Scammell tractor/trailer with M3 Grant

[BlrwestSiR]

After finishing the German railcar, I decided that I should maybe do a British tank transporter. Plus this way I could join in with all the heavy equipment that's being built.

I've got the Thunder Models Scammell kit.

Here's the bit of AM that I have for it.

There's not a lot out there. I had hope to find some suitable crew figures but haven't had any luck. 

Assembly starts with the trailer deck. The deck is one piece and you assemble the frame underneath it. 

The mouldings are quite thin which is nice. Most ejector pin marks are raised so are easily sanded/scraped off. The plastic and the way the sprues are numbered remind me of a Kitty Hawk kit. 

Here's the frame partly assembled. 

The front has a pulley that due to a sink mark, the pin to mount it in place ended up too short.

I simply drilled it out and use a 1 mm diameter plastic rod to replace it. 

There are some outer cross braces. 

These help align the frame rail in the right spot on the deck.

I found a bit of clamping was needed while the cement dried. But other than that, the frame goes together nicely. Thankfully it's regular styrene too so no gluing issues. 

[harv]

Well well well......harv 

[BlrwestSiR]

I managed to finish the deck.

There were a couple small sinkholes neaf the front that I filled with putty. 

The trailer bogies are attached to a beam. I glued the inner pivot points to the beam first. 

Here's what it looks like dry fitted in place.

There's a couple plates that form some sort of end support for the beam that are attached to the frame rails. Be careful not to mix up the two vertical plates. One is slightly larger than the other and goes towards the front of the trailer (on the left in the pic)

I then assembled the bogies. 

Both bogies can pivot on the beam. I then cleaned up the inner hubs and got them ready for some paint. 

 

[DocRob]

Nice, I will follow your progress with the Scammell. I have the Artillery tow Scammell in stash and will do it in a sinister fantasy circus wagon version, when I think, I'm able to paint the lansquenet figures, I've planned for my dio.

Cheers Rob

[Bomber_County]

Yummy, always wanted to see one these built up, perhaps something like this in the desert.......picture for research and fair use.....

[BlrwestSiR]

2 hours ago, Bomber_County said:

Yummy, always wanted to see one these built up, perhaps something like this in the desert.......picture for research and fair use.....

I was originally going to do it with a Sherman Firefly on the trailer. 

But I've changed my mind and will go with a desert scheme and the recent Miniart Grant I picked up. 

[Martinnfb]

Yay! 

[BlrwestSiR]

23 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Yay! 

I'm leaning towards this one.  Anyone know of some suitable crew figures?

[BlrwestSiR]

Meantime, I got a base coat of dark yellow onto the frame and bogies

I also started on the rear loading ramp. 

If you're careful with the glue, everything should work. 

I then attached the inner hubs to the axle. Thankfully they seem to sit level.

There's a couple of shackles on the rear between the ramps. Heres where I've run into the first issue with the kit. The pins for the shackles are a bit short so I subbed in some brass rod. Well, at 0.3mm it's more like wire. 

I also managed to have one of the mounts ping off into the ether so I made a replacement from some strip styrene.

[BlrwestSiR]

I just found a great video showing them loading a Grant onto a Scammell. Talk about perfect reference material.

 

 

[Jeff]

Man, that is a PROCESS prepping the trailer, and ALL those bits are HEAVY............ Carl notice at about the 3 minute mark, the guys running up the ramps, see how one slipped, that what I was talking about , how slippery the steel decks are, and where , when loading iron, the 'pucker factor' is always present, but winching is a little less 'puckery'.... Everything about towing is hard work, and for the life of me I cannot do the arithmetic on how snatch blocks double pulling power, I watch the towing shows and have been around towing of our heavy trucks, and no one can tell me how the math works, but it is amazing..... This is a GREAT video, Carl, what a cool piece of kit, they sure thought of everything, this is really cool, love the way they raise the ramps...... everything is mechanical, this is a fascinating video....

[BlrwestSiR]

I found the first part of that video. 

This one shows a Scammell going cross country and seeing the suspension move through its articulation is kinda cool. There's also some great shots of the engine and the plumbing 

Here's the final one.

