whdamon
Corporal
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2009
- Messages
- 442
Plan here is to document the process of building a vignette I made for the 2005 World Figure Expo in Boston, MA. The vignette is of General Knox and one of the 38 gun sleds in his Noble Train of artillery en route from Ticonderoga to Boston in 1776. The scale is 1/32nd and is made up of scratch built pieces, modified commercial castings, standard castings and even a Britain's toy dog. Enjoy
the next two photographs are of the finished piece.
The first step was to build the gun sled. It was made from balsa wood pieces. Of special note is the tow bar, and its elongated S shape. One of my early questions in drafting the concept of this vignette was how to keep the sled from sliding forward into the rear legs of the oxen when going down hill especially as every photo I saw had oxen pulling objects with chains, flexible foldup chains. I wasn't very successful in researching this on line, so decided to attend an Oxen pull at a local fair and find out how heavy logs were pulled downhill by oxen from logging the many mountains here in New England. Talk to experts and get expert experienced answers. The trick was the S shaped tow bar. Sitting low on the sled for better pull efficiency, but high on the neck yoke of the oxen to serve as a brake for down hill movement. No one at the pull had a sample as, you guessed it, Oxen pulls used chains on flat surfaces, but everyone had photos of the setup for logging in the mountains.
Find below photos of the gun sled in process. The cannon is an Irmie Risley piece metal casting from the late 60's all painting done in acrylics with artist oils used to weather or add depth and realism
to give the reader an idea of the magnitude of this journey I have included a map. The noble train passed through my home town of Wilbraham Mass, hence my enhanced interest in this project.. as a side note, while crossing the Hudson, one of the sled broke through the ice and sunk. Unbelievably, the men dove down and actually recovered the gun.
the next two photographs are of the finished piece.
The first step was to build the gun sled. It was made from balsa wood pieces. Of special note is the tow bar, and its elongated S shape. One of my early questions in drafting the concept of this vignette was how to keep the sled from sliding forward into the rear legs of the oxen when going down hill especially as every photo I saw had oxen pulling objects with chains, flexible foldup chains. I wasn't very successful in researching this on line, so decided to attend an Oxen pull at a local fair and find out how heavy logs were pulled downhill by oxen from logging the many mountains here in New England. Talk to experts and get expert experienced answers. The trick was the S shaped tow bar. Sitting low on the sled for better pull efficiency, but high on the neck yoke of the oxen to serve as a brake for down hill movement. No one at the pull had a sample as, you guessed it, Oxen pulls used chains on flat surfaces, but everyone had photos of the setup for logging in the mountains.
Find below photos of the gun sled in process. The cannon is an Irmie Risley piece metal casting from the late 60's all painting done in acrylics with artist oils used to weather or add depth and realism
to give the reader an idea of the magnitude of this journey I have included a map. The noble train passed through my home town of Wilbraham Mass, hence my enhanced interest in this project.. as a side note, while crossing the Hudson, one of the sled broke through the ice and sunk. Unbelievably, the men dove down and actually recovered the gun.
