Renault FT - Idler wheels reproduction - Inside Track | Renault TSF Tank Kent

The only idler wheels in England for the Renault FT were those on the very rare prototype un-armoured example Of the Tank Museum. These wheels were the standard type of wooden construction used on all Renault FTs during WW1. We managed to gain access to an example through kind permission of the Tank Museum. The wheel design was seen in close detail by removing the cast steel wheel hubs and one of the small triangular wooden segments, which together with the large ‘coffin’ shaped make up the wheel interior. This small wooden section was sent off for paint analysis to Lincoln University’s Crick Smith institute for examination. The hub was collected by the pattern maker after a discussion on the casting detail had concluded. The results of the paint and material analysis emerged after a short time and provided our first insight into the treatment of wood in 1918. The original primer treatment of the wood and a very important discovery accompanied the report – our first insight into paint of the period. We were presented with a paint spectrum stretching from 1917 to the 1930s. The colour of the Tank Museum’s FT was an enigma. Surely this could not have been the original colour? It bore closer resemblance to a Royal Navy battleship grey finish than a Royal Tank Regiment machine. The Tank Museum were asked which period paint treatment they desired from their Renault FTs past. They selected the 1917 livery. This was most fortunate as we had discovered many vestiges of what appeared to be gray black paint on the outsider of our machines. More about this will follow in due course when we discuss the paint analysis. The wooden idler wheel segment was reunited with the rest of the wheel and sent to the wheelwrights in our part of the world. This firm happened to have been commissioned in creating new wheels for one of Queen Elizabeth’s ceremonial carriages. We were obviously in with the right crowd and asked whether these wheels posed too much of a challenge for them given their construction. No was the answer. They were straightforward. We had to wait for some time while suitable cured oak was sourced as we wanted to avoid what appeared to have happened so often during the First World War. The problem appeared to be shrinkage of the wood, which resulted in many FTs having sheets of some material fitted between the wooden segments to hold them in place post shrinking. A few more months elapsed and we were invited to come and watch them putting the final touches to our wheels on location in their workshop. .

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