Thanks again to Mark and Kev! Well I did it! He's FINISHED (apart from gluing on the rifle sling once it's dry)- and a week early too!
The weather forecast doesn't look too bad tomorrow so I'm hoping to get him outside for some natural light finished photos (wish I had some bamboo!) So now just a few days more to finish off the diary with the painting and construction!
Photos 1 and 2 show that made up figure again which, as I mentioned last time was a necessary test bed to fine tune not only the pieces themselves but actually, how to put them together as well! The first photo illustrates the bayonet in its scabbard with the Enfield slung at the side. The rifle was glued on first – WRONG! With the rifle in place I couldn’t fit the bayonet webbing into its assigned hole! This one has been moved back a bit to compensate. The second photo shows the Basic Pouches in place and this pointed out another little oversight I’d made. You see the pouches were fitted on the trial figure on his base – but without the “Burma” plaque in position. With the plaque on there, guess what! With a pair of little ‘V’ grooves in the rear of the pouches at the bottom, they fitted back in position again! It also taught me that the water bottle has to be fitted on first, something I completely forgot building the final figure! Anyhow, Photo 3 shows the component parts for the rifle sling. These are the pewter swivel from the Tony Barton rifle model, the strap ends from Richard Elbourne’s PE set and my own scratch built lead strip sling and brass wire attachment. The brass wire slips inside the PE strap end where, on the real sling it grips the webbing to adjust the sling length. The lead sling is shown attached to a scrap rifle casting in Photo 4 and this is where I made the next mistake. I decided that making the entire sling in one go was too unwieldy and so cut off the majority of the sling leaving the ‘doubled’ portion from the swivel to the strap end as shown in Photo 5. This was duly turned into a mould and cast in resin (Photo 6) and attached to the rifle in Photo 7. Only then did I discover that trying to add the other section of the sling to the resin part would result in a far too flimsy joint. I had envisaged part if not most of the sling laying flat against the torso and being a part of the large body mould. But after studying my reflection in the mirror with old ‘smelly’ slung across my shoulder it was obvious that the sling only touches the body at the very top of the shoulder – and not where the two parts of the resin cast sling would be joined! Fortunately I’d made the lead sling overlong so I trimmed down the top end and passed it through the brass swivel, super gluing it in behind. This was then made into a single long mould as shown under way in Photo 8. The result is shown in Photo 9 and works ok, but it is one of the more difficult castings to get right (as I suspected in the first place!) Also in this last pic, notice those big missing depressions on the webbing shoulder strap – these were the result of those ragged flaps of leaked rubber in the torso mould!
In the next installment, finally, the painting begins!
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Looking good and some very nice paint work.

Mark

Grateful thanks again to Malc, Mr T, Nem and Kev! Now he's standing proudly on his 'wooden' base I have to admit the project has worked out better than I'd anticipated. I had a brief window of sunshine to take the finished pics out in the garden with some out of focus greenery for a background (just as well, I don't think you get many Leylandii trees in Burma!)
So here’s the finished Enfield Rifle SMLE No.1 MkIII. Photo 12 shows the completed four-piece rifle alongside another reject casting used to practice on. After the grey primer, the metal parts were painted in the Mig Polished Metal which was then washed with the Citadel Shadow Black ink to darken it down and fill in the grooves etc adding detail to the casting. When this was dry I then carefully rubbed over the metal with Uschi van der Rosten Metal Polishing Powder – Steel Type using a clean cotton bud. This powder adds a lovely metallic lustre as you can see in the close ups which follow, which is very difficult to achieve with just paint. The woodwork was painted with Vallejo Mahogany with the black ink used on the panel lines. Now this is where I had intended to finish, but since I had the practice piece staring at me I decided to try and see what the Vallejo wood grain would do on a darker background. The result was great! Using quite a soft brush it gave a nice tight grain effect, darkening the flat mahogany slightly and giving it a subdued sheen, which is very close to the walnut wood stock on my own rifle. Photo 13 illustrates the breech end with the metal polish powder effect and the wood grain ‘streaking’, note the stock or butt is also shortened like the water bottle and scabbard. Photos 14 and 15 show two views of the nose cap and muzzle and Photo 16 displays something I hadn’t even noticed until the rear sight had been painted, inked and powdered – that DWR silicone rubber picks up such small details during the mould making, it even brought out the range measurements on the rear sight ladder! (Those are hundreds of yards by the way, from 200 out to 1,200).
In the next instalment, painting the arms and hands with the bamboo and machete, plus his shirt and hat before the final finished article goes together!
Until then Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks for those kind words Kev! Have to admit I do like getting something right if possible. Not exactly a 'rivet counter' thank goodness, many times I'm satisfied with it 'looking right' rather than spot on correct - though in the case of the wristwitch below I got it dead right by pure accident!
Photo 17 shows the right arm after gluing and filling the hand holding the machete back on. This was the mould I was forced to split down into two parts as the single casting proved very difficult to get right. The primed assembly was painted with the same Vallejo Basic Skin Tone undercoat with Dark Flesh and Light Flesh for the shading. I did later add some Citadel Skaven Brown ink wash to increase the depth of the shadow between the fingers and up against the machete handle. The metal tang in the handle was Mig Polished Metal with Vallejo Mahogany for the wood grips. The blade of the machete however is Humbrol Gloss Black Enamel. I didn’t take a photo of the finished blade here but you’ll see the effect using the Uschi van der Rosten Metal Polishing Powder in the final photos. Photos 18 and 19, illustrate the two stages of the hand and bamboo. The hand was painted first and then the bamboo received two coats of the Vallejo Tan Yellow. When this was fully dry I then applied the Vallejo Wood Grain, but this time not as directed but in a much thinner diluted wash which stained the bamboo rather than creating any grain effect, as in Photo 19. The separate left forearm is shown in Photo 20 along with a close up of his British Army standard issue watch! The watch strap was Vallejo 70.818 Red Leather with Skaven Brown ink wash and the watch body was Mig Polished Metal. The watch face was from a website reference photo which I reduced down on the Corel Printhouse program until it was the right size and then printed onto inkjet self-adhesive sticker paper (Poundshop again ). This was cut out by hand (my punches went up to 3mm – the watch face was 4mm!) then placed on the watch and pressed down before applying a drop of spirit based clear gloss varnish to seal it in place. The watch face was far too small to read with the naked eye and I just picked it up in the tweezers and placed it down on the watch. By sheer coincidence it went down in exactly the right orientation and the 12 o’clock position is dead on! So my Chindit is hacking his way through the thicket at precisely ten past ten.
As I said before, his shirt is the standard Khaki Drill. Vallejo and the others produce Khaki and Khaki Drab – but no Khaki Drill! Fortunately I found the perfect formula to make this colour using Vallejo paints on another figure making site. The mixture is very easy to mix and consists of equal amounts of 70.988 Khaki, 70.918 Ivory and 70.845 Sunny Skin Tone. The excellent results can be seen in Photos 21 to 24. These also illustrate the Russian Green webbing with the brass buckles. Adding extra Ivory gives the dry-brushed highlights, the Shadow Black ink wash (diluted down a bit) was applied with a thin brush to run along the sides of the webbing, the seams of the shirt and belt and inside the buckles. I also thinned down the Russian Green and airbrushed it down the centre of the chest and back, and under the armpits to simulate sweat soaking. Finally, in Photo 25 we have the Mk2 improved brim Bush Hat. This was primed, painted Khaki overall (inside and out) and whilst the paint was still quite wet a tiny drop of Citadel Black was ‘stippled’ around the base of the crown and also on the underside, again to simulate the sweat staining which discolours the material. The banding strips around the hat were later painted with the Khaki Drill mixture and a slightly lighter form of that dry-brushed around the strips and top of the crown for ‘weathering’.
So that’s all the painting done! In the next and final instalment, drilling a dirty big hole in the rifle and putting him all together!
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks again Kev! Wait no longer!

