US Mark IV and General Musings

[Brown Hawkins]

The Mark 4 has been an obsession for over a decade. And most of the other WW1 tanks that saw action.



All this stuff took a while to acquire. Thank goodness for Ebay!!

Backside of US tank medal



The German pin is probably not original but rather a period repro. So few were actually made.

The trench art lighter is also kind of cool and works. My dad started me on this line of interest from his WW2 Italian lighter he acquired.


I had begun and basically gave up on making a 1/6 scale Mark 4 myself. I did a double take when I first saw the new preview on the Armortek main page...

I'll post my attempt at an unditching beam from a few years ago and weathered chain shortly.

Brown

[Jeffrey Goff]

Hi Brown, great items thanks for sharing I to have had a fascination for British WW1 tanks, I found this money box some time ago dated 1918
regards Jeff

[Brown Hawkins]

Have I missed videos of the Mark IV prototypes in motion?

Brown

[Armortek]

Hi Ray

This was taken last month at Tankfest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpkj8hkoCLs

also just added a few production photos here


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 791&type=1

[John Wiggins]

I took this short video at Tankfest.



Regards
John

[Brown Hawkins]

With the delivery date for the Mark 4s nearing I thought I would post some accessories I found on Ebay that I picked up recently. They are 1) a German MG 08/15 cart with accessories, 2) a French 58 mm mortar and 3) a German Minenwerfer with lots of shells.
The fellows that made these are called the godfathers on ebay and have lots of 1/6 bits and pieces. These WW1 items were a test run to gauge interest. I've asked them to look into Mark 4 accessories but they will need some references and such that I don't have to make stuff.

The German MG 08/15 cart



French 58 mm mortar and 2 types of rounds



German Minenwerfer unfolded (it folds down flat too)


I floated the idea of a 1/6 Big Bertha to one of the thegodfathers team. He just laughed. It would be cool though!

WW1 figures are going to be tough to come by for this tank. I have a number of the "old" Sideshow boxed and loose figures from 10(?) years ago that were to be used for a never started scratch built Mark 4. The recent DID WW1 figs are 2 to 3 times what the Sideshow figs went for when still in production. I was lucky enough to get 2 DID British WW1 Albert Browns before they became scarce.

These tanks will be here before we know it!

Brown

[Brown Hawkins]

This will be a straight, by the book build. Mainly because there are no aftermarket parts and also I want to finish a tank in weeks or months not years.

Brown

[Brown Hawkins]

Looks like I'm going to modify something after all.

Was inventorying the boxes tonight and came across the unditching beam. I made an oak beam a long time ago for a never started Mark 4 and worked on making weathered rusty chains. Inspiration came from this and other period pics:



Big clunky chain. My beam is a little longer when compared to what came with the kit:



And the chain is heavier, but not as heavy as in the old pic.

You can see the progression from shiny decorator chain to rusty chain. I ground off the weld ridges, heated it with a torch and then soaked it in rusty water for weeks. And then stored them in a container with dry rust powder:



Way too much on the unhitching beam and chain.