Housekeeping – a World of Glue

Sticky problem - and this is just some of them...

Yesterday I was having a brief look at what would be involved in doing some conversion work on some more Spaniards, and as part of this I needed to dig out my store of fusewire, to see what gauges I have and see what would suit the job.

Couldn’t find the stupid fusewire. It normally lives near the left hand end of the clutter that is my painting desk, but it wasn’t there. Hmmm. Well, of course it might be next to the fusebox in the electric meter cupboard, in the porch, which is where it really ought to be – but no, not there either, so thank goodness we haven’t blown any fuses lately.

Thank you, Goodness.

Then followed a brief period of muttering and raking about (the muttering was encouraged by the discovery that spare Stanley knife blades are packaged on a card that looks just like the card that holds the fusewire – sometimes it is the little remnants of false hope which hurt the most), and eventually it became clear that it would be a good idea to conduct a proper search of the painting desk – which is actually an old writing bureau with all sorts of little hidey-holes and drawers. This sort of search is not something to be undertaken lightly; what I should do, of course, is keep the bureau tidy all the time, but it doesn’t work out like that. Especially at times when figure painting is sporadic, stuff lies out on the desk top and the water pots dry out and dust falls on the mixing plate and entropy gradually claims its own. Then suddenly there are visitors coming, or else I have had another confrontation with my son about his untidiness, and guilt drives me to get things sorted out, and the desk is cleared, very largely by stashing things in the drawers, lest people might see how I live normally.

Thus the contents of the drawers are always a bit of an unknown – I find things that I haven’t seen for ages – sometimes I don’t even remember I ever had them. Of course, the drawers contain a lot of Official Items, such as paint and tools, but yesterday’s effort had a few additional themes:

(1) Kitchen roll – since I am always worried about waste, any piece of leftover kitchen tissue which is even approximately clean tends to get stored away for the next time I’m painting. Next time, of course, I always kick off by washing out the water pots and refilling them, cleaning off the magic glass mixing plate and getting a clean wad of fresh kitchen roll. Thus I have a drawer containing a ridiculous amount of kitchen tissue – you never know, it might come in handy one day (in truth, what bothers me about this is that my dad used to do exactly the same sort of thing…).

(2) Wire spears/flagpoles – I keep running out of these, so keep ordering more, then I stick the new ones in a drawer, and can’t find them the next time I need one, so I go through this cycle regularly. You will be pleased to hear that it seems I have enough wire spears (mostly the good ones from North Star) to last several lifetimes.

(3) Wow. Glue. Whenever I’m in model shops or hardware stores I get interested in various exotic types of glue, and often buy a tube or two. Next time I have to tidy up in a hurry, these get put away, I forget I bought them (in many cases I find I have forgotten I ever knew about them, never mind bought them), and so the process rolls on – like wire spears but worse. I find that I have a marvellous collection of glues – I am going to work out what I’ve got, what they are good for, all that, and get them properly organised. Recently a friend told me about a fantastic new glue he has been using, and recommended it – I duly wrote its name on my whiteboard in the office, so I would remember to get some if I saw it. Well, I’ve seen it now. I had a tube of the stuff in the bureau drawers all the time, and it must have been there for at least a year. I could open a glue shop – especially of different types of superglue. Awesome.

Alas, I did not find the fusewire, so I’ll have to buy some – I think I’ll buy a few packs, and I’ll make a point of putting one in the meter cupboard, next to the fusebox. And I’ll try to keep things tidier in the painting desk department – don’t rush to place a bet just yet.

Waterloo 200 Playing Cards

While spending a spare hour in Waterstone's book store in Edinburgh on Monday, I spotted a set of playing cards to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of Waterloo, by Piatnik of Vienna. Only £4.99 to you, sir, and very attractive too. Here's a sample of some of the cards - as a small gift (even for yourself) these have to be good value.

I am very fond of playing cards (I mean as objects...) and I have a few interesting sets - nothing valuable, and certainly nothing that might be regarded as a collection. My favourite is a pack I bought in Naples which has (I think) 6 suits - never learned how they play with them. I had a friend who was a serious collector, he used to specialise in Tarot cards from all over the world - beautiful, but definitely a bit weird for me.

Aaargh! - Accidental Purple

Not what I needed.

We've had a few problems recently at Chateau Foy, and hobby time has mostly been scrapped. However, I took advantage of the arrival of some pre-owned Interim-Period (post S-Range) Minifigs British infantry to do something I've wanted to do for ages - increase the size of my Foot Guards battalions. Because, as you will be aware, historically they were - well - big.

All right, all right - I admit that the amount of retouching work, as always, exceeded what I intended, but I got myself well organised and a couple of shortish evening sessions did the job (Stan Getz and Ravel on the CD player helped me along). I had about 2 dozen figures to smarten up - the most fiddly job was overpainting the facings with Royal Blue, then repainting the white piping on collars and cuffs, a general tidy up and I finished bang on schedule last night. All that was required now was to base the chaps up to match the existing units, and make up larger sabots to take the big battalions.

Not so fast - the Imp of Perversity strikes back. This morning, I find that the acrylic varnish has dried with the white piping an alarming shade of purple. The forensic work is still under way, of course, but the only unknown element in the job was a previously-unopened pot of Citadel's "Midnight Blue". I've had it for a while, but it looked fine, and covered well enough. Obviously there must be some pigment in there which is unstable with the varnish, even after curing for 24 hours - a problem I've never had with Citadel before. It's a while since I used a blue that dark - I had a pot of a nice Tamiya acrylic Navy Blue which has now turned into chewing gum. Anyway, whatever, I am hoping that a simple re-fiddle of the white piping will do the job - I would not like to have to go back to the dark blue stage.

