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Hi to All again! Things are coming along quite well at the moment, I tried that slicing off a bit of the flat plate spud and had a go today, not perfect every time but I have got a few 'usables' from that one now so worth trying. The groundwork is starting to come together and more on that procedure coming soon. Sections of the trench sides are being added, the problem being that its difficult to photograph the work without giving away sneak previews of other sections that I haven't posted up yet!  (as in the groundwork!) Anyway, back to the bunker! Part Twenty Nine: Continuing in the Bunker. Part 1I want to go home, I want to go home. I don't want to go in the trenches no more, Where whizzbangs and shrapnel they whistle and roar. Take me over the sea, where the Alleyman can't get at me. Oh my, I don't want to die, I want to go home. Verse 1 of “I want to go home” (Alleyman is a Tommy slang corruption of Allemande – a German!)Back we come again! I did most of this section some months ago now, can’t believe I hadn’t posted it up yet! Continuing on from the last bunker instalment, Photo 1 illustrates the two rolled up anti-gas curtains for the doorway into the bunker. As gas attacks became more and more common and the gas itself became nastier and more lethal, both sides began to equip their more permanent structures with basic anti-gas defenses. In its most simple form, this comprised as here, of a simple curtain of heavyweight material, soaked in a chemical solution designed to neutralise the chemicals in the gas clouds. When the gas alert was sounded and after first donning their own gas masks the soldiers would pull on the two quick release straps and the curtain, weighted at the bottom would drop down into position, blocking most of any poisonous gas flowing down into the trenches. (The gas was heavier than air). In reality of course, there would also be something similar over the firing slit – but that remains to be seen yet! The rolled up curtains were made in exactly the same way as I made the rolled up hammocks on the Victory – Milliput epoxy putty mixed together and rolled out into a thin ‘sausage’ with two ‘dips’ at the ends made by rolling the putty under a diamond dust flat file. The dips are for the leather support straps seen in Photo 3. In Photo 2 you can see the outer curtain just resting in the door jamb during a test fit. Going back to Photo 3 again you can see the interior curtain glued in position with the support straps around it. I couldn’t find out any details of the colour of these things so basically anything goes here. I would have liked a nice deep maroon colour but just couldn’t find anything suitable to I plonked for the dark green ( Vallejo Medium Olive) which I’ll be using on the British tanks later on! In Photo 4, we have two of the quick release straps coming together. This is simply a strip of the lead (Decraled) which I’ve used on various parts of Victory, a thin strip painted in Vallejo Red Leather with a wider square sanded bright which forms the buckle when the strip is glued on top. Also in this photo, notice on the right hand side the electrical power cables coming in to the bunker. These are formed from the black coated copper 0.5mm wire which I bought to make the decorative edges to Victory’s Channels. This is very shiny but a coat of Humbrol Acrylic Matt varnish makes it really look like old rubber sheathed cable ( which some of us can still remember from the days before PVC!) These wires will eventually be run off along the trenches and down the tunnel shaft, and where they join together – more on that in a ‘mo. When I took the picture in Photo 5, I suddenly realised I’d just invented an easy way to make 1/72 scale garden solar lights! This is in fact the next batch of ceramic insulators just painted white and awaiting the central black spot before being fitted into the tunnel shaft as seen in Photo 6. You may remember back when I made the first figure of the German telephone operator that I added a wooden shelf to the back wall of the bunker to take the telephone. Well, now it was time to add the soldier to the bunker and get his handset connected to the telephone box. The first thing to do was to accurately measure the height of the top surface of the shelf above the floor boards, this came out at 20.5mm and so, as you can see in Photo 7, a quick jig was made up out of scrap Victory wood to provide a means of fitting the twisted 0.2mm wire cord into the wooden box. The tiny telephone itself was given an even tinier spot of PVA to temporarily fix it to the shelf jig and when dry the telephone cord was cut to size and bent into a graceful curve to fit into the pre-drilled hole in the block in the top of the wooden box. In Photo 8, you can see the result of an unexpected problem I encountered with that thin telephone cord! Although it was cut to the correct length and securely glued into the hole, once the telephone box had been gently prised off the jig, it turned out that the twisted cord had a certain amount of ‘spring’ in it. Just enough spring in fact to continually lift the box off the shelf after the operator had been fitted into his drilled hole in the floor (for the brass pin through his foot). The solution to this problem is seen in Photo 8, using one of my thinner paintbrushes, it is clamped onto one of the roof beams with the tip of the handle pushing the telephone down onto the shelf until the glue had dried with the final result seen in Photo 9. Note also the outgoing telephone cable running along the top of the concrete wall, this too will be run along the trench outside with the power cables. Photo 10 is the same thing seen from inside the bunker. This was all done weeks ago but to bring it up to date, here’s what was added a couple of weeks ago – an electrical junction/switch box to run the power cables down the tunnel shaft. Despite many searches on the net I couldn’t find any definitive design for a WW1 German electrical switch so this one is purely conjectural and is based on the sort of thing seen in the old black and white horror movies like Frankenstein for instance, you know the ones, Igor pulls on a great big handle and some machine in Victor’s laboratory starts up in a shower of sparks!  