The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Bautiful work Alan, I can really appreciate the "scratch-fiddling" with small scale vessels. You have also inspired me to shed some kilos (and I do not mean submarines )

To brake my period of no Mo-Jo I thought I would have a go at making a CDL turret as fitted to several tanks

The Canal Defence Light (CDL) was a British "secret weapon" of the Second World War. It was based upon the use of a powerful carbon-arc searchlight mounted on a tank. It was intended to be used during night-time attacks, when the light would allow enemy positions to be targeted. A secondary use of the light would be to dazzle and disorient enemy troops, making it harder for them to return fire accurately. The name Canal Defence Light was used to conceal the device's true purpose. For the same reason, in US service they were designated T10 Shop Tractor.

I have a scale drawing of the CDL in the George Bradford’s Allied Armoured Fighting Vehicles book. So I came up with a cunning plan to use my Brother ScaNcut to scan the top profile of the turret then cut out the plastic parts, as the cutter will only work with thin plastic card I cut out six shapes then doubled them up and built the turret the same way you would if using paper models.

My plan is to make the basic shape from plastic card then make a mould to produce solid resin turrets blanks that I can add detail too.

After a bit of research I realise I have made a big blooper the turret should have four flat sides and one curved, not three flat and one curved.

I now have two options:

1) Scrap what I have done and start again.

or

2) make a resin blank and sand the extra flat side.

I need to think this over.

Great way to blend paper and plastic modelling techniques...!!!

SJPONeill wrote:Great way to blend paper and plastic modelling techniques...!!!

I can Blaim you for that

Good to see you back in action and it is an interesting tutorial on scratchbuilding.

David

Welcome back, Splash!

And what an entrance you make! I've always wanted to try something along these lines. Mirage has a CDL M3, but I think the Cromwell version looks even weirder. My plan was to rob the mirage kit, but I think I'm liking your approach a lot more.

Very cool project, Alan. Working with paper and cardboard can be a gas.

Good start Alan, what thickness of card will the scan and cut deal with?

iggie wrote:Good start Alan, what thickness of card will the scan and cut deal with?

I have only tried paper thin plastic as I don’t want to damage the blade, that’s why I cut every shape twice and just stuck them together.

As I get more confident using the ScaNcut I will try using thicker plastic.

That's some impressive work, Splash and an unusual shape that looks challenging to cut.

You must have steady hands that rival a surgeon's my friend.

I'm glad to see you posting again. Your models are always an inspiration!

The Great Auk

The Great Auk wrote:That's some impressive work, Splash and an unusual shape that looks challenging to cut.

You must have steady hands that rival a surgeon's my friend.

I'm glad to see you posting again. Your models are always an inspiration!

The Great Auk

The cutting was the easy part, the ScaNcut machine works by scanning a line drawing, it then converts the lines into cutting paths, you can then scale the shape up or down and use the blade on the machine to cut out as many copies as you want.

I have now used the plastic basic shape to produce a resin copy that I can add more detail (photos to follow when I get home tonight)

What an interesting piece of equipment that ScaNcut machine is, Alan and very useful too. What is its original purpose? I assume not cutting plastic card! I seem to think Brother had something to do with knitting machines, or am I just confusing myself?

ShaunW wrote:What an interesting piece of equipment that ScaNcut machine is, Alan and very useful too. What is its original purpose? I assume not cutting plastic card! I seem to think Brother had something to do with knitting machines, or am I just confusing myself?

It’s for craft work , card making, cutting quilting shapes out of cloth, and it has a pen function to draw artwork, it’s quite versatile Brother keep adding function that you can download and install.