1/16 Farm Toys - New Project

[PHPaul]

As I mentioned in my introduction post (nearly 2 years ago!) in addition to my 1/64 Farm diorama, I have a handful of 1/16 farm toys that have been modified in some way and various attachments for them built from scratch in brass.

One of them was this John Deere 420C crawler.  It was a child's toy originally and suffered the usual loss of small parts (steering levers, throttle, air cleaner, muffler) and the rubber tracks were destroyed.  I stripped it, fashioned all the little details, build an inside frame dozer blade for it (didn't have one originally) and repainted and decaled it.

I never did find a suitable replacement for the rubber tracks and a couple of attempts at building my own from rubber were unsatisfactory, so it went back into hibernation on the shelf.

It occurred to me this morning that I might be able to make suitable track pads with my 3D printer.  I googled around to get some basic dimensions of the 1:1 version and then I designed and printed 5 versions with minor tweaks between each until I came up with a version I liked.  They're set up in pairs with "inside" and "outside" track chain links.  Not true to the 1:1 design but the only practical solution I could come up with at that scale.  They'll be pinned together with .035 brass wire.  The sample pair articulates very nicely.

Now all I need to do is print and assemble 32 pairs...

[PHPaul]

One side complete.  Other set printing now.  The print time for a full set is right at 3 hours...

[PHPaul]

 

 

I'm pleased with how that came out.  That thing sitting on the shelf with no tracks has been bugging me for months.

[cobraman]

Looks good, nice work.

[Gramps46]

Those look like a great solution Paul.

[larman]

Nice job! What a unique model and great work on the tracks, they look really good.

[stavanzer]

Those Tracks are very good. A nice Save.

[Straightliner59]

This is a really cool project! I think these tracks are better, frankly. They look great!

[DRIPTROIT 71]

Great looking tracks! Nice work!!