The basis for the switch box was a piece of the mahogany strip I got from CMB for Victory’s channels (one day!) This was the strip for the smaller backstay blocks and measured 5mm x 2mm. As you can see in Photo 11, the first task was to router out the centre of the block using diamond dust grinder bits followed by diamond dust flat files to create the thinner section where the actual switch mechanism will fit. To this was added a pair of sides and a channelled out top section, all taken from the same wooden strip. The hole in the top will be for the cables to enter the box, the bottom is wide open for the cables to be added for the shaft later. The two brass contact blocks were made from a scrap of plasticard painted with Citadel Shining Gold (I really must get some brass paint!) ( Photo 12) Photos 13 and 14 show the completed switch box. The actual switch contact breaker (in the off position here!) is made from a strip of the eye ointment tube as used for the corrugated sheeting, if you remember I said the inside of the tube was gold coloured which makes a perfect brass substitute as seen here. Three black lines were painted onto the big brass contact block at the bottom, the middle one to simulate the two blocks (otherwise it’s a hell of a short circuit!) and the other two for the gaps into which the handle drops to make contact. The switch’s handle is another scrap of plasticard and the thinner open door is taken from a piece of the DelPrado second planking veneer with stretched sprue hinges and a printed paper label which should, according to Google Translate read “Danger! High Voltage” (If it doesn’t, apologies to our German members who can’t understand this obscure Bavarian dialect!). In the second part of this section next week, the switch box is fixed to the wall and the bunker crew receive some much needed protection as the firing slit gets sandbagged! Happy modelling to All until then! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Stunning detail once again Robin... really looking forward to the finished product to see what else you can come up with....   .. Regards Alan
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Many thanks for those kind words Alan. Plans within plans for the future! (Plus I must get back to the poor old Vic too!) Part Thirty: Sandbagging the Bunker.Following on from last week, I didn’t have a handy penny so in Photo 15 we have the finished switch box balanced on my thumb nail instead! The final step (other than wiring up the tunnel shaft) was to bend the black copper wires down to the top of the wall and snip them off at the height that the switch box was going to be mounted on the concrete back wall. This was done and then the box was carefully manoeuvred onto the ends of the wires and secured with a drop of super glue before applying a ‘splodge’ of super glue gel behind the wooden box, keeping it tight against the wall until the gel had set hard (considerably longer than I would have liked too!) The final ‘in position’ shot can be seen in Photo 16. Note the insulators stuck in the wall below the box waiting for the lower run of cable, this will be added only after the tunnel shaft has been glued permanently into position, ie, after the ground work is completed and painted. Judging by the sheen on the wires above the box, I haven’t yet given them their coat of matt varnish either. And now onto the first of many, many sandbags for this model. These are going to be made from good old Milliput epoxy putty in a similar way to the Victory’s hammocks again and the full four parts of the process can be seen in Photo 17. At the top is the long sausage of Milliput, mixed together thoroughly and rolled out on the work surface. Unlike the hammocks which retained their rounded profile, the sandbags are next flattened out somewhat by gently rolling over the sausage with a miniature ‘rolling pin’ or, in this case, the round aluminium knife handle, (second row). With the flattened strip about the right shape and size, it was then cut into individual sandbag lengths with a safety razor blade as in the third row. The next stage is a bit of an art rather than a science. You have to carefully get the razor blade under each section in turn and lift it up off the surface without stretching it or losing the basic shape too much, and once it is free, gently ‘dab’ your finger tip all over and around it. Just enough force to re-mould the cut off section into a more rounded, slightly flatter appearance. By using your finger tip you also obtain a subtle hessian texture simply by imprinting your finger print over and over again on the surface of the soft putty. As a final ‘embellishment’ I went around the edge of the sandbag with a medium sized sewing needle to create the effect of the stitching of the hessian into a sack or bag. After working down the strip of Milliput and creating all the individual bags, it now pays to leave them alone for twenty minutes or more to begin to stiffen up, as the putty chemically cures (or at least begins to). Again, I can’t give an exact time for this as so many things can affect the correct time, room temperature especially but even humidity plays a part. The thing is, freshly mixed Milliput is more of a filler than a moulding material, great for filling gaps but not so good if you are trying to model something like sandbags. Once it has a little stiffness however, it’s much easier to mould it onto an temporary base as you can see in Photo 18. The white block is a strip of the same material as the bunker is made from, the same length and with two strips of wood glued on top to match the wooden parts of the front wall creating the same sized firing slit. Beginning with the bags laid across the slit itself, I built up the layers of bags rising up at each end. However, I did make one mistake here! Have a good look and see if you can find it!  At the bottom of the picture there are a couple of sacks full of something (haven’t got a clue myself just what yet!) but I had a little milliput left over so I made up a little section of bags (which turned out a little too small to use!) and used up the last bit by rolling out a couple of thicker sausages, and, using the tip of a paintbrush, depressed the centres to form a couple of sacks. In Photo 19, we can see the first test fit of the hardened Milliput the following day. This is where I discovered the little mistake! As I said, I glued two strips of the same wood as used in the framework of the bunker’s wooden walls and formed the sandbags around them. As you can see in 19 however, that framework turns the corner on the right and also runs along the side wall too! I’d forgotten all about that little bit so consequently the lowest sandbag on the right wouldn’t fit! It wasn’t too big a job to remove that bag though, as you can see in Photos 20 and 21, there is a gap on the bottom left hand side (seen from the outside this time) where the sandbag has been removed and all fits well again. Photo 20 illustrates the first coat of paint for the solid sandbags. This is either a straightforward coat of Admiralty Yellow Ochre or a blend of that with Admiralty White, I can’t for the life of me remember which! It looks a little paler than pure yellow ochre but that might be just the light? I’ll find