A 1/72 Tank Mark II

Just thought I'd try this. It's been playing on my mind ever since I noticed that the cab front from the Airfix kit is the same size as that from the Emhar kit.

The Airfix kit is really a Mark II, despite what it says on the box, so making a Tank Mark II has never been a problem. I have one I made years ago sitting on a windowsill collecting cobwebs. The problem is the kit is 1/76 scale, presumably because back in the olden days that was the size of the figures people used. Today's figures, however, are 1/72 and when placed in the vicinity of the Airfix tank make it look small.

The Emhar kit is 1/72, so no problem set beside figures. The two cabs shouldn't really be the same size, but they are. I don't know why I noticed it. So I sliced the Airfix cab front off (it is attached to the glacis) and glued it to the Emhar body. It took less than 3 minutes. I wasn't very careful, just wanted to get it going.

The two models assemble in different ways so there are some gaps, and it's not helped by my indifferent cutting and gluing skills. But I think it's going to work. A little bit of Green Stuff, a little bit of "mud", something to draw your attention elsewhere, and Robert is your mother's brother.

Molding and Casting with Oyumaru

I've just had my first go with Oyumaru. It really is as simple as all the videos say.

1. Get some Oyumaru:

2. Put it in hot water for a few minutes and it turns malleable. Press it over the object you want to copy (in this case, a 1/72 German Cavalry figure from LW):

3. Let it cool and harden, or run it under cold water for 30 seconds to harden. Remove the object. Mold is made:

4. Push Green Stuff into the mold. When the Green Stuff has hardened, remove it from the mold:

You're done.

I know I used too much Green Stuff, but it'll trim off. Just look at how much detail it captured!

Very pleased with this.

Tank Mark IV Female

Thought I'd build Emhar's 1/72 Tank Mark IV Female to try to show everything that is wrong with this kit by correcting as much as I could. It needs a lot of corrections! And, I chose the female because it is supposed to be more accurate than the male.

In this first pic I have scratchbuilt the rear armour (I made the rivets by pressing a pointy tool thingy into the back of the thin plastic sheet), filled in two hatches that the real thing didn't have, and removed a line of rivets that, again, the real thing didn't have. I've also started building the cargo box from a photoetch set; it's on the table beside the back of the tank:

This next pic shows the new rear armour, the new cargo box (from Extratech), and the changes I made to the exhaust pipe; wrapped some thin wire around to simulate asbestos cord, and changed the length:

Exhaust pipe and cargo box in place:

Putting on the photoetch unditching rails (from Extratech), the ones in Emhar's kit are a complete work of fiction. You can also see how much the exhaust pipe has changed:

I replaced the kit's rubber tracks with a resin set from Matador Models. The resin ones don't bend around the horns like the rubber ones do, and in real life track plates don't bend. Also, the Mark IV more often than not wore track extension plates, or "grousers", to reduce ground pressure:

And here the tracks are done. Throughout this build I've been learning how to use Liquid Green Stuff from Citadel; going to need a lot of it!:

Next I had to fix the shackle at the front. This meant I had to carve away the one that's moulded as part of the kit to slim it down, and make a duplicate piece out of plastic sheet. This tiny detail took me about 3 hours! Then I started to correct the sponsons: they have no detail at all on the top, when they should have rivets and an angled dividing strip:

The rivets are from Archer Surface Details, and are incredibly fiddly. I found I couldn't do strips longer than three, and I had to brush these into place with a tiny wet paintbrush. Also, even after leaving them for half an hour, when I went to put more on it loosened and moved the first ones. I will have to let them dry overnight, I think.

Not too bad for a first attempt, although I can see it looks a bit rough (I'm not blind!). I am not going to do the missing line of rivets (if you look carefully at the top edge of a female Mark IV sponson, you might notice it has a double line of rivets. Emhar's kit has a single line.) because I think it doesn't notice very much.
Next I need to replace the kit's incorrect Hotchkiss machine-guns with Lewis MGs. And here's what I've managed so far:

The top one is from Emhar's British Infantry - I cut up the Lewis gunner. But as you can see the mould is misaligned and there is a ton of flash. The bottom, light grey tube was my second attempt: I don't like this one either.

Another two options are the resin ones from Matador Models, and the metal ones from Aeroclub:

Clearly the Aeroclub ones are superior, but I decided to save them for later. I have a project in mind that involves a crew working on their tank and I'll need the detailed guns for that. Plus, I only have four of them. I went with the Matador Models ones

I haven't done the front MG yet.

