This gun taken by the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles at Cambrai in 1918 is slowly rotting away on the grounds of our local museum. I decided to use it as a base for a scratch build project, including the limber.
John

This what I managed to do with the limber having found a number of images on the web.



I still need to get some more supplies before tackling the wheels.
John

The next step was to move on to the gun. This needed some basic working drawings which I drew up to 1/24th scale.



Using this as my guide I have started the basic chassis.


John

Next I started to add the details of the spade and the trail spike. These I have primed in Tamiya light grey in order to check on the finish. I bit rough but I am still new at scratch building.



John

John coming along real nicely, as a former artillery officer I find this a very interesting build, good luck with it.

Thanks for the encouragement

This is a big challenge for me since I am not a regular scratch builder. However the build is moving along. I built the recoil slide with all its little rivets etc and just dry fit it to the chassis.



Now moving on to the barrel. The start of the splinter shield is just dry fitted to check some dimensions.





John

Definitely coming along nicely .
As you can appreciate, scratch building isn't that hard. Just requires a bit of forethought and planning .
Keep us posted on progress.

Thanks for the encouragement
I have managed to complete the slide and barrel with its breech activator.





Next step the splinter shield.
John

I am modelling this gun in its transport mode to go with the limber so the top part of the shield is folded down with the headrests in place for the travelling crew. These were leather padded inserts on the real gun so I have replicated them using Green Stuff.

Like most German products this shield is very over-engineered but is a real complex piece to reproduce. I still have the footrests and various other attachments to make but the large parts are done.







By the way I think that this scale is ideal for artillery pieces and is an area that is completely lacking in the commercial market. MENG TAMIYA are you listening.
John

Outstanding work!!!

Some serious scratch building there, very very nice.

Excellent scratch building .

This looks stunning. How do you determine how big/long/wide each piece needs to be?

Thanks for the comments guys.
As far as getting the sizes of things is concerned I use the Lovett web site for for great photos of a full size reconstruction. In addition I was fortunate to find that our little village actually has a trophy 7.7 cm field gun brought back from Cambrai by the canadian 5th mounted rifles in 1918 so I just take my tape measure.

John

After a brief break in the Florida sunshine the gun is now almost finished. Lots of fiddly bits added but I still have the brake cable and calipers and the lower part of the shield to add.





John

Doesn't seem to be much interest here. However here is the finished gun and limber. Ready for paint.





John

Wow. Really amazing, can you post more pics with details? Looks excellent, congratulations

This is some real master artwork. Please take the time to write up a step by step guide on scratch building this field gun. I'm interested in building one and adding it to my collection.

Well done and keep going.

Sam

Welcome to the scratchbuilders forum .
Hopefully we can muster some more enthusiasm towards the discipline of non-shake and bake 'modelling'. I'll step back from the soap-box before I head off on a major rant and rave.
I gather this is not your first attempt at scratching .
As you say 24th/25th scale seems an ideal scale for artillery pieces. I'm just waiting for the Artillery Group Build to commence so I can start mine . Hope you are planning on joining that campaign - I don't want to be the odd one out .

Thanks guys for leaving your comments you are very kind.

When is the group build starting?

Here is a photo of the almost finished gun. The wheels still need to be finished and the hubs detailed. All the rest of the detail is now done.



John

Looking good with the paint on.

Here's the links for the Artillery 2017 Campaign:

http://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/252055&page=1

and here's the signing up page:

http://armorama.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Campaigns&file=index&req=showcontent&id=895

I will look out for that in February.
I have now finished the gun and limber and mounted the whole thing on a nicely finished base of Jotoba wood.



John

Really great piece

Beautiful!