A is for Airfix, at Last!

A difficult one, as Airfx have their own pages, but so far only the two 'standard' figure sets, I will get round to the kit figures one day, and two of these images will be duplicated over there in the next day or so, as they are the only images I have, but as part of this walk through railway figures we seem to have embarked-upon, almost by accident in December (or earlier?), here's a few Airfix bits.

An early advertisement for the railway accessory range, in the model railway press, showed what I suspect is the two figures from the Scammell Scarab / 'Mechanical Horse' (we looked at recently), but they don't look exactly the same, and while I've not seen figures in the crane kits, or mentioned as being with it, in the catalogues (and Airfix tended to make a feature of included figures, with their kits), it must be remembered that they dropped the figures in the Control Tower kit at some point, so it's not unheard of for them to have had figures in a kit and then not had them! Anyone know for certain?

 

AHM (Associated Hobby Manufacturers - a marketing co-op and importer) carried Airfix for a while in the 'States (before the invention of USAirfix), and here is one of their catalogue images for the Station Accessories, basically it's the colour image from the Airfix eighth, and some subsequent catalogues, rendered in Black & White!

 

Having seen the rarer Triang 'Rocket' crew the other day courtesy of Jon Attwood, here's a scan of an old photograph of my Airfix crew, they are actually in a bright lemon yellow polymer, but have got a bit browned in the image. As a series one window-box, always a colourful point among all the white, silver and grey 'plane kits and khaki AFV's.

 

I have a note, somewhere in my files, that Märklin (or Bing? Someone like that) had a set of Victorian/Wilhelminian passengers and crew (probably lead) in an approximately HO-gauge compatible size, with their contemporary tin-plate Adler (eagle) locomotive and carriages.

 

The - probably - Hong Kong copies, which have been mentioned in passing, once or twice in the last month or two, I don't know for certain that they are a Hong Kong thing, but they are quite crude copies, note the rounded-corner undercut bases. Airfix have the split-line of a two-part mould tool, across the base underside, I think these have a third baseplate insert, but I'll have to check the figures before I say so with certainty.

 

A hard styrene, in an off-white/ivory colour, they might be European copies, for a premium set or something, but I think Hong Kong is safer for now? And another scan of an old photograph, which, while I thought that they were already up, over on the Airifx page, they weren't, so I'll copy this and the AHM images over there, forthwith!

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!

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!

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!

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).

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!