Member postings for Robert Irving 3

Mal, I have been continually impressed by your attention to detail on this project. Well done.

Mal, Your attention to detail is superb and an inspiration for would be model builders. You have even silenced the usual rivet counters!

Superb work on a complex piece.

Rob

Hello Mal,

I've tried to reply 4 times to your last email message about hand wheels, each time I received an admin not delivered message due to suspected spam????.

Robert

Hi Dave,

Thank you for the complement.

Yes that was the one, that's my WWII RAAF blanket.

Everyone likes to have their work appreciated. Making for someone else, one must listen and comply with their reasonable wishes. It's part of the implied contractual arrangement of accepting money for a product.

Bob Gould and I arrived at an agreement that specified that the model would be a fair representation of the real thing and even how many rivets it would have (250). Bob is very enthusiastic and persuaded me to do more and more rivets, after 100 it was drudgery. Bob also, in his enthusiasm, found pictures of later marks that had significant external differences and wanted them included in his "Howie" but I remained firm on this, that the model was a 1916 Vickers, not a 1917,1918 or post war hybrid. Except for one small inoffensive mod to the model, it remained a fair representation of the mark.

I have a life outside the hobby and don't take ill informed critics seriously in the least and some of the points from habitual counters and ex legal eagles was laughable. I do appreciate criticism intended to encourage and improve performance.

My skills are self taught and weak judging by some of the techniques and results displayed in our hobby. The challenges in this model were first understanding the internals for which no photographs and certainly no drawings were discovered.( The clues are all there in the bolts, knobs and shapes.)Then designing desired functionality into the scale and then following the advice on methods on the net from people willing to share their experience. Most of all it's having the confidence to cut metal, experiment and if needs must discard and repeat.

So Dave, patience I can't help with and like most blokes it doesn't run thick in my veins but skills, In my opinion you have them.

Luck

Rob

Hi Mal,

Great work, you have a real feel for the piece so your Howitzer will be a masterpiece.

I built the other 8" 1916 MkI in 2013 for a guy to a budget that did not allow functioning rivets, and since after a hundred or so rivets I go Doolally, that was ok by me.. The guy who commissioned the piece put a lot of bullshit on the site and the photographs as sent to him were not for publication. All it did was excite the rivet counters and barrack room lawyers.

The breech system was worked out along with recoil, elevation and traverse. Rifling was a challenge and I didn't enjoy the 10BA bolts in the wheels. I still have the photos from the build and if you need any help on design and inner mechanics I'd be happy to help.

Rob

Hi Peter,

Building from photographs is easy, there is a freedom that does not accompany building from drawings, particularly when purchased castings are employed.

The 8"Vickers 1916 MkI took a long time to build, about 900 hrs. Some of that time was in working out the innards but a lot of it was making swarf through having to cut from solid stock and riveting, Ugh! There was one line drawing of a later mark that had some vague dimensions but that was discovered too late and was confirmation that the dimensions were about right.

The guy I agreed to make it for put progress photos on the site that I had sent him to ease his mind that there was progress, and lots of nearly right commentary, eg he announced that I was a retired toolmaker, not even close to the truth. I am a retired CEO whose hobby is engineering model making and restoration. So please don't underestimate what can be done with a modicum of skill and perseverance.

You do need photographs with as normal an angle as possible and something to scale from like a person. My intent was to give the guy a model that he asked for, this was not a scale model exact enough to please rivet counters but a fair representation of a long gone artillery piece that functioned as the original. None firing of course, the barrack room lawyers and retired house conveyancers had their say anyway and it amused me since the Firearms Act 1936 and amendments plus other UK laws were guides extensively referred to in detail as a competition shooter who enjoyed two longish spells based in the UK .

I do have all the progress photographs on file so if you would like to explore further your own build I can send my email address, but not on open forum. I am not interested in building for someone else, too much hassle.

Rob

The old War Department stamped everything with the broad arrow , sometimes multiple times. It was intended to enable identification of stolen goods, perhaps to prevent theft ; this latter of course failed. Stealing an 8" howitzer however would stretch the ingenuity of even the wiley squaddie, so in this case I think it says "...we own this, isn't it great..."