S is for Spencer Smith Part 1; Figures

Some time ago we had a few of these figures sent in to the 'What the #%&*' section of One Inch Warrior (see Plastic Warrior link on right), and in a follow up article by Stuart Asquith used some of mine to help illustrate it. I photographed them - on that occasion - with Tudor Rose vehicles in support, and liked the combination so much I've returned to it here. We'll look at the Spencer Smith Miniatures first;

A bunch of advancing poses and the bazooka team, they are mostly a generic 'Combat Infantry' in style, somewhere between the Second World War and the mid-1960's, and you can see the Holger Eriksson ancestry straight away. The khaki-green ones are the most common, with sand coming a close second, the loader is just a colour variant produced when the green is run into an injector previously running the primer-brown used by a lot of the AWI/7YW figures. The black figures are the least common, being - I suspect - a late batch, while the grey are usually re-moulds from Harlow, especially if they are all shiny and clean!

Mortar and MG with crew and a couple of fighting poses. The MG is clearly modelled on something like the French Hotchkiss while the SMG's look like the Yugoslavian M56, a copy of the German MP40 with 'banana magazine, so a right old mix...but more on origins below!.

The two artillery gunners, one has a small round ideal for 25lbr's while the other guy is packing some heavy shite. Both guns here are Hong Kong products. Like all Spencer Smith, these were designed primarily for war gaming, accuracy of detail and/or moulding was never an issue.

I am not a war-gamer, I used to fight micro-tanks with a schoolmate 33 years ago, but not now, however I have all the stuff needed in 'The Collection', so thought it'd be a bit of a hoot to set up a little scenario from the Terrance Wise (I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!!) school of how to do it! here the boys are rushing across a road 'dans la bocage', as they slowly encircle a small village.

While in this shot the mortar line provides suppressive fire-support with 2" 'personal' and 3" 'Infantry' mortars.

[Can any of the metal collectors tell me who or what should be attached to the plug on the log in the background?]

S is for Spencer Smith Part 2; Lose Ends

Ooh...Tudor Rose appear on the scene, dont'cha love 'em, No? Wrong blog mate, move along please, keep browsing, move along - nothing to see here!! Ammo re-supply squad wait for orders while something vaguely resembling a 25lbr fires in support of the assault.

Tudor Rose armoured car providing a bit of a stiffener for the guys holding the crossroads, wagons are from various sources and the hedges are all Merit (J & L Randall).

Comparison between Starlux (on the left) and Reisler (3rd from the left), the Spencer Smith figure is a little below the 30mm of the other two. I gave the Hotchkiss it's correct crew! They - perversely - are too small!!

Origins; Mr Smith almost certainly didn't have permission to copy the HE figures in the way he did, and it's probably only the fact that by the time Spencer Smith flourished (late 1960's - mid 70's) Holgar Eriksson was so well known and well regarded he didn't care, also he (H.E.) was known to avoid the limelight and a court/piracy case would have entailed publicity, I don't know?

Anyway, Smith copied from all over Eriksson's oeuvre, as can be seen here, the grenade thrower comes from the 40mm Comet range, the kneeling artilleryman is an HE original with a head swap, the ammo-Carrier was an ANZAC once! And the advancing figure was one of Eriksson's favorite poses, the 20mm one is Comet/Authenticast from the States, while the larger one is an HE figure. Meanwhile he was copying ACW and AWI/7YW figures (which will be covered another day) from the SAE range from South Africa! Also to get a day of their own in the limelight.

Smith put generic heads on most of them (Sort of half-way between the British Mk 3/5 piss-pot I had to wear in the 80's and the American M1), but a couple do have the 'Brodie'/British Mk 2 type helmet, most noticeably the kneeling firer.

T is for Tudor Rose Part 1 Vehicles

So, on to the support act - stars to me! In the 1950's Tudor Rose (Rosebud/Rosedale) made their own range of vehicles, while everyone else ran around copying/licensing each others, i.e.; Banner, Pyro, Merit, Kleeman/Kleeware, Lido and Wannatoys among others!.

