Little Willie ~ Accurate Armour

[Jamie Tainton]

Little Willie was a prototype in the development of the British Mark I tank and the first completed tank prototype in history. So what better way to dig into the past and trace the development of armour than to build a resin kit of this ancient ancestor to today's behemoths.
Accurate Armour's recent offering arrived at my door today courtesy of my credit card, and I hope to share with you all the process of putting it together. I've had to add a whole new category for this build, hopefully the first of many WWI tank builds, (come on Dragon and bring us some new generation WWI kits!)

[Jamie Tainton]

So to start I took some pics of the box and it's contents. Everything came in ziploc plastic bags which were very secure within a sturdy cardboard box stuffed with Styrofoam packing peanuts.

[Jamie Tainton]

[Jamie Tainton]

[Jamie Tainton]

[Jamie Tainton]

Here's some scans and a pdf of the instructions.

click here for PDF download
http://tinyurl.com/45txvv8

[Dan Reed]

Looks nice. I never could build a resin model and never could figure out why...
Dan

[Jamie Tainton]

Been plugging away with this one today. Let's just say this kit does not just fall together. But that's par for the course,for resin kits, from slightly misaligned parts to very poor instructions... the modeller needs to pay great attention as one progresses through the building.

Okay here are the words that go along with the pics

First of all here you can see I have laid out all the parts for the drive wheels. (#19) is the axle between the toothed outer wheel (#14) and the inner donut disc part (#16).


The instructions are not very clear but I figured out that the pins on the inner ring are meant to go against the smooth inner face of the spoked wheels. These are to represent bolts I suspect however they do not line up at all!
You can see in this example where I have superimposed the spoked wheel over the disc you can see that the alignment is somewhat challenged.



I could just go ahead and slam the parts together but this fact of mis-alignment just bothered me enough to make a change. So I was going to snip the posts off of 16 and replace with pieces cut from Evergreen rod. This did not satisfy my need for accuracy the ring parts also a wee bit warped and of uneven thickness.


This led me to score some of my own discs using some Evergreen plastic , pin vise with a pin and a circle template to which I glued some plastic rods. Then this assembly was placed againt some sand paper and sanded to the right depth to match the previous ring part profile.




using two part epoxy glue to attach the ring and toothed wheel I made sure the teeth lined up, using a spare track to test fit everything.


The drive chain needs to be very carefully trimmed off the pore blocks and cleaned up. These are fragile and I managed to break one. This was easily prepared but you can see this type of kit needs more work than your average plastic injection model.

the movement for this vehicle was supplied by two out rigged tractor systems on either side of the body. These are depicted by two solid slabs of resin that go together sandwiching the drive wheel and a smaller roller set of wheels between. These are pretty well done with major aligning provisions cast in place, with uneven results. In my case the upper surfaces lined up perfectly while the lower and inner surfaces of the cutaway areas not so much.


The bumps on the top here are useful for lining stuff up but are also the upper track rollers. You can see on the left one that is dry fit together the alignment issues. I will later on sand everything flat.


There are parts that only work for the right and left sides. The outer part has the nipple at the center.

[Jamie Tainton]

Here in this close up you can see the one blemish on these parts the unevenness above the forward rectangle opening.


The outer face


The inner face


The main body part (#1) gets two covers (#10) for where the chain (#12 A+B) goes and where the axle is threaded attaching the tracks to the body.


a dry fit demonstration


the two chain parts upper and lower glued together


the rather under whelming front roller wheel parts (#20 and #26). Unfortunately these don't line up very well when sandwiched between the respective sponson parts (#4, 5, 6, 7), the holes aren't even!You'll need to make adjustments.


the main parts for this assembly of the tracks to the body laid out for inspection.
The nearest part (#13) is the sponson pivot bar, or axle. I did not go along with the kit's professed sequence of construction, as it did not seem convenient for painting and other construction handling issues. So I came up with a totally different way of doing things that I feel is more convenient but will be more reliable when it comes to insuring a strong and solid union of tracks and body. This puny resin part just didn't seem like a good idea for future happinesses.


the alignment of parts from an inside perspective.

[Jamie Tainton]

Here you can see my idea for attaching the sponsons. I drilled out the point where the parts (#13) are meant to go so I could thread a Evergreen tube through which a brass rod is fitted. These will glue it the sponsons. While from underneath it may not seem accurate- no one will ever notice. And in this case strength wins out over any dubious cosmetic accuracy.




You can see the center points where this all ends up.


Using part (#13) to get the correct lengths.


The parts dry fit for you to understand how this all goes together






The etched parts meant to get glued into the sponsons. Be clear before you do use any glue- they all are different. Pay particular attention to(# E2) and (#E3)


I tried gluing them in place but I decided it's better to put them in after the two sponson parts are cemented together- better alignment!


There is major filling that needs to be done to the inner base in the two cut away bits on the sponsons first in any case!