FOR SALE: Battle of Waterloo, Revell 1/72 200th Anniversary Set

Well, this a first for me... I'm attempting to sell something via my blog, in addition to other more normal channels.

What I'm selling is a Revell Battle of Waterloo, 1/72 200th Anniversary Set.

Contents: Soft plastics - British Dragoons (complete), Prussian Infantry (Complete), French Guard Grenadiers (several missing). 

Condition: All miniatures are partially under-coated, and the paint is flaking off. 

I was given these in exactly the condition they are in now, by a model making pal. He gave up on them due to failing eyesight. I, on the other hand, have large Nap' white-metal armies in 6mm and 10mm that need painting and basing, so I don't want the distraction of dealing with these. 

I'm hoping any collectors of 20mm Nap' plastics, who might stumble across this post, may perhaps want them? £5 plus postage, or buyer collects.

My apologies for the crappy pics. I had to harvest them from my Gumtree listing for the set, under limited time constraints. I can be reached via this blog. I'd prefer that the buyer collected. But I will post within the UK, if the buyer pays postage.

Misc: The Postman Sometimes Rings Twice...

Oooh... exciting!

I'd wanted to title this post 'The Postman Always Sometimes Rings Twice', but I couldn't find a way to get the crossed out text in the title of my post. Hey-ho, never mind. Sooo...

Phwoarrr!!!

A couple of days ago I ordered a few models from Hannants, all German WWII, all 1/72, and all of which, I guess, come under the soft-skin/rear-echelon banner: three trucks and a car. These arrived, very well-packaged, this morning.

Chester enjoys the empty box... bless him!

Chester, our new* and still very young kitten, was almost as excited about this as me. Only, rather like Eeyore, in that touching Winnie the Pooh tale, where he gets a burst ballon and an empty honey pot, Chester was more interested in the empty honey pot than the contents!

* Tigger, our super-fluffy moggins, and occasional star of a post or two online, perhaps even on here, alas, passed away earlier this year.

I'm looking for'ard to building these babies.

Whilst I won't be starting in on any of these new arrivals today, I will be continuing to work in detailing my 88s. I refined some of the parts today, sanding, filing, paring back, shaping, etc. I've also constructed a form for my first resin-casting silicone mould. Today I'm planning to pour the first half of said mould. 

Yesterday I used a hot glue gun for the first time, which was interesting. I think the big bag of glue-sticks I have are poss' meant for a different glue gun, as they seem too thin, and don't feed through the gun properly when I pull the trigger... which is annoying!

I bought some foam card from a shop in Peterborough.

And mixed some plasticene, to set the parts into.

The good, the bad and the ugly...

In the above photograph, the three items in the upper left are rejects: a malformed brass shell, ditto the crappy wobbly-holed erdpfahl, and an ammo box lid that melted into a near shapeless blob. The other bits have been improved, and, bar the wicker ammo box and lid - which need a little more detailing - are ready for moulding. 

---

Ready for moulding? Hmmm... infamous last words. It's now several hours later, and I'm hardly much further on. I used a technique of mixing Milliput with water until it's so dilute you can paint with it. I then loaded the wire 'wicker' several times. The idea being that whereas before it was full of air, in the voids or interstices between wires, it should now still have the woven texture, but hopefully won't trap any silicone, when I pour the mould.

Re-shaped shell, detailed wicker ammo box and lid, etc.

I also decided, on referring to images of real 88mm ammo, that my live shell needed reworking. That was super-fiddly and took ages. I think I need a mini-lathe of some description, so I can make parts like this more easily. My original version took the Hasegawa ammo as it's starting point, which is much more 'stepped' than the real thing. A strap and buckle on the lid and wicker ammo box completes my pre-moulding prep.

I'm having a break now, and thinking about how on earth I'm going to embed and lay out these tiny ultra-delicate parts. Even though I'm getting next to nothing done, it's quite intense work! I feel drained... 

A bizarre looking little kit!?

And to finish this miscellany type post, the above image shows a strange looking little kit from a range of 1/72 kits I'm intrigued to try out. These kits are currently available very cheap at the Tank Museum's online shop (click here to have a look). It was whilst watching one of curator Davis Willey's back garden based Q&As that I was reminded of these oddities - I'd encountered them before online - as he had one on his table, amidst sundry stuff he's trying to help the museum shop flog. 

Misc: Wish List & Reference Resources

It's quite normal for me to have a plethora of pages open in my browsers simultaneously. This can make moving back and forth between the few most active pages hard work, as I scroll past lots of pages I'm really not using. I know this is what the 'bookmark' function is for. But I only really use that for a certain core of oft-visited sites. So I've decided to compile some of these links, or rather those related to my mini-military hobbies, on a post or a page here.

First is a list of useful reference type links. I'm starting with a few on casting in resin, or similar. As that's something I'm about to have my first go at.

REFERENCE / RESOURCES

Casting resin parts

Resin casting tutorial - David Damek.
Sylmasta - casting & mould-making - tutorial by the people I got my resin casting kit from.

