More French Infantry

Here are some more 28mm French Infantry from Perry Miniatures, these have goof definition and are nice to paint. You can add different heads and backpacks as well.

Dave

The Eagle has.........

Well not quite, the eagle in this case is of course French. These 28mm figures are from perry and are well moulded and a pleasure to paint. Here is the latest effort.

Dave

Theme for Next Club Competition

Hi Guys and Gal,

 

The theme for the next competition has been announced by Tony, who won the last one with his 1/200th scale Ocean Going Tug.

 

The theme is

 "PREDATOR" 

 

  and the competition night will be

 

1st July 2009.

 

This can be anything which preys on others, tanks, aircraft, animals (of course), ships and so on. Quite a wide choice for you.

 

Get your thinking caps on..............!

 

Under starters orders.....................!

 

Go...............................!

 

Kevin

 

scuppered

Building the Arctic Corsair .

Flushed with the success of building a model of the Smit Rotterdam , my next project was to be the Arctic Corsair in 1:142 scale using the Revell kit . The finished model was going to a surprise gift to the guy across the road who is a retired trawler-man . I built this kit a few years ago , didn't make a very good job of it due mainly to my incompetence as the kit seemed to go together quite easily . Hopefully , now I've had a bit of practice , I thought I could make a decent job of it and it would make a nice gift .

I unpacked the kit , removed the two halves of the hull and the main deck and taped them together , sure enough , the fit was very good , with a bit of cleaning up I reckoned I would have the hull assembled in a couple of hours . Time for a cup of tea and a fag then down to business . After a short break , I dashed back to the " studio " as my next door neighbour calls it , all set to attack the beast with sanding sticks and glue . I looked at the parts taped up and somehow , it didn't look right . During my time at sea , I only sailed in a Trawler once although I have seen lots of 'em so I am no expert , but it just looked too skinny . Time for a bit of research . I Googled "Arctic Corsair " and came up with lots of information including dimensions .

The Arctic Corsair had an overall length of 191.7 feet and a beam of 33.6 feet, when I measured the model and did the sums it would have a length of 174.7 feet and a beam of 25.6 feet assuming the scale to be 1: 142 . Simple arithmetic shows that the length of the real Corsair is about 5.7 times its beam , the length of the model is 6.8 times its beam , that's roughly thirty bloody feet too long . The phrase " flippin eck " passed through my mind a few times .

It gets better ( or worse ) , study the pictures and you will see that on the model , if the main deck is the ground floor , then the bridge is on the first floor , on the real Corsair , the bridge is on the second floor . There are other differences that I wont bore you with but this kit will never look like the Arctic Corsair in a month of Sundays , unless I do a Ron and build out of wood and just use the transfers .

At the moment I am trawling the net to find something with a beam of 25. 6 feet and the same profile as the model , I can shorten the hull , do a bit of scratch building and end up with something that looks like a proper ship and not a figment of Revell's imagination . OR . I can build it out of the box and flog it to some mug for lots of cash at a car boot sale . Failing that , I'm scuppered .

Tony B.