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.

Sunday, September 16, 2018

A is for Archive Material

I had a fancy a while ago (26-years ago according to the drawing) to send some stuff to the readers hints page of a modelling magazine, and knocked this up as a first attempt! Needless to say I never sent it - application is not an aspergics' strong point, we're good at ideas, not so good at applying them!

AFV Kits; Ammo Boxes; Blue-prints; Esci Flakpanzer Wirbelwind; Esci KV Heavy Tank; Esci KVI; Esci Whirlwind Quad AA; Flak 38-4; German Half Track; Hasegawa SdKfz 7 Quadruple Falk Cannon; Hugh Walter's Modelling; Hugh Walter's Tips; Model Kits; Model Tanks; Modelling Ammunition Boxes; Modelling Guide; Modelling Hints; Modelling Tips; Plans; Reinforcing Tank Wheels; Russian KV Tank; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com;
I drew it on blue graph paper as blue used to be lost in the reproduction process for plans and drawings, although; why I thought a modelling magazine would have thermal blue-print equipment is anyone's guess, but as technology has - in any event - moved-on somewhat, it's now stuck with the hundreds of blue lines being read digitally, although I'm pleased to see most of the Tippex (another near-dead tech'!) seems to have faded-out in the scanning, so you win some - you lose some!

Also it's not so much a conversion or modelling-tip, as a graphic explanation of a bodge! It used to wind me up, just putting the tracks on a new kit was often enough to snap the drive-sprocket or idler-wheel (or both!) cleeean-orrff! So I got to the point where I was doing this with new kits as I constructed them from the box. I don't know if it was my imagination, but I seem to recall Airfix was the worst offender, with Esci a close second!

For the replacement axle in part 4 I used sections of plastic tooth-pick, it was stronger than Evergreen or similar polystyrene strips/'polyrods' Also; see, I used to use the term 'sprue' for runners!

AFV Kits; Ammo Boxes; Blue-prints; Esci Flakpanzer Wirbelwind; Esci KV Heavy Tank; Esci KVI; Esci Whirlwind Quad AA; Flak 38-4; German Half Track; Hasegawa SdKfz 7 Quadruple Falk Cannon; Hugh Walter's Modelling; Hugh Walter's Tips; Model Kits; Model Tanks; Modelling Ammunition Boxes; Modelling Guide; Modelling Hints; Modelling Tips; Plans; Reinforcing Tank Wheels; Russian KV Tank; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com;
This Russian KV 'Heavy' from Esci (a nice, neat, clean little kit) needed the rod-trick on the rear sprockets (and I should have done the front at the same time!) but because it was done before the deck went on for the last time, you'd never know it.

I notice it's lost an MG in the move, there is quite a bit of damage in the kit cabinet, one of the guys helping me tipped it on its back (because he'd seen the danger of the drawers falling out) and all the whitemetal and resin kits rather crushed the plastic ones as they shot back! I have a few nights gluing in my immediate future!

AFV Kits; Ammo Boxes; Blue-prints; Esci Flakpanzer Wirbelwind; Esci KV Heavy Tank; Esci KVI; Esci Whirlwind Quad AA; Flak 38-4; German Half Track; Hasegawa SdKfz 7 Quadruple Falk Cannon; Hugh Walter's Modelling; Hugh Walter's Tips; Model Kits; Model Tanks; Modelling Ammunition Boxes; Modelling Guide; Modelling Hints; Modelling Tips; Plans; Reinforcing Tank Wheels; Russian KV Tank; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com;
I also did this to explain the way I made the spare magazines for my quadruple flak, another project which hasn't progressed beyond the state it was in when I shoved it on the Blog! But I do now have two of those Frozen sleighs to add to the final diorama - if I ever go back to it?

Just use a set of dividers to score-out a circular strip, but before you cut through the two outer rings do some shallower ones inside them, which will pick-up paint and look like the reinforcing stampings on the originals. To fit them into the kits magazine-slots you have to remove the two shaded areas.

If they are going in the racks at the base of the gun, paint the top ends brass (for ready ammo'), if they are being littered about on the ground paint one end black (for an 'empty' shadow).

AFV Kits; Ammo Boxes; Blue-prints; Esci Flakpanzer Wirbelwind; Esci KV Heavy Tank; Esci KVI; Esci Whirlwind Quad AA; Flak 38-4; German Half Track; Hasegawa SdKfz 7 Quadruple Falk Cannon; Hugh Walter's Modelling; Hugh Walter's Tips; Model Kits; Model Tanks; Modelling Ammunition Boxes; Modelling Guide; Modelling Hints; Modelling Tips; Plans; Reinforcing Tank Wheels; Russian KV Tank; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com;
On the left are seen the commercial magazines on an Esci Flakpanzer kit, on the right homemade ones on an AHM (Hasegawa) half-track, they are not brilliant, I wasn't doing any measuring, it was all rather 'by eye', but you get the idea!

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