Tips

When you buy a model, throw away the packaging. It has no particular value. Once the model is assembled, toss it out. There are plenty of books and online references for your vehicle.

If you see a model you want, buy it. Next time it will be more expensive or perhaps even unobtainable. If you can't afford all of them you need for your wargame army, then make regular purchases. Many hobby companies disappear and many are run by individuals, who when they die or retire their products are gone forever.

Use sharp knife blades. Dull blades are dangerous and don't do as good a job as sharp ones. I keep my used blades for rough projects or to heat and use to melt plastics.

Buy a pin vise and use it to drill little, tiny holes in stuff. It is much easier than trying to make holes using a knife blade.

Get a cutting board and do all your work on it. They are not only sold in hobby shops, they are also sold in fabric stores and often cheaper.

When painting, put your open jar of paint inside a small low sided plastic box. If you knock the paint over, you will not have a disaster.

Busch VW

This neat little bug is from Bush in HO scale. It is a WWII German Army propaganda car.

It comes with knobby tires, suppies on the roof and a movie camera.

Fully assembled and painted right out of the box.

It was only $16 at my local train shop.

Good for morale to have your troops being filmed for the folks back home.

VW Land

For the last several weeks I have been working on my WWII German supply units. These Roco Kubelwagens are part of that work.

Ironically, the oldest versions of this kit are the best. As the model was produced the quality declined.

The flash was terrible on the tires, and also along the driver side edge of the body.

There is also a bit of excess plastic on the body between the seats that must be cut away or the bottom hull can be trimmed so that the floor and body will fit together.

Still a good sturdy little vehicle. The Swimmwagen is a nice kit too. Two important vehicles, used by the tens of thousands in WWII.

Ford Car

Now this little honey is a 1959 Ford Fairlane in HO 1/87th scale.

Check 'er out under the hood. What a mighty engine that is under there!

Any general officer would be proud to be seen tooling around the base in this Cold War beauty.

Seen here with a nice Sherman tank for scale, from Bill Jr's Custom Military Models, also in HO scale.