out soon enough when I do the next batch for the trench edges though! Note also in these two photos, and especially in Photo 22 the extra little ‘details’ added when the Milliput was still soft enough, the bullet strikes and the gouge/tears which will relate to the heavy MG’s stand being dragged back inside the bunker later on. Photo 21 shows the sandbag group after the next couple of paint effects, namely a thinned down wash of Humbrol Dark Brown Wash (enamel) to pick out the individual sandbags from each other with some more added to highlight the stitch seams. Once dry this was accentuated with a dry brush application of Admiralty Yellow Ochre and White to lighten the whole thing, especially along the top faces and edges. Photo 22 is a close up of a new addition to my list of effects – mud! I bought a pack of Carr’s Weathering Powders, C1101 Shades of Mud. I have never tried weathering powders before, so this was a new experience for me. The pack comes with four little zip bags containing a very fine coloured powder, (also called a pigment in the instruction sheet) an orangey brown (the one used here), a brick red, a basic light brown mud and finally a much darker brown. The powder has to be applied to the model with either your finger, a felt or rubber pad or, as seen here, with a cotton bud. As it says in the instructions, “Brushes are not usually stiff enough or are too scratchy”. Since using this material here, I’ve been employing the two browns and the orange to the exterior woodwork of the trenches where you might expect the surrounding mud to cling. And very effective this stuff is too! As you can see in the close up, no need to go wild with it, just a dab and scrape here and there gives the best effect. Before the bunker gets fitted in for good, I’ll also be giving the wooden slats a bit of the ‘bullet’ treatment to match in with the sandbags. Finally, in Photo 23, the completed line of painted and weathered sandbags has been glued into position inside the bunker’s southern wall. To complete this section all I have to do now is scratch build the heavy MG together with it’s converted crew figures – yeah, that’s all! I also have a little trial to carry out. I want to create a mixture of a little fine beach sand with a dollop of PVA glue and a brush tip full of the Carr’s orangey mud and mix them all together. I want to see if I can get a sort of ‘cement’ which can be built up in the corners and other suitable places in the bottom of the trenches to simulate ‘in falls’ of soil due to the shelling and damage. When you see the forthcoming ‘Weapons Pit’ addition, you’ll understand why! Next week sees the start of a three or four parter (depends on how far on with it I get!) where several flat sheets of donkey’s years old plasticard, (some with the spider’s webs and mouse wee only recently removed) get transformed into the inner workings of the MkIV Heavy tank. (And all this time I’ve been worrying about ‘how can I make this and that’ when I should have been thinking ‘how can I make this and that small enough!)  Happy Modelling ‘till then! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Hi Robin, shear artistry M8 and wonderfully described....  .. Your micro modelling never ceases to amaze me.... very well done and look forward to more of your inspirational work..... Regards Alan
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Thanks so much for those kind words Alan! Sometimes the micro side of it does tend to take over when I should be concentrating on the bigger aspects like the groundwork for example. The trouble is I've planned in some little extras which all means sometimes a straight forward job isn't so straightforward as it might be (more on that in the weeks to come!) But just for you, here's a sneak preview of what I've been working on over this weekend ... (in between doing a lot more for Mum after she did her ankle in yesterday falling over the Ferret!) The full story of this little monster (the Mortar, not the Ferret!) in a coming instalment! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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 Rank: Super-Elite        Groups: Registered
Joined: 30/01/2013 Posts: 4,604 Points: 13,607 Location: Monmouthshire UK
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Absolutely amazing work yet again Robin, love the sandbags too, another idea I'm going to nick off you for my ww1 dio (if you dont mind) Steve
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 Rank: Pro Groups: Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 48,827 Points: -13,348
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Well done on what is an enthralling build 
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Thanks so much for those lovely comments guys, and Stevie, you nick whatever you want! After watching your Invincible coming together, it's a real honour to pass anything on! Things are beginning to take shape in the trenches at the moment, corrugated iron sheeting production is approaching commercial quantities! Probably just a couple more ointment tubes to convert now. I've begun the painting of all the wickerwork panels now the last one is finished and the actual groundwork is slowly working its way around the trenches (avoiding the areas where the three tanks will be for reasons that will be explained in time!) The added weapons pit for the Mortar is coming along (hence the need for extra corrugated sheets!) And work on the sunken drainage channels is under way (and causing some headaches, the wicker panels have to have re-inforcing posts added every few yards and I'm running out of space!!) Still have loads of figures to make and paint of course and a couple more heavy weapons to super detail/scratch build, AND miles more barbed wire and the rest of the tank interiors. Apart from all that it's coming along well! Ah well, on we go... Part Thirty One: Scratch building the MkIV Tank Interior (Part 1)Oh, we don’t want to lose you But we think you ought to go For your King and Your Country Both need you so We shall want you and miss you But with all our might and main We shall cheer you, thank you Kiss you when you come back again. Patriotic Recruitment song often performed in the Music Halls to shame the male audience into signing up. After a year in the trenches, those they sent to war came up with their own version to the same tune – see next week’s!Now begins the section I’ve not been looking forward to! The main problem I’ve had, is that even with the excellent Haynes Manual, the various web info and now, a new Osprey book on the British MkIV Tank, all of the sources show parts of the interior in some detail but not the whole thing in context! Even the Haynes Manual which has a single line drawing of the whole tank is in ‘cut away’ form so certain parts of the interior are hidden by elements of the exterior – not helpful! So anyway, here goes, I’ll be scratch building as much as I can and hope that it will all fit inside the beast! Beginning with Photo 1, these are the driver’s cab components, (# 11, 12, 13 and 14) exactly as I started with on the first MkIV. The difference here though is that the first job is to sand away the part numbers which are moulded on the inside face of each piece. This was irrelevant on the full hull model of course, but all the insides of this model’s parts will be visible. With the raised numbers removed, the next task was to cut away the section of the hull top (#7) where the driver’s cab sits. In Photo 2 the initial ‘gouge’ has been routered out with one of the ball shaped diamond dust bits in the rotary tool. Once the gouge was deep enough I finished off with a standard ‘snap off’ retractable knife (Poundshop specials again) and finally filed and sanded back leaving just a thin ledge inside the bolt line on which the completed cab will sit. In Photo 3, you can see the cab sitting on that ledge with the now open area beneath it. Note also that the vertical face of the glacis section has also been cut away, this is where the driver’s vision hatch and front lewis gun section, also featured in the photo will fit. Going back a stage to Photo 4, we have the internal details, which were added to the cab sections before it was glued together and then fixed in place on the hull. The two largest rectangles are the driver and commander’s vision hatches. On the full size vehicle these would actually be inset into the front hull, not standing proud away from it, but there are limits, even for me! The smaller rectangles really do stand out from the walls though, these are the housings for the vision slit periscope mirrors and once the interior is painted white they will need tiny black slits to be added in either paint or Letraset (depends how easy it is to get at them!) The little tiny discs are simply slices off the polystyrene rod which I’m making the wickerwork posts from, these are stuck in various locations to represent the inside covers for the numerous revolver loop holes (you can see three of them on the sloping rear of the cab on the left). I’m not sure if the MkIV retained two particularly sneaky ones from the MkI which were down by the driver and commander’s feet. The idea was for the tank to stop half way over the German trench so the driver and commander could use their Webleys to shoot at any Germans trying to duck under the tank! A bit over the top that one! In Photo 5 all these tiddly bits are glued in place ready for the cab to be put together. This job was made considerably easier by the fact that the Emhar plastic is quite transparent when held up to the skylight, I could easily mark the positions of the external hatches and loop holes on the inside with a pencil to get their exact locations for the internal parts. Photo 6 illustrates the beginning of the ‘proper’ scratch building part of the exercise, the start of the main chassis. This is built up in the same way as the unditching rails went together, the only difference being most of the plastic strip is cut from flat sheets rather than being preformed plastruct strip. The plastruct was used occasionally however, where ‘U’ girders had a smaller ‘overhang’ for instance. Photo 6 shows the coming together of the two main girders which run down the length of the interior near the floor. In Photo 7 we can see the lowest level of steel strips, these are re-enforcing ‘T’ beams which were bolted to the floor plating. In actual fact I’ve made a slight mistake here which I’ve only just realised. The internal walls should be level with the inner part of the protruding rectangle at the front of the chassis (on the left) and I’ve run the beams out almost to the outer edge. It’s not a big problem however (even though the top and bottom hull sections (#7 and 8) have been glued together now) and I’ll simply slice the extra bits off when I need to. Photo 8 shows the rear wall of the tank with the addition of the escape hatch and locking mechanism added on, again the position was easy to mark on as above. The mark on the right is a slight depression in the thickness of the plastic caused by the extractor fan outlet moulded on the exterior. In Photo 9 we have the basic form of the chassis fitted together and glued. It’s basically two ‘C’ beams joined at the front by a third ‘C’ section girder and at the rear by a steel bracket with a smaller one on top to which the radiators are bolted. There are two hollow rectangles to be added near the rear of the sides in the future. Photo 10 shows the same chassis frame from the other end with the next two additions, a pair of slanting bars onto which the complicated open box girder, which holds the driver and commander’s seats and the pedals and levers sits. This box girder with its ‘lightening’ holes is seen in two halves in Photo 11. The two halves were then glued to each other creating an almost closed square box with a slot in the back just big enough to slide over the slanting bars (and damned fiddly it was getting it there too!) The strange looking red thing in Photo 12 is my trusty Linic Products guillotine which has done great service over the years, especially on the old Victory. You might also notice a simple addition – a brass pin / nail sticking up out of the centre. This is my cheap and cheerful depth gauge! One day I’d like to design a brass strip affair with a couple of miniature wing nuts which will slide along the right hand red quadrant to form an adjustable depth stop (which will then of course also work with the quadrant set at any angle) but for now, this will do! This is my set up for fabricating the individual ‘vanes’ of the two big radiators which sit at the rear of the tank. After measuring the things on the Bovington Museum MkIV plan set (available through their website), I worked out the size of the vanes, marked that length on a strip of the plasticard and using one of my thinnest drill bits in the pin vice, drilled a hole into the surface of the guillotine with its blade down on the marked strip. (Not easy and watch your fingers!) Then I simply lightly hammered a thin brass pin into the hole and there you have it – one depth gauge (unadjustable!) Even then, there was still a very small difference in the individual lengths, only about .25 of a mm but it seems huge under the macro lens! Probably caused by a slight flexing in the bendy strip? The final Photo 13 of this post shows the component parts of the first of the radiator vanes all lined up after cutting. (Yes! there's another lot to do!) This picture is a little misleading as all those vanes are actually the same length (within reason anyway). The fact that the front row looks considerably longer is an optical illusion! What isn’t an illusion though is that the two sets of strips are different widths, a wide set and a thin one. All will be revealed in the second instalment towards the end of this week when the radiator assembly is constructed onto the chassis. Until then, Happy Modelling! Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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some breathtaking detail going in, this will be a real stunner when finished “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
