Entry for December 29, 2006

My Marines got ignored today...I am sure there will be a penalty to pay here...not sure what it will be.

Mark and Larry came buy for a painting and whining. Mark got a lot of work done on his Brit's.

Mark is working on a Western Desert force of British lorried motor company troops (lousy sentence structure, I know, but what the hell, this is a blog for Pete's sake). He has the basics of the force and has ordered some supporting tanks from War Web (we're waiting...waiting...waiting).

Due to my ADD reguarding my Marines, I spent some time on my SS Aufklarungs (recon) company. It is coming along nicely and I am very pleased with it. I hit a block with the Sd.Kfz.7/2's (37mm AA on an armored halftrack). I bought the models from War Web (Command Decision again). They had the correct armored cabs, but no gun shields. I didn't want to play without the gunshields on the model (and loose the "Gunshield" benefit or cause an argument) so I decided to fashion my own.

German Gunshields have all sorts of difficult angles and bracing, especially at 15mm. I took three shots at it before I got one I was happy with. In the course of fitting it, I decided the gun barrel was too weak. The German 3.7cm FlaK 36 L98 has a long barrel. Command Decision miniatures are made of a soft metal and the barrel would bend if you breathed heavly near it. I ended up replacing it with some brass rod and sanding down some plastic tubing into a cone shape to represent the flash hider. I finally got everything to where I was happy about it and finished off the painting and weathering on the Sd.Kfz.7/2's. They are sitting on the end of my games table/work space waiting for varnish. I have been thinking about adding the convoy markings to the trailers ("Abstand 100m" - Stay back 100 meters). I will let them sit another week or two be for I varnish them to be sure I am really happy with them.

I think Mark got a lot out of the day. One thing that FoW has done for me was re-kindle my interest and pleasure of building models. Larry and I had a head start on Mark as far as building the FoW mini's goes and saved him a lot of time and frustration. All in all it was a good day. I think Larry was working on his British Colonials (or was it his dusky skinned oasis skulkers?). Odd, I don't recall. ADD again...oh wait...look at the bright shiny thing...

Tim, they call him...