 

 

 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Back to my Scammell, I washed the resin tires and have started on the paint for them.

I then started work on the tractor itself. I began with the engine. 

It seemed to be a bit more complex than I would have expected but the detail is really good.

The engine has a bunch of the hydraulic lines on it and there's even PE linkages I have yet to add.

The instructions tell you to connect it to the rad at this point but I think I'll wait until the frame is ready before I take that step.

 

[DocRob]

Nice looking engine and great progress.
Do the resin tires look so much better? By the time I bought my Scammell artillery tractor, I looked at the kit ones without building them up and decided against resin, because I found no information about a bulge in the tires to indicate load. The pics don't show it clearly either.

On 7/29/2020 at 10:24 PM, BlrwestSiR said:

I'm leaning towards this one.  Anyone know of some suitable crew figures?

I really like figures from the bodi range. These here are not specially for your purpose, but have great poses and add some drama. I got the guy with the helmet in the Hand for a future SAS dio.

https://thebodi.eu/model/TB-35162/souvenir-hunters-ww-ii--desert-rat---australian-

Another one, where the driver might fit with some surgery

https://thebodi.eu/model/TB-35114/british-driver---tommy-western-desert-ww-ii

And these two are priceless

https://thebodi.eu/model/TB-35097/british-nco---scottish-highlander-western-desert-ww-ii

Cheers Rob

[Jeff]

I just finally got to watch the videos fully............... there is NOTHING about those units that is easy, those guys worked very HARD at the recovery work, I could not believe the heavy lifting those guys did on the ramps of the 20 ton and 30 ton trailers....... if they dropped one on the ground, they would have been thoroughly screwed..... and hand cranking the winch on the 20 ton !!?? The gear reduction must have been incredible, also those guys are an energetic lot.. ......  they had good crews.......

[BlrwestSiR]

I was watching them the other day. The crews in the film really do make it look easy. But I guess that's what all their training did for them. 

Rob, thanks for the link to those figures. I'm also looking at Resicast as they make several accessory sets for the Scammell. 

[BlrwestSiR]

Meantime, I got a bit more done on the Scammell. 

There was an article on Perth Military Modeling on how to make the Scammell have working steering. I decided to give it a try. 

First step is to drill through the tie rod ends and the king pins. 

I then inserted a 0.5mm brass rod into the tie rod. 

Next step is to drill through the leaf spring and C-hubs so you can install a longer pivot on the top of the hub.

The reason you need the longer upper pivot is that the fenders turn with the front wheels. This way, you can attach them to the pivot and they'll turn in sync with the wheels. 

Here's everything assembled with the front subframe. 

And it worked!

[Jeff]

Nice job , Carl !!

[harv]

Oh yeah, gonna be good !......harv 

[BlrwestSiR]

I started work on the frame.

The details that Thunder Models has included are impressive. They've also for the most part kept ejector pin marks to a minimum. 

While at the LHS, I ordered some figures that I hope will work with the trucks and trailer. As a result, I decided to start on the cargo with the funnest part: Individual link tracks. 

Each one is 3 pieces. If you careful enough and have a decent set of sprue nippers, you can almost get away without having to do any further cleanup. 

So far, I've got 8 links done. So 10% of one track. It's going better than I thought. 

[GazzaS]

Nice work! 

[BlrwestSiR]

I've started on the hull of the Grant. It's a plate style assembly rather than a tub. The detail is really good. I found that some of the edges need a thorough cleanup as there are faint mould seams lines that can interfere with a good fit. Once they're cleaned up though, the fit is great. 

Miniart offer the kit with a full interior as well so there's detail on both sides of the hull panels.

I used some clamps to keep things tight while the glue dried. 

Here's the final drive assembly. Some nice cast detail too.

[BlrwestSiR]

Working on the rear hull.

The exhausts and deflector plates are multipart. So a couple seams to clean up but easily done with a quick film of CA and some sanding.

Slowly adding the hull sides. Again, with a quick cleanup along the edges, the fit has been good. 

[BlrwestSiR]

And I'm up to 16 links done now. 

[Jeff]

Carl.............. you are a MACHINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!