Monty's Caravan

Well, that's another model cleared off the 'unbuilt' pile!

This time an old Matchbox kit, 'Monty's Caravan' (if you've been following this blog for a while, you'll already have seen the Daimler Dingo Scout Car from the same set).  The Kit is still readily available in its Revell form for anyone who's interested.

Before I write about it, here's the finished model.  I have assembled it without the awning and steps at the rear for the time being.

This was a little bit of a tricky build.  There are some very small parts to deal with (and my fingers don't feel as slim as they used to!), some of which are easily broken, and some quite delicate joints that don't have very large glueing surfaces.  To prove this, I started the build by breaking several different parts of the suspension and drive shaft getting them off the sprue (which is why the rear wheels look a little wonky).  On the other hand, in common with most Matchbox kits, the parts fitted well, had minimal flash and on the whole the instructions were clear and easy to follow.

As well as the Daimler, the kit comes with a mini-diorama of Monty and two of his officers at conference on a cobbled street.  Sadly, my Monty arrived missing an arm, and one of his subordinates lost a foot (since glued back on) in the construction process.  Hopefully more on those in the future.

Not really an ideal gaming model, but it may see use occasionally representing a more generic command trailer.  The actual caravan can still be seen at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford
(I really ought to visit one day).  It was apparenlt made from a captured Italian General's caravan, mounted on a Leyland Retriever chassis.  Waste not, want not, as some people say!

I don't seem to have found much time for painting recently, what with more building work on the house, holidays, a lot on at work and far too much time spent playing Mass Effect 3!

However, I have finally accepted that I have been neglecting my painting duties and got around to finishing a few models that have been hanging around in various painting and basing states.

So without further ado, onto the pretty pictures.  First a German Mortar Team and extras from Armourfast.

These are cast in hard, grey plastic and are nicely detailed.  You get 4 sprues, each sprue comes with the mortar, four crew and extra mortar bombs, ammo crates etc.  There was some flash, particularly on the sub-machine gunner, as you'll see in the photos (I didn't do a great job of cleaning it up).  The mortar comes in three parts, tube, baseplate and stand, and assembles easily enough.  The only criticism is that the stand attaches to the tube at right angles, and doesn't look right at all, so I ended up doing a little trimming to make the angle look more acceptable.

This is my second attempt at 'Marsh Pattern' smocks and helmet covers, after the Italeri PAK40 Crew.  I think this looks much better, but I'm open to suggestions on how to improve.  The only downside is that these Armoufast guys are at the smaller end of 1:72/20mm, so they do look a little smaller against something like the Italeri bods.

Crew from the Airfix German Recon set. Still don't know why that MP40 seems to have a wooden stock...

Italeri anti tank teams.  Nicely sculpted and cast, but this time at the big end of 1:72!