[Al]

I finally got around to starting building up Dora this week after thinking long about how she'll be used on the layout. After considering the modification needed to the kitto make her a running model, I desided make her a mainly a static model, but with running wheels so she can be shunted back and forth.

Heres a couple of pics of the build so far. First one of the basic gun carrage with a BR94 for scale comparison...

And this one with the upper part of the gun carrage assembled and the full barrel along side my new BR44...

 

[Brian Considine]

Nice to see the progress - it certainly is an impressive bit of kit.

 

[Al]

I'm going to start building up a small display scene for her this weekend. Something along the lines of this photo...

 

[simonj]

I'd previously read about this railgun before after seeing a model advertised in Manchester. Wasn't the gun assembled on site and actually span several tracks? I found this link with lots of pictures and information.

http://www.aopt91.dsl.pipex.com/railgun/Co...ora%20index.htm

http://www.aopt91.dsl.pipex.com/railgun/Co...gines-DORA.html

Makes very interesting reading!

 

[Al]

It was way too large to move assembled so was stripped down into componant parts.

Heres a couple of good links to a site showing it being assembled. In French unfortunatly...

Dora 1

Dora 2

 

[Dinwiddy]

QUOTE (Al @ 28 Feb 2008, 19:50) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I'm going to start building up a small display scene for her this weekend. Something along the lines of this photo...

WOW!! That is one BIG piece of artillery! Am i right in thinking that it would have been used on a special 'firing curve' as it is unable to traverse the barrel?
Regards
David Y

 

[goedel]

QUOTE (Dinwiddy @ 28 Feb 2008, 23:50) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>WOW!! That is one BIG piece of artillery! Am i right in thinking that it would have been used on a special 'firing curve' as it is unable to traverse the barrel?
Regards
David Y
Yes, a two track curve. Quite a pain to lay such track in the middle of no-where...like 20 miles from Stalingrad!

 

[Al]

If you look at the photo you can see the curve in the distance. Basically, all the trackwork was laied new for the gun at each deployment. It took something like two weeks just to prepare the site before the gun arrived, them another week to put it together...

 

[Doug]

Amazing, looking forward to the updates.

I am putting together a series of articles on Armoured and military trains - mainly WWII. Al, please tale plenty of photos, we can add them to one of the articles later.

I found these:

The last part of this video shows the German Morser "Karl 040"

another video that can't be embedded.

 

[Al]

Latest pic with the BR94. Starting to come together nicely...

 

[Doug]

Where is the kit from Al?

 

[simonj]

QUOTE (Doug @ 29 Feb 2008, 20:12) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Where is the kit from Al?

and is it N gauge? The model I saw advertised in modelzone was OO/HO? and £350 to special order only. I did a bit of searching and found this online shop with a 1/87th version.

http://www.accurate-armour.com/ShowProduct...mp;product=2105

Here's a scratchbuilt model in 1/16th scale.

http://www.vonabt.co.uk/models/Dora/DoraBuild.htm

Here's a model of a rail transport device for the Karl tracked mortar.

http://www.dragonmodelsusa.com/dmlusa/prod...p?pid=DRA14509A

 

[Madkitten]

have a look at his 1/6 scale dora -- thats impressive model making - not to mention its about 5 foot tall............................................

 

[Al]

I picked it up off E-bay from a seller in the States. Cost around £35 all in.
TBH, at that price, it's expensive for the level of detail and accuarcy of the model. The wood decking, Chequer plate and bolts are all oversize, and several of the parts need trimming to get a good fit. The Dragon Leopold and Karl models are far superior.
Dora isn't going to be a 'running' model. She'll be more a static model that could be shunted along the tracks as needed, so apart from replacing the wheels with a semi decent set and closing up a few of the gaps, I'm not doing that much to her...

 

[Al]

QUOTE (Madkitten @ 1 Mar 2008, 01:21) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>have a look at his 1/6 scale dora -- thats impressive model making - not to mention its about 5 foot tall............................................

1/6th scale Dora

 

[Doug]

Amazing. He gets good and putting it up and taking it all down again.

Notice the full scale halftrack in his carport.

 

[Brian Considine]

Very, very impressive.

 

[7113]

QUOTE (dbclass50 @ 1 Mar 2008, 11:44) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Very, very impressive.

Yes, not the sort of thing one can run on the standard preserved branch line!

The curved track thing was also used on British Rail mounted guns, one of which was the Elham Valley branch.

Regards

 

[Al]

Well, Dora has gound to a halt this week for two reasons.

1, I'm stuggling to find 40 sets of replacement wheels at a reasonable price.

2, I've ran out of Tamiya TS-4 German Grey spray paint.

Wheels arn't too much of a problem. Although the ones in the kit aren't great, they are good enough as long as the model is completly static. However, the paint is. Aparently all Tamiya sprays were recalled last year and no-one knows when the new batch will arrive....

 

[goedel]

QUOTE (Al @ 7 Mar 2008, 20:20) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Well, Dora has gound to a halt this week for two reasons.

1, I'm stuggling to find 40 sets of replacement wheels at a reasonable price.
There is an excellent eBay seller called benno002 of wheels and buffers in Germany, his shop is here:

http://stores.ebay.de/Benno002

Of any use Al? He offers for example this:

ebay item number: 230229269028

which is 40 wheels sets of your choice, to fit Minitrix, Arnold, Roco etc. Very good postage costs, accepts PayPal at no extra cost! I would highly recommend, if the wheels will fit rightly for your Dora bogies.

I can't wait to see how it turns out in the end Al - I imagine Krupp had a few problems to overcome when building the real cannons!