening. Of-course all the whizzy stuff comes in Sketch-up Pro which you have to pay for and I'm not sure what that runs at these days but it is substantially less than the price of Solidworks, AutoCAD or Soild Edge. Also, there's TurboCAD which claims to be a low-end price (about $300) with high end features. It comes with a tutorial CD as well I believe. In the vehicle arena 3D printing is being used to prototype replacement parts and it's conceivable that, in the future, you restorer chappies can print as many extra track links as you need to hang off the front of your Sherman. Not today though as it can still be expensive to print stuff. It's good if you're planning of going into production or plan to make many copies of something but if I was to print all the track links I need to make a 1/6th Cromwell it would cost me over £1400 and then I couldn't RC it! They charge by the Sq-cm at the moment but soon enough Shapeways and the other boutique 3D printers will get serious competition and then you'll see prices coming down. In fact, I believe that there's a 3D printing outfit who recently opened it's door down in either Essex or Kent! All you vehicle restorers are going to be using this technology in the not too distant future and the copyright of the CAD files is going to be key so if you do get a programmer to make you up some CAD files make sure you're both agreed up front that copyright rests with you and you alone! OH, and btw, I had help with getting my files done. I know enough to make wheels and stuff but I'm still teaching myself the more complicated stuff and sometimes it's better to simply get help than it is to beat your head against a brick wall! Pete

I recently asked for some help with 14" Cromwell track links and Adrian Barrell came through with some great pics of an unused track link. So I just wanted to publically thank him and post a few images of what that information was used for. Using Adrian's pictures and some drawings from the Tank Museum I was able to make up a CAD file for these track links, here's a couple of renderings of what they look like on the screen... Last Friday I sent this CAD file off to a 3D printers in Holland and today they sent me these, see pics below. Now, I know these are only 1/6th scale of the original size but the great thing about a CAD file is that it is so easily scalable. Once you have the file it's a simple case of either making it bigger or smaller. And if you wanted a mold making so you can cast new track links at a 'proper' casting firm then you'd have to start with a CAD file!

Very nice piece of kit mate, in fact lovely!! Next time photogrpah it on a pure white sheet and your Camera will have a ref then for the white balance. I always find that kit photographs better, especially Camo kit, if it's got a pure white background. This is especially true of the Camo Pixie's and the Windproofs which are a devil to photograph because no two pics will ever come out the same, and none will ever look like the actual garment in hand, Photograph it against snow and it whole different story!! Regards Pete

Rick, one last link, on a modellers site but informative nonetheless... http://www.onesixth.co.uk/vb4forum/showthread.php?1359-Wireless-Set-No-19-in-British-AFV

Rick, here's another couple of links that I had in my favourites, they're specific to the Churchill but with all these things there is some overlap between the various tanks and at the very least they'll give you a better visual representaiton of what you're trying to acheive. I hope they help mate and remember to post pics once you get going...nice big pics so we can get all the glorious detail!:cheesy: http://www.armourinfocus.co.uk/churchill/restoration/stowage/electrict.htm This next link is a nice one... http://www.armourinfocus.co.uk/churchill/restoration/stowage/radio.htm

Just a final word, I culled this from the Royal Signals Website... so it would apepar that you'll be looking at a Mk III set for a Normandy time frame! Pete