My Birthday

I had a great birthday this year.

Yves from Ykroel send me a bunch of 1940 French Commanders, in gray and green.  The gray ones have a few mis-molded poses but all the green ones are perfect.

My wife took me to Pegasus Hobbies, Brookhurst Hobbies, Hobby Lobby, and Michaels.  Goo is a very strong rubber cement, and the yellow cones hold your painting project off the table.

I got three dinosaurs on sale at Michaels, the Spinosaurus is huge and really nice.

Hobby Lobby had these two boats on sale, 50% off.  They will need to have the lower hull sawed off for waterline use.

More Furniture

 

Take a Roco Minitank tank wheel and put an L shaped bit of Plastruct ladder in the hole.

 

 

Take bits of square tubing and glue them underneath the tables you made.

 

That converts the tables into desks.  A small, thin sheet of plastic will cover the ends.  Shown here on the far side on the right before being trimmed to size.



 

Glue a bit of angle plastic on the previous Roco wheel and you have a chair.

All of these furniture parts are cheap, easy, and simple and quick.

Furniture Making

Evergreen Plastic, tile squares, in styrene.

Break them up into small bits.

Take some Plastruct ABS ladder parts and cut them up too.

You end up with little ladder parts like these.

Glue them to the tile and you have a table, in 1/72nd scale, perfect for headquarters, operating rooms, supply rooms, repair rooms, and so on.  One set of tiles and one set of ladders will furnish a whole base.

Gamma

Northrop Gamma, in 1/72nd scale.

The kit comes with many optional bits.

Different engines, different propellers.

Different pilot arrangements.

This canopy is not one of the options.

I got this kit used and several bits were missing.

So I added the bubble canopy from some other kit that's been in the spares box for a decade.  I added two pilots that were also standing by for assignment.

Gamma

This is a 1/72nd scale Northrup Gamma, by Williams Brothers.

It has a great decal set, with decals from several different specific real versions of this aircraft.

I got this kit used about 15 years ago, and I finally got around to building it.

I built one of these before, and it's a pretty straightforward kit.

Simple interior, no pilot, so I had to find one.

Large Lee

This is a Lee tank made by Tootsietoy.

It's die cast metal, and about 1/64th scale.

It's one piece, with an axle and tires underneath at front and rear.

Here it is with a Roco Panzer III, HO scale.

Size comparison with a Paul Heiser Sherman tank.

It's a pretty nice old toy, at least 50 years old, maybe older.

It's much larger than it should be for HO, but no larger than perhaps an M6 Heavy Tank.

Here is a view from the underside of the tank.

1913 to 2013

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3691

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Featherstone_(wargamer)

2013 has been an important year for miniature wargaming.  It is the 100th anniversary of the publication of H.G. Wells book, Little Wars.  It is the first modern book about miniature wargaming for civilians.  It was the beginning of miniature wargaming as we know it.

2013 is also the year that Donald Featherstone died.  He published a wargame magazine and wrote numerous articles on miniature wargames.  He also wrote many books on miniature wargames.  The first book I ever bought about miniature wargames was Solo Wargaming written by Mr. Featherstone.

When I was a teenager my mother tried to get me to give up the army men, saying they were kids toys.  I found Mr. Featherstones book and showed her that men did play miniature wargames and even published books about them.  It saved my wargaming collection.  Mr. Featherstone served in combat in the British Army in WWII.  He was introduced to miniature wargames by reading H.G. Wells.

Stock Up

Sometimes bad things happen to me.  I have lost my job.  I have had various disasters happen.  Sometimes bad things happen to other people.  They have a fire, or there is an earthquake.  I think we should prepare for disasters, including with our hobby.

I maintain a two year supply of glue, paint, knife blades, razor saws, paintbrushes and all the other expendable items that get used when doing hobby stuff.  Imagine you had lots of time on your hands, certainly you would want to work on your hobby.  So it's a good idea to keep a reserve of hobby essentials to allow you to work on the models or the collection.

In times of plenty, stock up on hobby stuff.  In times of scarcity, you can use things up a bit.  Building models is a fairly cheap hobby, and if you have all your supplies lined up for a year or more of work, you can keep going even when things are going well.  It really keeps up morale and provides safe, and inexpensive entertainment to keep your mind engaged.

Flying Wing

The flying wing was a massive aircraft.

Look how big these wheels are, with an Airfix USAAF man pulling away the wheel chocks.

Very large propellers.

1/72nd scale figure next to the observation dome.

The previous Brewster Buffalo kit I built a few weeks ago.

Bookends of WWII USAAF aviation.

Flying Wing

During World War Two the Americans were concerned that they might have to bomb Germany or Japan from North America.

So they started to develop bombers that could accomplish that goal, not with A-Bombs, but conventional bombs.

There were two main versions of this bomber and this kit has both of them.  The main differences are the engines and propellers.

This 1/72nd scale kit is huge, but it's very easy to put together.

The cockpit and rear observation dome.

The gunner controlled remote control gun turrets.

More Little Ships

Mexico City was surrounded by water and connected to the land by causeways.

Cortez used a fleet of 13 small ships to control those waterways.

The Aztecs used canoes to attack the Conquistadors.

The large Spanish ships were almost invincible against the canoes.

The Spanish could fire a cannon and sink a canoe, and could fire their crossbows, and firearms too.

It was hard for the Aztecs to board the Spanish ships because they were tall.

These ships have a mixture of Revell and Caesar and Empire Games figures on their decks.

Apart from the fact that the flags should fly in the same direction as the sails, they are ready to go to the wargame table straight from the store.

I would suggest trimming off the small crows nest on most of them and perhaps going with one or two masts on some for variety.

All in all, a nice wargame fleet.