BJB, Moulding vid #2 - not directly miniatures related, but filled with useful moulding and casting info.

Blue Stuff (new to me!)
Blue Stuff mould-making tutorial - David Damek.

Vacuum Chamber (for removing air-bubbles from silicone, etc) & Vac-Forming
DIY Vacuum Chamber - how to construct your own vacuum-chamber for getting air our of silicone, etc.
Mini vac-form set-up - could be useful in getting set up to vac form small parts for kit conversions and scratch-building?

And then here's a somewhat larger list of stuff I lust after (hence the Tex Avery pic, atop this post)...

WISH LIST

1/72 WWII German 

Ace Models - Citroen Avant staff car

Ace Models - SdKfz 10 w 37mm flak

Ace Models - 3-ton softskin truck

IBG Models - Own brand 1\72 home page, loads of great stuff, inc. Universal Carriers, etc.

IBG Models - Roden Opel-Blitz Omnibus Stabswagen, €8.50!!!

IBG Models - Roden SdKfz 4/1 w raketenwerfer, €8.50!!!

Mac Distribution - Steyer 1500A

modelhobbies.co.uk - Mac Distribution, Mercedes Benz G3 Ambulance, c. £20

Modelling tools and equipment

Amazon UK - 2 x Xacto style craft knives, +100 blades, £10.70 (free shipping)

Misc: Detailing my 88s...

My collection of scratch-built bits for resin casting nears completion....

Here's where I was at around midday today, having added a three shell wicker ammo-box (inc. lid), a single shell metal canister, and a spent round. These are in addition to the carriage mounts, erdpfahl (the trefoil perforated stakes), a winding handle, and a linkage for the folding legs, that I'd already made earlier.

Making the live shell - the only new element in the second pic, below - took ages. First I tried sculpting sprue using a Dremel style hobby tool. But this span too fast, even wound down to its slowest speed, causing the sprue to overheat and snap. I then tried working with brass. Not having any brass rod, I hacksawed a strip off a piece of brass sheet. I then span that in the drill to round it down. This also overheated and snapped off, long before it had gotten properly shell-shaped.

And bingo... all the sundry elements I'm intending to cast.

So, after numerous failed attempts, I reverted to searching out bits of sprue of roughly the right diameter, that might be viable for the different segments: base, propellant case and warhead. I wound up gluing three different diameter bits of sprue together, which, with some minimal profile shaping, finally gave me a shell I was happy-ish with. 

I think I'll make an initial mould and cast several sets, and then perhaps I'll make a second mould with a proper complement of items; two carriage mounts, four stakes, x ammo boxes and shells, etc. Or maybe the first mould will suffice? I guess I'll see which way the wind blows when the time comes...

Film Review: Churchill, 2015

A friend loaned us this DVD (thanks Pat!), which we watched this evening. About 15 minutes into it I was perplexed. About 30 minutes in I was annoyed. By the end, I was mostly just bemused. The first thing was that we both - Teresa (my wife) and I - remarked how much better Gary Oldman was in Darkest Hour, (a much better film).

I also found myself comparing it with Ike, in which Tom Selleck portrays Eisenhower over the same period - the days running up to D-Day - a film that shares some commonalities in terms of scale of production. Both films were, in Hollywood terms, low-budget affairs. But whereas Selleck's movie, if not entirely devoid of factual mistakes, gets the basic tenor spot on, Churchill is a bizarre ahistorical travesty.

Historian and Churchill biographer Andrew Roberts makes a number of acerbic observations in a review of the film entitled Fake History in Churchill, starring Brian Cox, describing the latter's portrayal as "a depiction that Dr. Goebbels would have been delighted with"! Roberts lays the blame squarely at the feet of Alex von Tunzelmann, who wrote the script/screenplay.

With rather staggering irony, von Tunzelmann authored a column for the Guardian for a period, Reel History, whose subject is the relationship cinema has with historical truth! One has to wonder how and why someone who regularly dissects films to see how accurate they are could then go and commit such blatant calumny. Especially at a time - the 70th anniversary of the war's end - when both the man and the times and events depicted were being celebrated and remembered.

Brian Cox is a decent actor, and he plays his role with, er... well, if not gusto, then something similar. But the Churchill we see here is petulant, contrarian and ill-informed. The issue for me isn't really about how this portrayal undermines the celebrated image of Churchill, which it certainly does. It's about the implausibility of so many moments, from the more personal and mundane level, like his secretaries' emotional outburst over her spouse, to grand strategy; the idea that Monty only let Churchill in on his plans for D-Day the day before the invasion is utterly preposterous.

We did watch the film all the way through; the acting and production made it watchable. But I did find it beyond the pale, in terms of attempting to pass itself off as an exposé of the 'man behind the myth' (a tag-line for the movie was "the icon you know, the man you don't"). In the parlance of our times this might be described as a historical 'reboot'. But that would play down what is, frankly, a shockingly poor, slanderous even, rendering of history.

By all means watch it. But be sure to check it against real history.

Misc: Scratch-Building Details for 88mm Guns

Making fins for the erdpfahl.