-Mark Twain
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Many thanks for that Jase! I was beginning to think this instalment wouldn,t make it tonight! The damned internet went down around tea time but it seems to be back again now Part Thirty Two: Scratch building the MkIV tank interior Part 2.Carrying on from the last instalment, Photo 1 illustrates the start of the first radiator block which, as you can see is made up of alternating thick and thin ‘slabs’. Beginning with a thicker one, I originally tried to glue them together as they were, ie, without the base strip, but it proved too difficult to keep them straight and I was in danger of ending up with something more like an accordion than a radiator! I therefore just glued the first thick section to the base strip, ensuring it was at a right angle and once that was dry I could then add the alternating strips one by one. Once the whole block was complete, I let it dry overnight before filing and sanding the slightly uneven ‘open’ edge which was then topped off with a second strip to match the base as in Photo 2, (Note also the driver’s seat support girder on the slightly off focus chassis in the background which had been glued on by this stage.) In Photo 3, things are moving along nicely with both of the radiators completed and mounted up on the chassis bracket(s). As you can see, there is now a second smaller fore bracket added on complete with tiny ‘L’ brackets and even tinier nuts and bolts. If you remember back to the instalment on making the wicker panels with stretched sprue, after cutting off the thin strand of sprue to weave into the fence, you are left with a couple of odd shaped ends with the bit of the sprue that was too thick for the ‘withy’ strand. Don’t throw them away just yet (or anything else for that matter!), those thicker bits are perfect for slicing off into nuts as you will see below. The microscopic nuts (I’ve got a photo of a few of them on a penny which I’ll have to include in a later instalment!) are sliced off the ‘stalk’ and applied to a really small drop of super glue at their location and then picked up via a licked cocktail stick. The only thing you have to check is that they are laying flat on the worktop and not on their sides (a good magnifying glass is required here!) Note the grey tops to the radiator blocks. The one on the left is definitely that shape but since the other one is hidden away inside the radiator housing I have no idea if it should be the same or not so I plonked for a basic flat one to save work! You’ll also notice it’s a grey plastic! Funny story about that! On one of my hunting trips out to the old workroom, I managed to find a large cardboard box in which my Tamiya RC Leopard Tank came many years ago. Inside I discovered loads (and I mean loads!) of sprues full of either long forgotten unmade kits or the remains of alternative parts etc of kits that had been made decades ago. This was where I got all the light grey sprue to make the wicker from, and, even better, I found a sprue from the old 1/72 Airfix Vosper MTB kit complete with a pair of 1/72 scale Lewis machine guns! I’m not quite sure why the sprue was there though, I built that kit in my youth and it was stuck on a shelf at the back of the attic, complete as far as I could recall. (I later fought my way over to her to pinch her other Lewis’ but more on that when I get to the guns instalment!) Anyway, also on the sprue was a large rectangular plate with two slots in it, I believe this was part of the stand for the MTB, but by a lucky coincidence that plate was the exact thickness of the radiator tops! A bit of razor sawing later there they were! With the radiators in place, it was time to measure up, draw out and then cut out the most complicated piece so far, which can be seen in Photo 4. This is the rear plate of the radiator box which was an absolute nightmare to get right. I did consider cutting out the outlet hole for the fan and at first decided that ‘why bother’ it can’t be seen when its in place but as you can see in Photo 5, stupidity got the better of me and ‘why bother’ became ‘what the hell!’ The smaller front plate is also on in this photo, this was marginally easier to fit but if you look carefully in the left corner of the rear plate you can see a triangular piece has been fitted in. Despite the careful measuring the angle of the slope was still off so a little fillet of plasticard altered it to meet the bottom of the radiator. Photo 6 illustrates the side panel of the radiator box in place with the large hole for the extractor fan. In the foreground is a sheet of plasticard with the shape of the fan housing drawn out ready for cutting out. Two of these were required as seen in Photo 7 with the inner one having ‘fake’ blades for the fan itself glued in, the blades were from the plastruct strip I used to make the unditching rails with earlier. In Photo 8, the fan assembly has been glued to the side of the radiator box, requiring only the curved metal wall to be added as can be seen in Photo 9. This was constructed from a strip of Mum’s eye ointment tube, an off cut from the corrugated sheeting ‘factory’. Before super gluing into position I used my Dremel type circular saw disk to imprint the rivets just as I did on the copper tiles for the Victory. It was a real shame I didn’t re-check the Haynes Manual first though, the fan doesn’t actually have any rivets! It’s completely smooth all around – but, - it’s too late now and it does actually look quite nice. Trust me to model the only MkIV fitted with the prototype fan unit! Photo 10 shows the start of the engine cover frame. This part of it is quite a simple design, two end ‘bulkheads’ with a frame in the middle joined together with two strips at the bottom and two more part way up as you can see in Photo 11 (all cut out from the plasticard sheet again). I’m not sure how this frame relates to the main chassis, but I added a couple of strips to the underside of the top part of the ‘C’ beams (under the pencil marks) which protrudes out slightly to provide a shelf for the frame to sit on. You will also notice a couple of ‘smoothed off rectangles’ stuck to the top