25 Pounder New Builder

[Neil Berryman]

Hi there,

Just bought a 25 pounder and have been reading the posts with interest. A couple of questions spring to mind.

1. What size are the supplied rivets?

2. I note some builders use smaller rivets, what size are these and why?

At the moment all seems OK and I'm not phased (that may well change) and I think the general spannering should be ok albeit smaller than I am used to (my background in ex Army working on various armoured vehicles) just the spanners and hammers are smaller.

Any advice greatly appreciated and pointing me in the direction of other threads also great, I'm working my way through them slowly.

So far I have unpacked the kit and bagged up the components in construction page so I have a bag for page 1 and 2 etc but have left all the larger components in their packing. I have assembled too many self build furniture packs to know how easy it is to miss an item on page 1 that is required on page 10 requiring a strip down so hopefully I will avoid this. Time will tell

Any help or guidance really appreciated, I chatted to a few builders at the Tank Museum so I know you are a nice knowledgeable lot

Cheers

Neil

[Stephen White]

Neil, hi and welcome. We're just about to launch a new section of the Forum which will consolidate a lot of knowledge which builders have posted previously. I hope you might find it useful.

Enjoy your build. Stephen

[Neil Berryman]

Great Stephen, look forward to it

[Dave Backway]

Good evening Neil,

I hope you enjoy the 25 Pounder build, there is a great deal of opportunity for adding further detail. I went for the smaller rivets on mine and I used 1/16" copper rivets, however the shafts are smaller than the holes and therefore need shimming. I found that 3/32" x 0.014" x 12" brass or aluminium tube cut in short lengths worked perfectly. I used a Stanley knife to cut the tube by rolling the blade over the tube at the point you want to cut it. The head of the 1/16" rivet is just slightly bigger than the holes.

I hope this helps and happy building

Regards

Dave