Sledgehammer Project; Pt XXVII - The Sledgehammer BFG coming together

With paintwork started on the Taurox I realized that I really need to get the Sledgehammer itself together. Did some extra detail work along with some assembly in this session. I'm thinking one more session ought to finish it up and it will be ready to paint. At this point it mostly needs more rivets!

The first order of business was to add some teeth to the elevation mechanism. Without teeth it can't be elevated (and why there is a gear in the carriage without teeth on this component makes no sense). I'm constructing the teeth from 3mm foamed PVC.

The roughly cut teeth attached to the elevation mechanism.

Did some work on the carriage supports as well. Now the elevation wheels would, in theory, actually work.

Filing and a little green stuff and they will be as near perfect as they need to be for something that will likely go unseen.

Treads in place, sideboards in place and starting to hack off two cradles that would hold shells. Since there is no casing on the shells provided, there must be powder charges (just like the real B4 Howitzer) which means that the crew must be able to ram home the shell and the powder and they need a place to stand.

Almost there

The basic planking to give the crew some standing room.

A little wood grain added. This will give some variation in surfaces and its what they did on the real thing as well.

Some strapping added to hold down the planks.

Holes drilled for the nut and bolt castings.

The tiny nut and bolt castings cut from the sprue. A number of these are spread all over the room as they escape from the jaws of the tweezers at velocity.

These whole thing seemed to take forever, put looks good, looks just like an actual field modification.

Some of the crew checking out the new details. I still need to add a gun sight of some kind and finish adding some of the other detail bits. But she is close to being finished.