Hi gang,
A 1/35 80cm Krupp Railroad Gun (Dora) was on display at the San Antonio "Modelfiesta" show Saturday.
The bad news - moving this thing is the first class bitch that you might imagine it to be. :-) And, yeah, it pretty much will take up an 8' table all by its self.
In all seriousness, I think you have to consider the base first, and build from there, or you are going to damage some- thing, so resign yourselves to a coffee table that you move occasionally. For the base, I am considering 1x3 popular at a minimum, glued wide side to wide side, with over-lapping joints, until you have someting that is 7 to 8 feet long and 28 to 30 inches wide. Route the sides to accept a plexiglas or lexan case, and you are now ready to build the kit. I think - I would want to verify the rigidity of the 1x3 glue-up along its length first!
The good news - this kit builds up very nicely. Of course, you may want to purchase stock in your favorite paint supplier, because you will be using a lot of paint!
More good news - it is not nearly as high (tall) as I thought it might be, assuming no elevation on the barrel. There apparently is a mechanism on the breech that allow the barrel to be locked into some selected elevations, so you do not have to worry about "elevation creep".
It do attract a crowd, Bruce