Author Topic: Holt 75 hp Artillery Tractor (1/35 scale)  (Read 818 times)

Offline gbritnell

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Holt 75 hp Artillery Tractor (1/35 scale)
« on: January 13, 2019, 01:52:57 PM »
Gentlemen,
 One of my other hobbies is and has been since I was a kid is building plastic models. I still find the time between machining and artwork to knock out a few model builds every year. While perusing one of the plastic modeling forums I saw a review of a Holt 75 Artillery Tractor.
 The kit is by Roden out of the Ukraine. I have never built a kit by this company before so I didn't know what to expect as far as quality. For those who build plastic kits know that kits run the gamut from very poorly researched and executed to fall together type kits.
 Having built the Holt engine I have studied the Holt tractors and found that this kit follows the original quite accurately but lack as far as engineering. One of the worst flaws is it has a canopy representing the corrugated metal type found on this machine. On the underside is a rib that runs the length of the piece and as with metal casting when you have a thick section adjacent to a thin section when the material cools it shrinks to the thicker area and creates what's known as a shrink. In metal casting you have to provide risers to feed the shrinking area. This shrink area along the center of the roof line needed to be filled, filed and sanded all the while trying to maintain the corrugations of the roof.
There were other issues but that's not the purpose of the posting. It's just to present a neat looking representation of a 1918 Holt tractor.
gbritnell
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

Offline crueby

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Re: Holt 75 hp Artillery Tractor (1/35 scale)
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2019, 02:01:36 PM »
That is a very neat machine, bet you could make a great working one in metal!   

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Holt 75 hp Artillery Tractor (1/35 scale)
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2019, 02:03:04 PM »
Turned out nicely George. Did you paint it or were the parts molded already colored?

Bill

Offline Ye-Ole Steam Dude

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Re: Holt 75 hp Artillery Tractor (1/35 scale)
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2019, 03:05:49 PM »
Hello George,

More beautiful work done by you, even if it is a kit, really neat. What is the function of the front wheel?

Have a great day,
Thomas
Thomas

Offline gbritnell

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Re: Holt 75 hp Artillery Tractor (1/35 scale)
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2019, 04:00:52 PM »
Hi Bill,
The kit comes molded in green styrene plastic but everything needs to be painted.
Thomas,
The tracks could be controlled individually, just like a modern bulldozer so the only thing I can figure is with all the weight forward of the tracks the machine would be nose heavy therefore needing support up front. This is where the wheel comes into play. Even with the tracks being able to move the machine from left to right a steerable wheel was needed to get the front end where it needed to go. Watching videos on you tube shows the operator steering the wheel as the tractor moves.
Talent unshared is talent wasted.

 

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