I'm really enjoying learning about the 88mm guns of Germany's WWII arsenal, and building a few models of them. I've decided to take my first steps into casting resin parts. Today I started making several small bits and bobs with a view to moulding them. First, my beloved erdpfahl, and then the carriage-hooks that support the gun between the two bogies. 

As can be seen, above, I tried two sets of erdpfahl, or stakes. The first, on the left, were pretty poor. The second, at right, were more satisfactory. I used the wire mesh to space a series of five pin-prick locator marks, made with my DIY pointy tool. I then drilled through these with a 0.5mm drill bit. Despite it being pretty poor, I put the first one together anyway, as pictured below. This revealed that the 'wings', or fins, needed trimming down, which I've started to do to the second set, as yet unassembled.

Refining the second set of stakes.

Below, the two erdpfahl, along with a wing or fin template. Upper is the less successful of the two. The lower is the better one. The central core is yet to be sized/shaped. I turned the cruciform base upside-down, so as to compare them with the ones integral to the Zvezda 88mm.

Erdpfahl #1 and #2, and the fin template, alongside the Zvezda example.

Next up, I started on a pair of the mounting hooks. The plan will be to make sets of four stakes, and two pairs of these hook mounts, a few other bits and pieces, such as a couple of crank-handles, linkages (for the folding arms or legs, or whatever they are), and numerous ammo boxes and shells, etc. Once I have a full complement of these oddments, I'll make a master mould, so I can cast complete sets in one pass.

Making a pair of scratch-built carriage mount hooks.

I'm keen to find or make some decent crews as well. I'm not too keen on any of the figure sets I've seen so far. I'm thinking crews in overalls/boiler suits, crews in shorts, crews with braces but no shirts, etc. The sort of stuff you see in many wartime photographs. I've wanted to sculpt some wargaming figures pretty much all my life. I've even tried a few times, albeit never very successfully. So this next step is something I'm both excited and anxious about...

Book Review: Duel Under The Stars, Johnen

NB - My shortest ever book review on this blog, by miles!

Great easy to read and gripping autobiographical account of an Me-110 night-fighter pilot's WWII experiences. A Luftwaffe equivalent in many ways - albeit on the nocturnal side of the equation - of Geoff Wellum's First Light, in its simple but compelling nature. Vivid, exciting, occasionally moving. A very enjoyable read.

Misc: Model Mag Haul

Recently picked this lot up, free.

Approx' 40 mags, of which half are Airfix Model World.

 I do love Freecycle. I'm a member of two local groups; one for Cambridge, and the other Fenland. The former is very active, the latter a lot less so. Nonetheless, I just picked up a load of modelling magazines - 40-ish, mostly Airfix Model World and Tamiya Model Mag' International - from someone on the Fenland group.

I'm not sure how many of these I'll keep (nor what I'll do with any I don't keep). But a cursory flick through all of the non-Tamiya titles has revealed numerous articles of interest, sometimes directly - a 1/35 Maultier Ambulance build will aid my 1/72 Opel Ambulance, re interior detailing - and sometimes simply in broader technique terms, as for example general painting/weathering methods, and suchlike.

This 1/35 build by Kev Smith might help me...

... with the interior of my Opel Blitz Ambulance.

Some really helpful visual ref'.

The Tamiya titles, only one of which I've glanced through thus far, seem less likely to be of direct use, as my main scale is 1/72. That said, I do have a few 1/35 kits, including some Tamiya stuff - an 88mm, for example! - so I'll look through them all at some point soon as well. There are also a few aircraft themed titles. Again, of less interest to me, as I'm mostly a land warfare modeller. But that said, I have amassed a pretty large stash of 1/72 WWII German aircraft, and even a few items outside that favoured niche area/scale.

Having thumbed though a good three-quarters of these mags already, one thing very apparent to me is the bewildering array - mind-numbing, perhaps? - of material on offer. The kits themselves, and the humongous amount of ancillary stuff, from the paints and modelling equipment to aftermarket detailing stuff, and decals, to all the reference resources, books, museums, shows, etc. It's amazing! 

In the same issue as the Maultier, there's this 1/76 oddity...

... a captured British armoured staff car/mobile office.

Another thing that constantly astounds and sometimes even bemuses me is the degree of obsessional interest in detail. Very few of the featured builds in these magazines are simple straight out of the box affairs. Most of mine, by contrast, start that way. Adding detail and modifying kits is something I do do, of course. And I'd say it's one of the aspects of this hobby that's potentially the most fun. But it's also an area where the 'anorak'-ish aspect of the hobby can sometimes make me feel ill at ease, most especially at shows or club events where it can become an unattractive form of point-scoring display (rivet counting, I've heard it called).

Having said this, the upside of this obsessional aspect of the way so many of us engage in these hobbies is the abundance of information, which grows continuously, both in print, online, and elsewhere. In case anyone hadn't noticed I've been getting into WWII German 88mm Flak guns recently, and what started as simple out of the box pleasure is evolving into obsessive researching and a desire for a bigger collection of models of this interesting weapon.