About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Monday, November 23, 2009

P is for Projects

I have so much stuff in the unfinished/to do pile I thought I'd share some of them with you, if only to justify their existence!! One theme that that made itself apparent as I was taking photos was that despite all the new production out there I seem determined to force old Eidai kits 'up to the mark'!

This is the Eidai Sd.Kfz.11 half-track which I intend to finish one day, the front mudguards needed re-sculpting and I intend to hide the rest of the non-existent bumper/front end with a roll of barbed wire and a bundle of logs. Sides have a lot of work still to do but the crew are mostly selected and posed (actually, looking at the photo again they're selected and posed for another unfinished model - the Hasegawa/AHM Quadruple Flack.36 I posted some time ago!!). The trailer is from the elusive French company Alby, while the gun has been rebuilt from the ground up as a totally different mark/model.

Two Eidai Stug.IV's, from the box with new side skirts and minor detail differences (roof and spare wheel bin). The scratch built trailer is the one I again mentioned some time ago, from a photo, it was pulled by a Pz.I and seems to be a field modification carrying two standard German oil-drums.

One of my favorites; Krupp Protze, cross country artillery tractor/GS truck, the bonnet (hood) will never be right but I've built-up the exhaust bulges from the engine bay to the wheel arches and put something equating to the distinctive bulge seen on the radiators, width markers from an Esci Kfz.11 and a new steering wheel, just visible are the canvas 'doors' which came from the Matchbox Morris.

This will be my third, it's the 2nd Kfz.69 I've done, the previous being the Eidai bodywork on a Matchbox chassis, and a Matchbox strait from the box. I hope to put the alternative Eidai body (Kfz.70 troop carrier) on a Matchbox chassis one day and have it tow my other Nebelwerfer, this one will join my Pak.36 unit.

The weird angled 'axle' at right will be the spare wheel once I've worked out how to fix it on and trimmed it to fit!

2 comments:

Cosmocat said...

Back in the day, the Krupp Protze was the only reason for what might have been called a 'serious' purchase of an Eidai set. If I recall correctly, the Eidai sets retailed at 40p, which was rather more than the cost of the kits they pirated e.g. the Airfix sdkfz7 & flak88 that as a series 2 kit only cost 25p

Hugh Walter said...

Which was ironic, as our parents were teaching us rack-toys were 'Eastern rubbish'! I remember Airfix HO figures at 18-new-pee, but have labels in the collection stating 11p, which must be just before the oil crisis, as the 18p was '74-76'ish?

H