Old Git

Sorry, it's short for I seem to remember!

Ah, now that's one I haven't come across before!!!

Rick, if you look in that Rolls Royce history of the Meteor book you borrowed I remember there being a chapter talking about Centaur / Cromwell shock absorbers (dampers if we are being pedantic), have a look.

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

as the designer fond a lot of information and pictures in my restoration threads that served him so well in the design of this kit.

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 took several photos of restoration if you need any detailed shots....just let me know

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...

The No 19 Set was designed to give armoured troops complete, speedy and reliable communications. It was developed at low priority up to 1940 by the Signals Experimental Establishment and by Pye Radio. The cheap Pye model was adopted then very quickly replaced with a Mk II to bring it up to required specifications in 1941 and then by the more efficient Mk III in 1942. These improved sets were particularly significant in the fast-moving armoured fighting in the Western Desert. The set provides HF inter-tank and tank-to-HQ R/T, CW and MCW communications, VHF inter-tank communications and an intercom facility for a tank's crew. The HF part, the 'A' set, is tuned to receive and transmit with a single dial and has a 'flick' switch for rapidly changing between two frequencies, a device still used in aircraft today.

The VHF part, the 'B' set, was phased out in the 1950s as the Larkspur range of VHF FM equipment came into service. The Royal Armoured Corps replaced their thus modified No 19 Sets with the very similar C12 in the mid-50s, and this in turn was replaced by the C13 when it was developed and produced.

The set has an HF range of 10 miles, 15 miles CW and a VHF range of 1000 yards. 17.5" x 8.5" x 2.5", it weighs 40 lb.

 

so it would apepar that you'll be looking at a Mk III set for a Normandy time frame!

Pete

Rick,

you might also want to have a look here...

http://www.qsl.net/ve3bdb/technical.htm

and here...

http://www.vmars.org.uk/wsn19.html

I'm sitting here with the service manual for the Cromwell I in front of me and under the service section for the WS 19 set it gives two paragraphs and 1 wiring diagrams for the wireless and intercom and another larger wiring diagram which appears to be for the whole electrical system and seems to show the wireless system within that overll system. I can scan them and email to you if you like? Although I must warn you that overall electrical schematic is bigger than my A4 scanner so will probably come in two parts.

I've just quickly scanned the wiring schematic for the Cromwell I, I doubt it changed much over the various Mks of Cromwell but if it did I'm pretty sure Adrian will be along in just a mo to give you the fully skinny on that.

Toadman's pics are here mate..

http://www.toadmanstankpictures.com/cromwell.htm

I'll got through my refs in a minute to see if I have more info for you.

Rick,

are you familiar with this image below? Also, I think Toadman has posted some internal shots of the Cromwell at the Jacques Littlefield collection some of which show pics of the various parts of this schematic. I'll have a shufti's and see if I can't find a link to them.

Hi Kevin,

just wondering how it's going with this project? Have you made any progress since your last update?

I also wanted to ask a question about your 2nd picture showing the Final Drive housing. I've been looking for a long time and this is one of the best pictures I've seen showing the FD Housing and it clears up a couple of questions I had from looking at the drawings as it shows those parts of the FD Housing that the Outer Side Plate sits on and which are not shown on the drawings (or at least not on the drawings I have).

By any chance did you also take pictures of the FD cover for this housing and the gear wheels that go inside, or did you not have those when you received the tank?

Looking forward to more updates mate, I can't get enough of restoration shots of classic British Armour. Oh, and the bigger the pictures the better so we can zoom in on the detail:cheesy:

Best Regards

Pete

I'm always finding new stuff on this site to drool over and Adrian your Sherman is a thing of beauty. I loved all those shots when the graft is over and and OD goes on. There's just something sexy about a fresh coat of green paint on a big ol tank!

Pete