So here we are, the final installment with the assembly of how my very first home built model kit went together! Before starting though, Photo 1 shows the last piece to be cast – the longer length rifle sling before priming and painting Khaki. Now as I mentioned earlier, some of the pieces on the finished model are not as big as they were before, this is because of the ‘convention’ of model figures as a bust. Usually on a bust no part of the body or the accessories go below (or at least not far below) the top of the pedestal on which it sits. All of the parts I’ve designed and cast were made as full and complete items – my reasoning being they could all be used on future models where they might need to be complete items! So for the final figure, the water bottle, the bayonet and the rifle are all ‘cut back’ to give a truer bust model. (In the case of the bayonet I should have cut it back further to match the water bottle but its too late now!)
The SMLE is shown here with a 2.7mm diameter hole drilled into the right hand side to mount it onto the 2.5mm peg sticking out of the Chindit’s left side. Fortunately for future castings, the hole lines up exactly with the rear sight ‘ears’!
Construction begins with the base, Parts 1 – 5 on the first two views below. The main body casting Part 6 is then glued to the pedestal and allowed to set completely. Next comes the Water Bottle assembly, Parts 7, 8 and 9. The pair of straps should be glued on with just a slight tilt from the vertical towards the body and once dry the short strap locates into the slot under the webbing belt whilst the longer one with the buckle has a peg which goes into the hole under the rear webbing right hand strap. Next comes the Bayonet Part 10, which is glued onto the webbing loop Part 11 and this assembly is then glued into the hole on his belt on the left. The short webbing strap Part 12 then goes into the other hole under the left hand webbing strap on the rear of the belt ensuring it follows the line of the moulded strap above. The two Basic Pouches Parts 13 and 14 are fixed onto the protruding pegs each side of the belt front, pushing up flush under the webbing attachment above. The one with the undone catch goes on HIS right. The Bush Hat, Part 15 can be attached now or left until the end. Next comes the SMLE Rifle, Part 16. The hole in its right side fits over the peg in the Chindit’s side and is glued in position, the right side of the breech resting against the bayonet. At the same time, before the glue has set completely, the rifle sling Part 17 is glued into the hole between the sling swivels on the forward band and the part of the sling which passes over the shoulder is glued down ensuring that the missing end of the cut down sling points to where the rifle butt would be (if that hadn’t been cut down as well!) Next comes the left forearm with the wrist watch, Part 18, which is glued onto the round peg at the elbow and the hand and bamboo Part 19 locates into the wrist at the same time. The last piece to be added is the right arm holding the Machete Parts 20 and 21. These are the only pieces which had to be glued together previously, and the joint filled, before they could be painted.
With all that completed we have the final model as illustrated in the last photos. I have learned so much from this project, and it has given me the bug to go further – the Tony Barton site has so many great heads and weapons you could make figures from the English Civil War right through to modern times. I would love to do one of my grandfather as he appeared in the North Devonshire Mounted Yeomany in WW1 and the pith helmet and Martini Henry gives me lots of ideas as well! (“But bullets run out, and those bloody spears don’t!”)
So I hope you’ve all enjoyed watching this ‘garage kit’ come together and the finished gallery pics are on their way!

Robin.

looks fantastic robin