Reviresco Austin Armoured Car

I wanted to test my skills with an airbrush I was given some years ago; I've never used one. I thought I'd knock this kit together in a few minutes, straight out of the box, as they say (although it comes in a polythene bag, not a box). It took about half an hour to get it to look like this:

Despite my intention to build it OOB, warts-and-all, and only use it for "target practice" while I learn how to use the airbrush, I couldn't resist "fiddling" with it. I've left off the front mudguards because they looked awful, and I am going to use the Hotchkiss MGs from the Emhar Mk IV female tank instead of this kit's unidentifiable blobs. I feel like I should fill the great big gaps with Green Stuff. Sadly there's nothing I can do about the rear end; it's completely the wrong shape (well, I could do a "cut and shut" on the chassis, and saw off the rear corners, but... it's only for paint practice!).

I carried out the machine gun transplant (the Emhar Mk IV female should not have Hotchkiss MGs, so it was no big deal to cut them off and use them here):

Ford Model T

I read in one of the UK's tabloids, years ago, that in 1916 the Ford Model T made up more than 50% of the cars on Planet Earth. Allegedly it was quite a rugged and reliable little vehicle. I thought I'd have a look around and see what models are available in 1/72 scale.

There are 3 nice, but a bit fiddly, kits from RPM: an ambulance, a Motor Machine Gun Service (MMGS) car, and the Ford Tfc armoured car. The armoured car version was specific to Poland during the Polish-Bolshevik War, but the ambulance and the gun car were more widely used. For an article on how to super-detail these models, click here. For an article about the Tfc in the Polish-Bolshevik War, click here.

Matador Models also make 3 Model Ts; like RPM there is an ambulance and a gun car, but there is also a light truck version:

For some years now, Matador Models have been saying they are making a "Ford Model T Russian Pattern Armoured Car". Hopefully they make it, and hopefully they are talking about the Admiralty Pattern armoured car.

Reviresco make a number of Model Ts (10 in fact), but some sites say that not all of them are 1/72, in spite of Reviresco's claim. I don't own any of them, so am not best placed to comment. All of them can be seen on this page, entitled, "Cars and Staff Vehicles of The Great War, 1/72nd Scale". Among the list is a sedan, coupe, staff car, panel truck, stake truck, and this pick-up:

 



Scale Link have two in their ranges; a flat bed truck and a van. Reading the fine print on their site reveals that Scale Link made the master for Matador Models' flat-bed truck (shown above). This is their van:

You can buy Scale Link's 1/76 scale Ford Model Ts on this page.

Springside Models make 4; two trucks and two cars. They are in 4mm:foot scale which works out to 1/76. The 4-seater car version looks good:

And there is a Staff Car version available from Convoy Models, who seem to make all their models in 1/76 scale.

Plastic Figures for WW1

Plastic Soldier Review has a long list of plastic figures for WW1, it shows there are 19 sets of Germans, 6 of French, 10 British, 5 British Dominion, 12 Russian, 5 Austro-Hungarian, 3 Italian, 4 American, 2 Ottoman, 1 Serbian, and 1 of pilots for all nations. That makes a total of 68. I have not included the sets made by MIR, HäT's reissues of Airfix's sets, or sets that have no figures, such as the LW/Evolution Russo-Balt armoured car, and some of the guns from HäT.

There are two sets available from Strelets that aren't on PSR's list; 6-inch Gun Mark VII, and 8-inch Howitzer Mark II. Both of these sets contain a sprue of figures for the gun crew, and there are actually quite a lot of figures. Bringing the total of plastic WW1 sets up to 70.

In addition to the 70, there are quite a few sets that will be released in the near or not-too-distant future.

Out of that 70, 26 are made by HäT, and if you include Coates and Shine as HäT (the boxes have "HäT" written on them, not Coates and Shine) the number goes up to 28. Strelets account for 22 sets (soon to be 24), with a large number of them being Russian and German cavalry. The remaining 20 are made up by Airfix (5), Emhar (5), Revell (2), Zvezda (2), Caesar (1), Pegasus (1), LW (1), Waterloo 1815 (1), Dark Dream Studio (1), and Co. Ma. (1).

Looking at those numbers you could be forgiven for thinking that there is a good selection of 1/72 plastic figures available for WW1. You'd be wrong, but you could be forgiven for it.

Minute Men

Minute Men is my first blog. My intention is to blog about small scale models and figures, but some other topics might creep in. By "small scale" I mean 1/72, 1/76, 4mm:foot, and perhaps occasionally 20mm, 28mm, 15mm, HO and OO.

My main interest is The Great War, or WWI, but I may also talk about Ancients, Medieval, English Civil War, the other civil and uncivil wars between say, 1890 and 1930, and anything else that takes my fancy.