The best is the Churchill tank, ignoring the dodgy turret, it's a nice model and fits in well with the only other high-street player of the time; Airfix. Detail is - especially on the suspension/running gear - a bit 'surface' or cosmetic but it does it for me.

The amphibious Jeep is too big and too ugly, so moving on...is that an AEC armoured car? I think it might think it is!!! Hey cumon! They were TOYS! And who's going to turn down a whole squadron of AEC's at pocket-money prices? Damage to aerials and windscreens is almost total after all these years, but the odd whole one turns up from time to time. The three that suffer are the Jeep, Carrier and 'amphijeep'.

Note also that some have the Liberation star recognition mark and some don't, these were thermo-printed, to such an extent you can use oven cleaner to strip war-gamers paint-jobs from these without removing the star underneath! I've yet to find a Churchill with the star.

The Jeep with gun and limber, a bit fictional on the artillery, while the ambulance is based on the Bedford MWD. Again the red cross is thermo-printed, but the cream roof is painted in household gloss! Likewise the rear gun (in the photo) has had the cream paint treatment, the hint of silver you will see in close-up (click on the image) was added by the war-gamer from the collection of whom this vehicle came. It has adhered to the cream underneath and won't fully come off.

He had a large collection of early plastics, all painted with red, blue, black and yellow markings (his four armies/units) and all the vehicles (Airfix/Blue Box/Marx etc...) were enhanced with silver, big blobs of it, all over tracks, radiators, mudguards, and gun barrels!!

My favourite Tudor Rose and one of my favourite pieces within the whole collection is the twin Bofors portee on a CMP chassis, all the early plastics guys (and Lone*Star in die-cast metal) did a twin Bofors, and they were all much copied/pirated.

In front is the best Bren carrier I have, the front gun is OK and the drivers bench also survives intact (it's a really thin moulding), but the pintle-mounted LMG is sadly missing its barrel.

When cleaning/paint stripping these you have to be careful of the wheels, they appear to be made of a vulcanised rubber/Bakelite material, and not only develop a white bloom or mould in storage, but can soften if immersed in oven cleaning foam for too long. So I tend to strip them in quick phases with periods of rest in between to allow the wheels to stabilize. Three sessions usually does it.

T is for Tudor Rose Part 2; Lose Ends

Comparison shot between the Esci Churchill IV with AMRCR and the Tudor Rose Churchill Mk ? As this model almost certainly pre-dates the Airfix one, and definitely came before the Hasegawa Mk III and Esci offering, one wonders what the sculptor and toolmaker were using as reference material? There is an almost hybrid III/IV aspect to the turret, other than that it's almost the same size, and made a cheap troop/regiment when little else was available.

With the Churchill as a sizer, we have a Sherman on the left, this is marked "Made in England" but with no makers mark, I suspect it's a late production Kleeware (plastic colour as much as anything?), Kleeman - the parent company - having been bought by Rosedale/Tudor Rose.

The Bofors portee is a strange one, we know it's aTudor Rose moulding, but the 'Tudor Rose' mark has been cut out of the mould? Again there is a clue in the colour of the plastic, this metallic blue was used on the ex-Pyro spaceships produced by Kleeware, so the assumption (only an assumption but also an 'educated guess'!) is that after taking them over, Tudor Rose gave the Kleeware facility some moulds for a range of garish pocket-money versions of the old khaki set? OR, that this mould was lent to Kleeware (there was interaction before the takeover) to provide a land-based element to one of the space sets?

Finally, the pop-up driver tank, a re-take of a US dime-store novelty, is again marked "England" but with no sign of a makers mark. Plastic colour of the hull points to Kleeware, however the bronze barrel is very Tudor Rose (they used bronze and copper coloured plastic for some of their spaceships) and a close look at the driver reveals he's had a run-in with the Tudor Rose cream gloss paint brush...so it's likly a Tudor rose model made with a batch of Kleeware granules.