of the same beam just in front of the radiator housing, these are the bottom supports for the differential gear box, a really nastily complicated design to follow later. In actual fact I later decided that these platforms were a little too big and reduced them down in size (still securely glued to the chassis!). Apart from the addition of the two seat cushions on the support beam at the front, this is the stage at which the interior rests. I have to design and construct both the engine itself and the gearbox and then add the pedals and levers for the driver and commander before adding the radiator plumbing and other various drive shafts bells and whistles (most of which I have absolutely no idea where it goes! – but it’s all good fun!) And then of course there’s the little matter of the 6pdrs and the internal walls and finally, how the hell am I going to slice it all down the middle! Anybody got a spare high powered laser? There are a lot of little builds going on within the trenches at the moment, the problem is its becoming almost impossible to photograph them for instalments without giving away how the groundwork is slowly spreading around the place as well, so for next week, I’m going to illustrate the use of the Terrain Putty and the three stage application needed to marry up the trench linings with the surrounding groundwork. Its either that or try to explain why parts of the foam base appear to be gradually becoming covered in mildew! So, in Part Thirty Three: It’s Snowing! Happy Modelling ‘till then. Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Super-Elite   Groups: Registered
Joined: 31/05/2010 Posts: 5,679 Points: 17,011 Location: Wiltshire
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Robin Very skilled work going into this one. I could see this forming a very honoured exhibit in a museum it's of such superb quality. Following with interest. Happy modelling Tony Happy Modelling
BUILDING: Hachette Spitfire Mk 1A, Constructo Mayflower
SUBSCRIPTION COMPLETE (Awaiting building): USS Constitution, Sovereign of the Seas, 1:200 Bismarck (Hachette)
COMPLETED: Porsche 911, E-Type Jaguar, Lam Countach
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 Rank: Elite  Groups: registriert, Registered Joined: 20/03/2011 Posts: 2,356 Points: 7,122 Location: UK
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Fantastic work as always Robin.. You must have the patience of cat and the eyes of a hawk! Detail is outstanding. Spencer
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 Rank: Semi-Pro Level 2  Groups: Registered
Joined: 09/04/2014 Posts: 89 Points: 285 Location: Aberdeen
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some fantastic work here, I am really very much impressed. BRAVO!!!! Happy Modelling
Marc Heeley
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Registered
Joined: 30/01/2013 Posts: 4,604 Points: 13,607 Location: Monmouthshire UK
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Fantastic Robin, really enjoying this build. Makes me wonder what you would be able to achieve in 1/35 scale Steve
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Sincerest thanks to Birdaj2, Warthog, Alan, Pinks666 and Stevie, such comments make all the cussing and swearing seem worthwhile! And Stevie: 1/35? Oh don't!! I'd probably end up trying a smoke generator up the exhaust and an animatronic crew!! Things are proceding at a gallop during the last few weeks up to Centenary Day (or C-Day!)as I try to finally post up some of the items which have already been done but not yet on show. (See the Wooden Wall coming next) but to set the scene here comes the snow! Part Thirty Three: “It’s Snowing!” (or how to model the ground work!)I was going to have “Christmas Day in the Cookhouse” to fit in with the ‘snow’ theme here, but I forgot I was going to give you the Tommies reply to last weeks patriotic song, so here it is! We don’t want your loving
And we think you’re awfully slow
To see we don’t want you
So please won’t you go
We don’t like your sing-songs
And we hate your refrain
So don’t you dare sing it, near us again!As I explained last time, there will be lots of views of the trench additions coming up soon so this instalment is to explain how and why some parts of the base in the background have turned white! In Photo 1 we have a shot of the German trench taken months ago when all the base was composed of the layers of foam board, (it looks a heck of a lot different now I can tell you!). I’ll call this section ‘ the module’ for simplicity as it was one of the removable sections to make access into the trench itself easier. In Photos 2 and 3, the first layer of Woodland Scenics Subterrain Foam Putty has been applied. I should point out here that I now have two ‘types’ of Foam Putty, not by design but by a lucky outcome of a silly accident! Type 1 is the ‘proper’ putty as I used on the Brandywine diorama. This has the consistency of cold cream and is quite easy to apply over the foam boards, in the case of this diorama, Type 1 is used to simply cover the foam base much like icing a cake, the craters are partially filled in leaving a more rounded appearance, and the rest of the carved foam is given a thin layer but with no attempt to actually form the ground itself. Applying this stuff to the foam is a little like trying to add cement to a bone dry brick, the moisture in the putty is sucked right out leaving a dry powder so sometimes it needs a couple of applications to get it to stick on. The actual definition of the ground, and especially the raised rims of the shell craters, is formed from the Type 2 putty. Type 2 was originally a disaster! I went to use the tub of putty from Brandywine and discovered to my horror that I hadn’t ‘clicked’ the plastic lid of the tub back down after the last time I used it. Inside the tub was a completely solid lump of polystyrene which wasn’t much use to anybody! Reading the instructions on the tub however, it said: “ If putty is too dry, add one teaspoon or less of water to 8oz of putty. Stir to desired consistency.” I thought it was far too late for that solid lump but there was nothing to lose so I tried adding a teaspoon of water to the top of the block. A few hours later there was a patch of softer putty in the middle of the tub! With that encouragement I added more water (a LOT more water!) and eventually I had a tub of Type 2 Putty – stiffer than the original version but actually easier to mould terrain details with! Photos 4 and 5 illustrate this second layer of the stiffer foam putty. As you can see, the crater rims are formed by pressing the foam on between the forefinger and thumb, then with the ground and crater formed, the whole surface is stippled with a cheap bristle brush (a No.9 or 10 from a £1.99 set of brushes from ‘The Works’) this gives a suitable texture to the ground surface and also blends the crater rim into the rest of the area. In Photo 6 we come to the fiddliest bit of the whole procedure. There is nothing so ruddy uncontrollable as a short strip of undomesticated cling film!  