[Archive] WW1 Allied Tanks Wooden models

Archive [Archive] Off-Topic Discussion
1

Tarrakk Blackhand:

Now that you’ve seem my wooden Central Powers tanks, it’s time to see what the Allies had.



MPC WW1 American Soldier Poses by British Tank



WW1 British Mark IV Femal Tank

Another one of our wooden tank models. My Dad and I built 4 of these back in 1985. This is the only one has the open hatch.



WW1 British Tank Prototype 1

This is a wooden model of a British Prototype Tank.

Although this tank never existed, I think we found the plans for it in a book that had experimental designs in it.



WW1 French Tank 1

A WW1 French St. Chamond tank my Dad and I built out of wood in 1985. At the time, we didn’t know that the front of the tank actually angled back 45%.

We built it following a 3/4 frontal view of a WW1 painting of the tank.



The Romanian Soldiers advance alongside a French ST.Chamond Tank. This never actually happened in the war, but it could have because France was suppling Romania with weapons, aircraft and uniforms in WW1. The Romanians just never got the tanks.

2

cornixt:

I love seeing these homemade models. How were they cut?

3

Tarrakk Blackhand:

They are 3 piece models with some extra wooden and cardboard bits on the sides for sponsons and details. They also include a set of rollers so you can move the tank along the ground and some wire “hooks” for pulling.

If you look at the top tank in the 3rd and 4th pictures, you can make out where the three body pieces would be the left tread side, the middle with the turret and then the right tread sides. You can also see the roller in the rear view. The “Roller” was made from a wooden dowel that we drilled a hole through the center and then put a wire through the hole. The roller was then attached to the left and right tread sides with 4 metal nails - 2 per side.

The machine gun barrels were made from steel wire or wooden tooth picks while the main 75mm cannon barrels were made from paper lolly pop (or Sucker) sticks.

Dad designed and cut out the pieces from Pine and/or Cedar on the bandsaw and I sanded the rought spots, glued them together and painted them. Dad then put the rolers on once the paint dried.  This is @ 20+ years ago, so forgive me if some of the details are lost as to the process.

As for the tanks with the hatches on them, Dad cut the square open hatches from some old sheet tin and then made some metal pins to attach them with on the same piece of tin…basically giving the square a little set of “Bat Ears”.  these pins were then forced into the soft wood.

The A7V tanks were done in the same 3 part way, however Dad shaped the bodies as a solid unit instead of having 3 seporate pieces, like the British tanks.

My Dad is coming out to visit in the summer. I’ll see if he could make me some new A7V’s that are more prototypical. Germany only had 18-20 of them in reality, so I wonder if Dad would make the same ammount for me. :smiley: