Sd Kfz 7 new model

[graham pipe]

Hello all.
Great to see that the 8 ton is being re-released after all these years.

Some of you may know that the original kit, sold back in 2001 (ish), was mastered from my own real vehicle - a 1942 Borgward manufactured artillery body style vehicle. This had been captured intact by Canadian forces in July 1944 where it was part of an 88 battery defending Carpiquet airfield at Caen, Normandy, France. The captors shipped it back to Canada for evaluation where it ultimately became an object for recovery exercises by the Army engineers. Being turned upside down, dragged around and generally abused, the bodywork got flattened, it lost a track and front axle, the cylinder head was removed (for some unknown reason) and the engine left exposed to the elements for decades. And it was in this state that I acquired the wreck in 1996 and spent 7 years bringing it back from the dead.

Armortek's Mark came down to my workshops in West Sussex (southern UK) to copiously measure and photograph the rolling chassis, access my extensive documentation and produce working drawings for the bodywork based on various sections I'd acquired from around Europe. Some of these original body parts were incorporated into a new reproduction body but that's another story.

So, getting onto the new model, I'm so happy to see that Kian has changed the track wheel design as the originals were a good representation but not exactly correct. Ditto all the other changes he has described in a previous posting.

One point, however. The new tracks seem to be being offered in an odd number. There are 54 links per track so a total of 108 in all. Having dismantled 6 vehicle's worth of tracks, I'm somewhat familiar with these so if anybody would like more information, photos, etc, then please get in touch. I've got nigh on 700 detailed photos of the vehicle's restoration.

Attached are some shots of the tracks undergoing dismantling using a custom designed 100 ton hydraulic rig. Out of the 12 tracks split in this manner, virtually every pin was seized solid and required anything up to 60 tons of effort to get them moving. Being German - superbly engineered but overly complicated - each link features a hardened steel pin, 2 needle roller bearings, twin grease seals and a thrust disc with a short spigot. The latter engages with the adjacent track link so as the track flexes, the bearing is rotated through around 40 degrees and thus the wear is not concentrated on the same needle rollers all the time. Additionally, the tracks could be disassembled at major service intervals and the bearings rotated so a fresh face would take the wear and pressure. The track links were cast steel with hollow horns which were grease reservoirs for the bearings. These were filled by removing a low profile, tapered shoulder bolt in the centre of the each link, screwing in a Tecalmit, flat head nipple and pumping with medium viscosity grease. The tracks and bearings were full when slight oozing could be discerned from the grease seals.

One had to remanufacture all the internal components - a somewhat time consuming exercise! As a one-off, this would have been prohibitively expensive but, thankfully, I was restoring 3 more vehicles for a customer so a large batch manufacture was a more realistic proposition.

For one of the 4 vehicles I restored, we didn't have enough double wheels so had to use damaged ones which had one good face. These were cut apart, the rivets gas torched off then two good halves joined by welding the hub and hot riveting the flanges. You can see the process in the photos.

Am really looking forward to seeing the new model and, as I say, I have an extensive detailed archive of material which would doubtless be of huge use to modellers in any scale. I'm hoping to produce downloadable files of this material so stay tuned.

All the best from Normandy.

[Damon Resch]

Graham,
I would love a set of your Sd Kfz 7 photo's if posting them to the forum proves to be unworkable.
Damon

[Stanislav Yanev]

Hello Graham
of course I would also love to have your photos of the original
stanislavyanev1980@gmail.com

[Jerry Carducci]

Graham is it possible that it's a file format issue? As another Sd.Kfz. 7 enthusiast I would like to see these photos as well

I've loaded a photo as a test.

Jerry

[graham pipe]

Hi Jerry and Damon.Thanks for your messages - the 8 ton model looks great!

I've tried uploading the photos in JPEG format but will try again tomorrow.

The photos are worth waiting for!!!

[Robert E Morey]

Graham
Great story on your real SDKFZ - Id like to see the photos as well.

I use an image hosting site, its easy. https://postimages.org/

Bob