The Plane is marked Tudor Rose, I've been told the cowboy 'walkers' are as well, but the bloke who told me was only an expert on early space, Dr. Who and Del Prado, so I stand to be corrected, they are unmarked. The staff car is unmarked, but identical to one of the two Pyro cars (licence plate; BV 4672, the other being a coupe with ducks tail; licence plate; DP 7189) so should be Kleeware or Merit, and again that yellowy-olive is a bit of a giveaway, however I've included it here as it has another version of thermo-printed Allied star.

Tudor Rose gun-line firing in support of the assault on the village as infantry tanks move off their FUP's. Crewed by Spencer Smith, this was the height of sophistication for a late 1950's - early 60's child's battle-gaming, all you needed was the imagination seemingly lacking in today's "can we have a set in shirt-sleeves to add to the 4 sorry; 500+ sets we've already been given since 1997" generation...

Churchill in fire support covered by a resin farmhouse (15mm) while the portee waits patiently for the last Messerschmitt in the Reich, or at least the last Messerschmitt with fuel!!

There are a few more images from this sequence on my Imageshack account, link to top right of page. [07-03-2012; I've closed my Imageshack account so I'm putting them below...

Imposing the Human Will on Nature

Rushing around trying to get everything ready before the full onset of spring - and it's attendant bionic-weed problem - has meant the blogs have taken a bit of a back seat recently. however here is a couple of photo's on the 'before-and-after' theme.

This is the top rose bed, wall-climbers interspersed with fruit trees, the boss likes to keep it free of flowering plants (I tried to leave a couple of established flowering weeds in as eye candy - but they came out while I wasn't looking!) but it still needs a bit of a tart-up after the long winter months.

Three hours later, I use a small hand/potting fork, as I like to cover the whole bed without digging up dormant stuff underneath, if you dig a bed like this with a garden fork you can damage roots and bring up opportunistic seeds. You can still get couch-grass out, by following the runners and pulling gently. Finally I edge-up with a tool like an old sheep shearer and flick the soil back from the lawn edge.

Graham - who comes half a day a week to tackle a big job, finishing-off the veg. patch, since this was taken we have got the early spuds, main crop and Onions/Shallots in, as well as planting out the broad-bean seedlings I planted back in Feb.

T is for T34 - Prolog; The Real Things

In advance of an article I'm holding over for a few days; these were taken at Beltring last summer at the War and Peace show.

Both T34/85's there's not much else to add. The upper one is a 'Gate Guardian' at Beltring, and wasn't moving anywhere in a hurry, the lower one is a runner, and once I work out how to upload video, I'll post some video footage of it to Youtube!

Note the damage to the rubber tyres and the three different wheel types. The vehicle behind is the FV432/B, a standard 432 Trojan with the top-heavy addition of the 30mm Raden turret from a Fox armoured car. This failed experiment was supplied (surplused!) to Berlin Brigade Where they were furnished with a fetching camouflage of chocolate-brown, battleship-grey and creamy-white interlocking irregular rectangles, not the green of this example.

T is for Torres

Miguel Torres to be precise, maker of fine Spanish wine and sherry, but in order to make it a post worth viewing, there are a few others...

Above are the poses I've found so far, I'm sure there are more, each time the mould wears out - a new one being made. The Gold colour variant is probably for a premier product, in the same way that Scot's Scotch over the years has been issued with premiums of horses or Scottie dogs tying in with their 'Red Label', White Label or Black label, home/export brands etc...Pointing to the possibility of all the poses being found in Gold - eventually!

Top left is a hard plastic bull I am assuming is an earlier (1930's/1950's?) version of the Torres drinks bull, perhaps one of the Spanish followers of this blog can help?

