50 Caliber & AT Guns

My Roco US Army 37mm anti-tank guns have been in disarray for a long time, now they are getting some work.

A couple of trucks getting their camouflage touched up.  Note the photo in the upper left.

A soldier in Europe in WWII took some scrape bits and made a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a carriage to tow being a Jeep.

So I took the shield, wheels, axle, and one of the trails from a 37mm gun that was missing the barrel and one trail and made the .50 caliber towed gun.

I cut down the shield on the 37mm gun, added the wire cutter from a Roco Willy's Jeep as the supports, and added an extra .50 caliber machine gun ammo box as extra ammunition.  

The original Roco 37mm anti-tank gun.

Front view.

Some of these I build so the trails can be opened or closed.

Slightly damaged ones get the trails glued together, like this one.

Others get glued down on a sheet of plastic with the trails open.

Underside view.

Paul Heiser Jeep, Airfix MP and 37mm by Roco.

Guns on plastic card get flocked.
 

Chopper and an Ant

Clarence sent me this in a box of miscellaneous bit and stuff.

No wheels or blades.  Only markings are the type of helicopter.  I don't know who made it.

It is my favorite color of all time, metallic blue.

It is an off scale for me but I suspect I can find wheels and something for blades.  It will likely end up as a museum exhibit, or maybe gate guard.

Clarence also sent me this great giant ant, he was red plastic.

One red ant does not make much of a colony so I painted it bronze color.

I plan to use it as a yard decoration for my Steve Sweetman Institute of Myrmecology.

Very good coverage for the paint.
 

Tires or Tracks?

2 1/2 ton truck with tracks to replace the wheels.

Roco Minitanks cab and frame, truck bed from Hot Wheels truck, and tracks from a Matchbox Frost Fighter.

1/72nd scale civilian for scale.

Ready for painting.  The US Army keeps experimenting with tracks that can be replaced with tires and tires that can be replaced with tracks.  This is one of those experiments.
 

Cars and Spiders

Hot Wheels car with spider markings on it.

It's from a TV show, that I don't watch.

I got one of these same cars a while ago, one in pink.

Girl spider, and boy spider cars.

Maybe Batman 66 Black Widow and perhaps her consort.

In a two episode story arc, consort would likely appear in only the first episode with Black Widow.
 

Frogs and Crickets

In the movie Killers From Space, the main character is shown the aliens plans for conquest of the Earth.  They are growing giant insects and intend to release them on humanity.  Our hero is shown many cages of different kinds of giant insects, and a few reptiles.  So I got this set to do that as a set up.  Here are giant ants, can't have too many giant ants.

Giant crickets, which can attack people in their small size version.

Frogs.

The giant mantis is a nice touch, you don't get those in miniature much.  They have then here in Kentucky and I see one now and then.  They are very cool.

Tarantula, and he stands on his feet.

You can see his little body is off the floor.
 

Reptiles and Bugs

1/72nd scale figure with three horned toads.

I got this set at Dollar Tree, actually I got three of them.  The set is called Reptiles and includes a lot of bugs and very few actual reptiles.

In theory you get one of each critter in both red and black plastic.

I practice you get what's in the bag and like it.

Note the scorpion is standing on his legs, many bug toys just lay on their tummy with their legs straight out, but these stand up pretty well, mostly.

The underside of some it detailed, but not all of them.  1/72nd scale figure for size.
 

Painting Little Trucks

Paul Heiser Models 2 1/2 ton truck with tires behind the cab show it is an artillery prime mover.

Overall it gets spray painted Rust-Oleum 2X primer, then Testors Olive Drab spray paint.  Most of the details get painted with Tamiya, like this winch cable.

Gloss black for the windshield.

And then flat black for the tires.  Testors 1164 Flat Green for the canvas, lots of touch up around the tires and canvas.

Painting the spare tires is a chore.

Each jar of paint gets a little sticker on top with the name and sometimes the number of the paint inside the jar.  I also include other information such as US Army Troops if it is a color I use for uniforms.  The jar lids get a black marker circle around the rim once it's opened.  I often have multiple jars of the paints I use a lot, so it's helpful to prevent me having multiple open jars of the same color.

Testors 1164 Flat Green and Testors 1165 Flat Olive.  I have probably used this paint for more than 50 years, and could have painted my house with all of it I have used.  It was about 5 cents per jar when I started using it.

 Their Flat Olive is a perfect match for Testors Olive Drab spraypaint.