With the stippled layer nice and dry, the surrounding items, namely the corrugated sheets and the wicker panels were put back in place ready for the third layer of putty – the ‘Infill’. The trench linings were designed to keep the surrounding soil from falling into the trenches due to weathering and especially shelling, it would therefore be unrealistic to have a gap between the liner and the soil so the next step is to fill in any such gaps with the Type 2 putty. Eventually I managed to get a strip of cling film to slide in between the wicker and the bank. The corrugated sections don’t always need the cling film, they can be removed and cleaned off if required but once that foam gets into the wicker it’s a right job getting it out again! Photo 7 shows the same module with the corrugated sheets removed again, (note the square post holes in the foam base) this shows how the top part of the wall is filled in with the Terrain Foam, both against the wicker panels and also the sheeting where you can see the corrugations left in the putty. Photo 8 illustrates the module back in position producing the narrower communications trench with wicker panels on both sides. The larger wooden posts on the left will be supporting the cables soon, the thinner posts will be included along all the other wicker sections, more on the exceptionally cheap source of these posts to follow soon. Photo 9 is an earlier shot before I began the module. As you can see, the very first section to be ‘terrained’ was the corner of the base right behind the bunker, followed by the section immediately in front of it. A lot more of it has turned white since! My biggest regret is that Messines didn’t take place in the middle of winter, if it had, the groundwork would be almost finished now!! Finally, until the next instalment, have a look at the contraption in Photo 10. It’s missing two essential items but have a guess at what part this thing will play in the coming days!  Coming in Part Thirty Four: The Wooden Wall… Happy Modelling ‘till then. Robin Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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 Rank: Vice-Master  Groups: Registered
Joined: 26/05/2014 Posts: 912 Points: 2,773 Location: East Sussex UK
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Plymouth57 wrote:Hi again! Many thanks to Adrie, Alan, Derek, Martyn and Stevie! Since the last posting I have completed the first section of wicker, it's still 'freestanding' until the ground work behind it has been coloured but all the painting has been done on the panel and I'm really pleased with it. I'm still trying to decide whether to post up the completion of that panel as a part of the instalment that covers that far corner of the base work or to put it up as a 'fill in' or extra piece. Time will tell! Derek, this week's is just for you! Part Twenty Five:“Any old Iron!”As mentioned previously, in this instalment we come to the other scratch built trench lining: Corrugated Iron sheeting or “Wriggly Tin” as it has come to be known! The raw material for this little exercise comes courtesy of my mum, namely, her finished / out of date eye ointment, or more precisely, the empty tubes of the same! Although the base material remained the same, I tried various means of turning it into the finished article before I settled on the method shown here. I will outline the earlier method when I get to that part of the procedure in order to point out a ‘near mistake’ to avoid committing if you want to give this a go yourselves. Where as last week’s tutorial on the wicker work was mainly useful for those creating models from the Great War and earlier, this one is suitable for dioramas from the early 20th Century to the present day (WW2 Lancaster Airfields included!!) Photo 1 illustrates the tube of corrugated iron in its raw state! This is a tube of ‘Lacri-Lube’ eye ointment used to treat dry eye conditions. The first task is to get as much of what ever remains inside the tube out, firstly by just squeezing the tube out through the integral nozzle and then by slicing off that nozzle end and rolling the tube flat to squeeze out the last drops as in Photo 2. Note also that the opposite end of the tube has also been rolled back from the crimping which seals the end. The rolling flat was accomplished using my old rubber roller from my artistic screen printing days, it is about six inches across with a metal frame and wooden handle. If you have such a thing great! If not, the larger type aluminium knife handle (the round cylinder kind with a chuck in the end) would do the job just as well, or even just a wooden dowel. With all the sticky gel removed as far as possible, the next job is to slice off a thin strip down one side of the flattened tube together with a similar strip off the bottom end (down to about the end of that black rectangle printed on the bottom). With those two strips cut off you can now open up the tube to reveal the inside as in Photo 3. With the tube now opened up, it was taken to the sink and given a good scrubbing with an old toothbrush loaded with a drop of washing up liquid to remove the last vestiges of the gel. This is pretty easy to do as the gel, being specifically formulated for the eye is water soluble, (just as well really!) Once the tube is thoroughly cleaned and dried it was again rolled out flat with the roller to give the rectangle of malleable metal as seen in Photo 4. As I’ve said many times in my Victory diary, I really miss those days when all the toothpaste tubes were made of soft metal instead of today’s ‘pretty useless for modelling’ plastic! The next stage is the most laborious and messy part of the whole process – removing the paint from one side of the metal. I have achieved this by sanding, sanding and then sanding some more! I must try and get a bottle of paint stripper and see if that will work on this material, I’d much rather make up a few sheets and leave them soaking overnight than keep doing it this way! In actual fact, it’s probably not a definite requirement anyway, I do paint both sides but I think having a bare metal starting point makes the finished article look more authentic as any scratches or flaws will reveal the metal finish as it would in the original, plus, the acrylic paint doesn’t like sticking to that gloss finish too much either. With all the paint removed, we’re left with a sheet like that in Photo 5. Now this is where the methods changed. In my original test sheet, I used a blunt ended carving