Then the Airfix and Matchbox bulls as a size guide, with the brown bull belonging to the yellow and red guy below. I have been told he is Kinder, but this is clearly nonsense, he is marked Hong Kong, as is his Matador and a small magnet hidden behind the red cloth and within the body of the bull puts them firmly in the Joke Shop novelty 'pigeon-hole' along with the kissing teenagers, or the Stag Toy nudes who will only get out of a bath or bed if you flick them in a certain way.

The rest of the bottom row shows a polythene Torres to compare with the hard plastic one above, a Kinder Matador and a soft vinyl-rubber bull similar to the bulls produced in 54mm by Charbens and Cherilea (not to mention most - if not all of - the Spanish plastics guys), I guess he's modern HK/Chinese production for the Spanish tourist market, I have yet to find his Matador.

T is for Truck - Prolog; The Real Things

Nothing beats the real thing, all taken at War and Peace - Beltring, last Summer

Front and rear three-quarter views of the same wagon. GMC

A very clean hard-top with the standard trailer. Chevy or Studebaker?

Nice shot showing the difference between soft and hard-top cabs on the same manufacturers chassis. Mack's?

This has the most potential for a conversion project, it's an International Fire Tender.

T is for Truck Part 1; Overview and Odd Sizes

There are trucks that are lorries, trucks that are vans, trucks that are wagons, trucks that are big cars and trucks that are rigs, there are even trucks that are small wheel assemblies on skateboards, and then there is the US Military 'Deuce-and-a-half' 6x6 two-and-a-half-ton General Service Vehicle...Now that's a TRUCK.

Made by everybody (GMC, Studebaker, Ford, International Harvester, Chevrolet, Mack etc...), they have carried countless body types, taken weapon mounts, towed everything and in so doing - have become an iconic symbol of American military power, as they growl past in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes.

Here are some of mine (one day I'd like a real one, but I'd paint it gloss black, I'm no combat wombat!)

From your 'six' going time-wise; Polistil, Marx, Heller/Airfix, Marx, Airfix 1st version readymade, Hasegawa, Airfix 2nd version readymade, Jonny Lightning, Roco Minitanks, Marx, Comic advertised flat, MPC 'Mini' and Skytrex/Davco (?).

Missing; The T Cohen truck (just colour variants of the Airfix 1st version readymade), the new Pegasus and Academy kits and a bunch of kits from the new Eastern manufacturers. Plus various resin/white-metal efforts.

The Marx trucks, two dime-store quality toys and a Roco piracy made in Hong Kong. The copy is almost identical, but is spoilt by having lose axles, that also - in the case of the front wheels - are far too long.

Here she is next to her originator, clip-together construction meant you could have it open or closed, cab and/or body. There was a tractor version as well, and various body types were issued over the years. As far as I know the Marx copy only came as a GS body.

The rest; The Politoys one is around 1:48, but the crew are 1:76/72, the Johnny Lightning version is a bit long for it's width.

The comic book flat looks more like the front end of a half-track grafted on to a farm trailer! MPC's Mini is a single moulding, while the Skytrex/Davco (I'm not sure which trade mark this is) one has a removable tilt, unusual at this scale (1:300)

T is for Truck Part 2; Kit Stuff

What those below will hopefully look like if I ever get round to finishing them! The Hasegawa tanker body with a Cooper Craft Taskers tanker-trailer. This is one of my more recent efforts...I finished it about 15 years ago, Hey, it's a fits-&-starts thing!

Weathering was thinned gloss chocolate and gloss black for the spillage and a quick dry-brush with pale sand. Taskers were still making trailers when I was a kid and my cousins had a few on the farm for hauling grain. I reasoned that trailers were cheap and easy to produce, and with the US shipping heavy gear like tanks over the Atlantic, they might have bought/sourced some stuff over here?

Not one but two unfinished projects (the Hasegawa's are one project the Heller is another!). The Heller/Airfix kit is really nice once you get it together, but it's not easy to produce, given it's a recent moulding with all the new technology available during the design/manufacturing process, it suffers (like the Jeep released at the same time) from very poor joining points, some of the stud & holes are barely visible, and while it's a while since I built it, I seem to remember the long 'shelf's' to run the glue down and rest the other/larger parts on were problematical.

