Christmas Trucks

Over the last few years I gathered a bunch of these little Christmas trucks from Hobby Lobby.  They have a hole in the roof that held a loop so it could be hung from the Christmas tree.  The bed had a Christmas tree glued to the back and there is an air hole in the tail gate of these hollow trucks.  They were covered in glitter paint.  I hate glitter.

I have been filling the holes on the roof of most of them and the tailgate hole on all of them.  The roof hole gets filled with a plastic disk and super glue and then sanded down.  It's a very thin resin model.

Some of them are rather wonky, I think the paint remover caused sag on them.

This truck has a ring around the roof, and I have left it alone.  A couple of these trucks will be Army trucks with a machine gun in the roof and this one, I built out the truck bed.

Some will become police trucks, others US Army and US Navy and a few civilian trucks.
 

Pipe Cleaner, Eyes, and Tent

Pipe cleaners, for a project I am working on slowly.

Got them on Amazon.

They are pretty long and are in gradations of brown.

Big googlie eyes.  I have no idea what I will use them for.

Got them at the craft shop over Halloween.  Seemed interesting.  I am sure I can think of something to do with them.  Leave some suggestions in the comments.

Christmas tent decoration from Hobby Lobby.

Nice big tent.

I actually got two of them, since I got this one I went back later and got the second.

I probably will trim off the tree and either remove or repaint the package.

But I will keep one like this as it is kinda cut.  1/72nd scale figure and Hot Wheels car.
 

Candy Canes and Painting Sticks

Visited Hobby Lobby the other day and they have Christmas stuff out already.  Of course much of it is for crafters and they need a lot of lead time to do their crafty things.  

I like these little plastic sticks with a brush on the end.  It is a good way to apply glue or paint into little recessed areas.  It also provides a pretty good round dot of paint too.

They can be washed and reused like a regular paint brush but only a few times before all the bristles come off.

I got some new paint brushes.  This set comes in big and small point brushes, this is the big point.

My painting skills are not that great so buying expensive brushes, which I have done, does not help much.

I picked up a pack of candy canes.

Shiny plastic with a loop on the top.

I may use them to string a fence line.

I probably won't use barbed wire, but maybe....
 

Castle and Towers

Another view of the castle.  The square towers I used as outbuildings.  They would even work for bridge towers or small, local keeps.

Guarding the gate tower.  

More dragon on the wall.  Walls are not helpful if the dragons can fly.

These wall towers don't reach all the way to the walkway but a little work with an X-Acto knife would solve that problem.

It would put the little entrance right at walkway level.

It even fits on the round tower for more variety.  The square tower fits almost completely inside the round tower and provides no real benefit.

These are in the beach toys at Dollar Tree in little mesh bags.  The large keep I also found at Dollar General, and it was only $1.  They seem to have been made by the same company.
 

Cutting Mat

I picked up this cutting mat from Hobby Lobby a few days ago.

It is a big mat and only $10.99.  I got two small ones from the same company weeks ago and they have held up well from constant use.  I got them as a test to see if it was worth it to get the big one.

It was worth it and this is how large it is.

Warning label because everything will kill you.

California requires a warning on anything that could cause cancer.  I bought this anyway, I accept the danger.
 

Parts, Pallets

In World War Two especially but even in the Cold War the US Army used just about every type of vehicle you ever heard of and a lot you never saw before.  This is a plain old city bus, typical from the 1940s until the 1960s.  They would be seen around Army bases providing bus service just like in a city.  Buses also took soldiers around in administrative and training movements.  If a group were headed for the range, or going to the train station to move to a new location for a while, they might go by bus.  Often they were painted like other military vehicles and sometimes they were left in their original civilian colors as they came from the factory. 

Note the large electrical engine, it is mounted on a bit of sheet plastic.  It will fit in the back of a Roco 2 1/2 ton truck.  I use items like that for engineers or just general cargo.  Such an electric motor could be used in a factory or on board a ship.  The Army has often run factories and major repair facilities so a massive electric motor would not be that unusual.

Some of the other supplies include old drums, and various boxes of supplies.  By mounting them on sheets of plastic that fit into my truck fleet I can create a supply depot, have trucks move the supplies to the front, and then have them dropped at a forward resupply point. 

 In the top right of this photo you can see a Roco 2 1/2 ton truck with a cement truck body.  I have never seen such a truck in real life, nor even a photo of one.  However, the 2 1/2 ton truck was used in the hundreds of thousands and who is to say there was never one of them that had a cement mixer on the back?  US Army built bases all over the world and so having a cement truck would have been handy.  I took the body off of a junk vehicle from the dollar store and put it on a junk Roco 2 1/2 ton truck to make a unique and useful vehicle.  I don't think I would want ten of them, but certainly one is okay.

Also along the right side note the supplies.  First are oil drums, armies use lots of fuel.  Then there is an ammunition collection point.  Look carefully and see ammo boxes, belts of ammo, gathered up after the battle for re-issue or disposal.  The next pallet is Sherman tank maintenance items.  A Sherman commanders cupola, engine, and some other parts and tools.  The next pallet is boat propellers.  The Army used landing craft to cross the Rhine and also other rivers and lakes in WWII.  So having a supply of propellers was likely handy.  Next is plumbing fixtures.  Once a nation is conquered they are able to enjoy the benefits of American indoor plumbing. 

At the upper left is a partial view of one of those Hobby Lobby Christmas pick up trucks.  Original paint stripped and painted olive drab.  They are very inexpensive and not many other HO scale pick up choices out there.

The Roco 37mm US anti-tank gun is a nice little model and it functions well.  The trails open and close, the wheels turn, and the cannon moves up and down.  Sadly this also makes it fragile and I have a large number of them that have sustained damage over the decades.  So I have mounted many of them on little squares of sheet plastic.  Typically I flock them so they look nice. 

Small Trucks

First pattern Christmas tree pick up truck compared to the new red truck version.

One piece truck, smooth bottom.

1/72nd scale US Army soldier from Strelets.

I kept the beads from the bottom of the tree.  I will likely find something to use them for eventually.

I got two packs of them.  They look like utility trucks to me, so probably two for the Army, one for the Navy and the rest for the Phone Company.
 

Christmas Tree Truck

I found a new type of Christmas truck at Hobby Lobby.

Cut the little elastic string off the back of the card and the trucks are free.

Each has a Christmas tree on top.  There is a little bead on the end of the wire tree stump to keep you safe.  It's the first thing I removed.

Trees are lightly glued onto the truck.

The truck is one piece and is a bit smaller than the previous pick up truck.

Still close enough for me.  On sale at Hobby Lobby for about 50 cents each.
 

Lollypop

From the doll house miniature section of Hobby Lobby.

I plan on using them for my Wizard of Oz Munchkins.

These are about 15mm size figures.

They look pretty good size wise.

They are in nice colors.

I think they will help to make my Oz group a colorful success.