tool with a steel rule to scribe the channels into the sheet. This worked fairly well apart from trying to keep the channels running parallel, the steel rule kept trying to spin off target! (Plus it's very easy to press too hard and tear through the sheet!) In fact, I actually preferred the finished trial sheet to the eventual winner in the Miss 1917 Wriggly Tin competition, the corrugations were narrower and looked, well, more authentic. Fortunately, my pictorial research brought me to a different conclusion. You see, like most of you, I’ve grown up in the era of DIY superstores and translucent corrugated roofing sheets. The reason the first attempt at the wriggly tin looked better to my eyes was because what I had made was a sheet of modern corrugated iron! Checking the old photographs again and again revealed that back then, the corrugations were much wider and deeper. You can still get a very similar thing today, in a synthetic material for stable and shed roofs, but much of today’s sheets come in a tighter, shallower profile. So what I needed was a ‘clunkier’ looking ‘old’ style sheet. Enter that mystery object from a couple of week’s ago! AND I noticed nobody tried to guess what it was!!  Actually I made it more difficult by deliberately reversing one of the two halves! This is my MkI corrugated press jig, ( Photo 6) composed of two flat strips of brass with a series of 1mm brass rods soldered across each one. When placed together, the lines of rods on one flat fit into the gaps between the rods on the other flat – see where this is going? The flattened, paint-stripped sheet is placed between the two brass jigs and the sandwich is carefully slid in between the jaws of my bench drill vice, keeping the metal sheet straight as the jig is slid down to the top edge of the vice. Once in position, the bench vice is tightened up and the two halves of the jig force the sheet between the rods, much as the steam presses would have formed the original full sized sheets back in 1917, ( Photo 7). With the vice jaws tightened up fully, they were released back and the resulting corrugated sheeting was cut off the remaining flat sheet which was then slid back down the jig and the whole procedure repeated. In Photo 8 you can see two of the newly pressed sheets looking like a pair of freshly galvanised bits of corrugated iron. Unlike the earlier hand scribed method, the beauty of this process is that each sheet is a copy of the last, so they will easily overlap each other when they are employed in the diorama, whether as roofing or trench linings. The first stage in turning these pristine sheets into the more ‘weather-beaten’ variety was to undercoat them in the same Citadel Celestra Grey Base as I’ve used on just about every other bit of undercoating on this build (as well as the Bunker Concrete Grey as well!). The sheets, all four of them from the one tube, were all painted on both sides and left to dry. They were then given a wash to emphasize the shadows and general ‘grubbiness’ of the sheets. I was in two minds here, whether to do them in Citadel Shadow Black Ink or Citadel Skaven Brown Ink so I did one in each only to discover that the best looking effect was a mix of both the inks together. You can see the result in Photo 9. The reason there are two of each is because I actually forgot to take a photo of the sheets in their grey undercoats! All the sheets have been given a wash of ink, the two grey ones are simply upside down! Once the ink wash was dry, the final step was to give a slightly rusty look and this was achieved with the Humbrol Rust Wash, an enamel based wash which was further diluted with white spirit to tone it down a little. The little ‘spots’ of darker rust were obtained by using the inner cap top off the rust wash bottle where some thicker pigments had semi dried out. The final effect is illustrated in Photo 10. The last two Photos, 11 and 12, illustrate the two ways in which these sheets will be incorporated into the diorama. In the case of the bunker, only the edges of the roof will be covered in the sheeting. Just in from the edge will be a line of sandbags, with a mound of earth on top of them so the front and back edges of the roof will only need short sections of cut down sheeting. The rear edge will have some additional work on those sheets as an 18pdr shell crater sits just behind the bunker so the sheeting will exhibit some ‘wear and tear’ OK! Shredded then! The bottom photo shows the same sheets in their ‘horizontal’ role as trench linings. This is one of the two removable sections of trench which I can work on off the main base, I didn’t want to stick too many bits of wood in there, as this section is actually supposed to be wicker lined! But you can get the general idea. I have to say, my ‘cost cutting’ exercises do sometimes go better than I had hoped and this, I’m really chuffed to admit, is one of them! The corrugated sheets have turned out really well, and apart from the brass to construct the jig (which I already had anyway) don’t cost a penny to make. One last idea though, if you don’t have a source of free medicine tubes like me, I would think that this method would work just as well with the type of disposable flan or pie base as sold in supermarkets. They are simply a thicker form of aluminium foil and should be just as ‘mouldable’ as the tube material. In next week’s instalment, I’ll try and get the mould for casting the tank track ‘spuds’ put together (I’ve just got this ‘thing’ about mixing epoxy substances together, horrible messy stuff!) Until then, Happy building to you All! Robin A genius way to make corrugated sheeting, you are a very patient man. Building: DelPrado HMS Victory. Building: DeAgostini Sovereign Of The Seas.
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Another stunning lesson in modelling... scenery is really starting to look the biz now and am sure will look fantastic when finished... Looking forward to the next episode and no, have no idea as yet to your contraption in the final pic..  .. Will be watching to see what appears... Regards Alan
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Rank: Super-Elite  Groups: Registered
Joined: 19/06/2013 Posts: 4,588 Points: 13,553 Location: West Yorkshire
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Absolutely outstanding work Al
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Registered
Joined: 30/01/2013 Posts: 4,604 Points: 13,607 Location: Monmouthshire UK
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Fantastic work again Robin,cant wait to see some overall shots of the whole dio instead of the teaser pics we've been getting I think the "object" in pic 10 is something to do with making tank tracks perhaps? Steve
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