Giles' misc. Work bench.

AJC

Western Thunderer
Crikey - what on earth is it, Tony? A bit of googling has yielded pictures, but not a description I understand! Some fascinating lorries in the fleet though.

Adam
 

Osgood

Western Thunderer
It's a Ward laFrance M1A1 wrecker of WW2 vintage, Adam.
A good handful made it to in UK when disposed of by the European armies from the 60s onwards - by contrast most French garages had one!!

I confess to having a preference for the earlier closed cab version M1 Series 4.
Here's one doing what it was built for - a Sherman tank radial engine change :
WLF ww2 copy.jpg
And here's one that has finally made it to the top of the restoration queue :eek::rolleyes:
WLF.jpg
 

Podartist79

Western Thunderer
I know you've shown me first hand at the bar at Telford how you do all of this Giles, but it still blows my mind - it's such great modelling/model engineering!

You've inspired people in 4mm scale to undertake similar work. Very clever unassuming layout at Warley in 4mm scale with modern plant, diggers, high lifts, etc and HGV's all working-moving with multi-functioning moving parts - incredible!

Neil.
 

Giles

Western Thunderer
Bless you Neil - it was a great pleasure to see you then! Likewise i find your artwork quite enthralling - as well as you modelling stuff exquisite!

The 4mm yard layout at Warley was very well done, and justifiably popular. The general problem with radio control in 4mm is that it is often a little bit racy - although the larger vehicles on that layout were nicely sedate. I recently converted a 4mm Bedford TK to see if I could get the slow speed and steering characteristics in 4mm as I can in 7mm. I chose the TK to be a direct comparison to the 7mm version that I had done. It worked very well.
As always, the battery is beneath the load bed, so the lorry can carry a ful load and be put to use.

 
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john lewsey

Western Thunderer
Bless you Neil - it was a great pleasure to see you then! Likewise i find your artwork quite enthralling - as well as you modelling stuff exquisite!

The 4mm yard layout at Warley was very well done, and justifiably popular. The general problem with radio control in 4mm is that it is often a little bit racy - although the larger vehicles on that layout were nicely sedate. I recently converted a 4mm Bedford TK to see if I could get the slow speed and steering characteristics in 4mm as I can in 7mm. I chose the TK to be a direct comparison to the 7mm version that I had done. It worked very well.
As always, the battery is beneath the load bed, so the lorry can carry a ful load and be put to use.

I. Would have loved this as a boy
 

Giles

Western Thunderer
Having built the 4mm TKs, I inevitably thought that I may build a 4mm version of The End of The Line - purely for research purposes of course....

One of the features on the layout was the conveyor/elevator which loaded up the lorries . On the 7mm layout, the conveyor was a converted Hornby one, which eventually worked quite well. But there is a paucity of commercially available models particularly anything smaller, so it would be useful to see if it was viable to make one.

Predictably, the belt is the big issue, as the rest is relatively straight-forward.

Although incomplete, we have success!

 
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