The Hasegawa ones I'm building as differently as possible, so it's screen down and no tilt for one, full cover for the other, and one's going to be dark olive, the other olive drab.

Comparison shot of the Heller/Airfix truck and Hasegawa sandwiched between the two versions of the Airfix Polyhthene readymades. On a war-games table there's nothing in it, in a line there are differences but they are slight, although the Heller truck is a bit slimmer than the others. I lined up longest at the front, I should have put it at the back but I can't be arsed to re-do the photo!

The full range of the Airfix readymades, the two colour variations of the first version on the left with a carded example behind, on the right the three main colours and a boxed second version. For a guide to the two versions see Part 3 below.

T is for Truck Part 3; Airfix Readymade

How to recognise a diamond in the dirt, the Airfix ethylene 6x6 (called the 'poly' range by some, or more commonly the 'readymade' range) came in two separate versions, first the Attack Force one, then a cruder one in the redesigned range. There are always a few kicking around the bring-&-buy, but finding the earlier, better one needs a closer look... 1st version on the left, points to note; Cleaner cab lines, clearer rivet bumps on bonnet/hood, winch with rope not an accordion! and a grill over the headlights and radiator. 1st version on the right, points to note; diamond-plate on the foot-step/running board. 1st version underneath, points to note; 2nd version is shorter, 1st has rivet detail on the drop-sides, straps round the fuel tank, and a fuel filler cap. 1st version above, points to note; on the 1st version the tyres have a rounder profile and deeper tread, the dual-wheels are thinner and both the body and tilt are numbered. This also shows the difference in length between the two.

T is for Totem Pole

I've placed 'Totem Pole' in the tag list, so if you go down there and click on it, you'll get this above the original post, so it'll be more in context. These are the ones I couldn't find when preparing the original article.

And from left to right they are; Unknown modern Hong Kong/China, from a bagged play-set with poor copies of the Airfix Cowboys and Indians; JIM from France; Starlux, also French and an unknown tourist trophy similar to the Greg Wolf one in the original post, even down to the black resin material but smaller.

A rose, by any other name, is still a thorny bastard

Well, I finally tackled my first bird's nest! This thing (I'll try and find out what it's actually called - Latin/Linean, not common, I know it's a moss-rose!) has thorns on it as close together as the hairs on a Kiwi fruit, but much longer and much stiffer! I hardly ever wear gloves in the garden, I just can't be doing with them, I like to keep in touch with what I'm doing, even if it means I have to constantly super-glue the cracks in my right thumb and forefinger until they heal (Hey, try it - it works!), but for this I did wear gloves on and off, mostly the left hand to hold while I worked with the right, but it was three weeks ago and I'm still getting thorns out of both hands!!

The before photograph, the trick is to work very slowly, first take the whole thing apart, untie everything and pull out all the remains of the old frame (which was a couple of years old, this was given a half-a-job last year) and any fallen dead wood, at the same time cut-out any dead and weedy bits from this year.

Once it's all loose, divide it into four bunches and hold them out of the way with a bit of wood, then build the new frame. I used fresh-cut hazel and went for a basket of overlapping sticks, this left four arches that were in tension with each other and in compression with themselves (I knew that bridge-building project in First Year Architecture would come in useful one day!).

Then working round the bush, cut last years growth back to the longest of this years shoots, pull the shoot under the edge of the frame, then up-and-over and finally down across the basket and tie in. After you've had the best two or three from each of you four bundles, you'll realise you've still got far too much and you can start cutting some right out. Start with those that are silvery lower down, those that have short or weedy new shoots, and then those that won't bend over very gracefully or that will snap if they're bent that far, you'll be left with the rest of the good ones which you use to 'fill the gaps'.

It took about 4 hours. I'll post it again when it's in bloom.