If anyone is tempted to tell me that it serves me right for using uncool paints, please don't bother.

Hooptedoodle #172 - Uncle Harold

Lanchester 10 - Harold's was dark green

Another inconsequential tale of long-dead friends and relations. Unlike my so-called Uncle Arthur, who was featured in a previous Hooptedoodle, my Uncle Harold was a real uncle – in fact he was my dad’s eldest brother, a position he took very seriously. When I was a youngster he was very much the head of the family (or considered himself to be so), and he would take it upon himself to try to mend any feuds which had broken out between his siblings (and there were many such) and to impose his Solomon-like decisions on family matters, often with disastrous or hilarious results.

Problem was, Harold was a likeable fellow, and meant well, but he was not the brightest bulb in the candelabra, to be honest. His most celebrated attribute was the amount of bad luck he had, though much of this was undoubtedly due to clumsiness and poor judgement.

Some tales of Harold, then.

His motoring exploits were the stuff of legend. He learned to drive, like many of his generation, long before there was a competence test. Thus he held a driving licence for many years before he could actually afford to own a car, and those years had done little for his skill, or for the relevance of what he had learned to contemporary traffic laws and conditions. His driving reflected this - he was once in an accident – fortunately without injuring anyone – caused by his travelling around a roundabout the wrong way. He was charged by the police, but for some reason the matter was dropped – the law clearly had better things to do than oppress pillars of society.

Preselector "Quadrant" on a Lanchester - to the right of the steering wheel

He had a series of misfortunes in the first car he owned – a Lanchester 10 – a design which was noted for its weight and strength (Lanchester were eventually swallowed by Daimler, and were also manufacturers of armoured cars and light tanks, which anyone who had ridden in Uncle Harold’s car would understand) and for the fact that it had a preselector gearbox. For those who are unfamiliar with preselector boxes, they were regarded as very exciting in their day from a technical point of view – ERA and Connaught racing cars used them, for example (though they were rather heavy) – a forerunner of fully automatic transmission. The system required that the driver would move a sequential lever to indicate the next gear he would require (preselect it, in fact) and then – when he required that gear – he would depress the pedal which took the place of the usual clutch and – zoom – a very quick and smooth change would take place, enhanced by a special fluid drive and all sorts of neat features.

One potential downside, of course, was that the position of the lever did not necessarily correspond to the gear that the car was in at that moment. This was particularly serious in the hands of Uncle Harold. He would reverse into the parking space in front of his house, next to the kerb, switch off the engine and then move the lever from Reverse into Neutral. If you have been following my rather feeble technical description, you will realise that the gearbox would not actually be in neutral until next time he pressed the pedal. He was caught out a number of times by this, starting the engine when the gearbox was actually still in reverse, and leaping backwards.

Eventually, of course, he leaped backwards into the neighbour’s car. Mrs Preston had a nice VW beetle – a lovely red one – and it was no match at all in such an impact for the Lanchester. Mrs Preston’s car was taken away to have the front end rebuilt and a complete respray, and after some weeks it was returned by the works, on a Saturday morning, I recall. Within an hour of the VW’s shiny return, Harold reversed into it again, once more doing extensive damage to the front end. At this point Harold’s insurers became more than a little stroppy about the matter, and when he did the exact same trick yet again six months later (this time with my grandmother sitting in the back seat of his car), they put their corporate foot down and said that they would settle the claim this last time, but would not insure him any more in any car with a preselector box.

Riley 1.5 - Harold's was just like this one

The Lanchester was duly replaced by a new car. Harold bought a Riley 1.5, which was the twin carb version of BMC’s Wolseley 1500 – for its time, this was quite a sporty saloon, and Harold was surprised that he had to replace the rear tyres quite frequently – he kept finding they were worn smooth. The idea of anyone quite as incompetent as Uncle H driving a sporty saloon on the public roads is unattractive, and it has to be said that if the insurance company unintentionally encouraged this situation by banning the trusty Lanchester then they should be ashamed of themselves. At least the Lanchester, for all its majestic weight, had a top speed of about 55. Inevitably, there followed further misfortunes – at higher speed. The most memorable event happened on an autostrada in Northern Italy (tremble, o reader, at the prospect of Harold’s driving circus on tour), when he passed a serious accident in which he was not involved, and which was in fact on the other side of a dual carriageway. Travelling at some fairly high velocity, he passed through a cloud of glass splinters, each of which pierced the paintwork of his car and slid some millimetres in the direction of travel, underneath the paint, as a result of which Harold’s car had to be completely stripped and repainted, at very considerable cost.

He was outraged when his insurer refused to have any further dealings with him, declaring him officially to be “accident prone”, though this final accident was no fault of his at all. One can only sympathise, though it is, admittedly, easier from a safe distance of 50 years or so.

Harold had a misunderstanding with a local builder which I recall with some fondness. He had bought some lovely little Spanish wrought-iron window frames when on holiday one year, and the next Summer he took the opportunity to get the builder to work on a small extension to his living room while the family were going to be away. He talked through the drawings with the builder – in one side of this extension would be one of the Spanish windows – glazed. Since the other side faced directly into his neighbour’s garden (not Mrs Preston – the other side), Harold’s plan was that a dummy window should be sunk into the wall on that side, featuring the matching frame but “glazed” with a mirror. The builder had great difficulty with this – he even came back for a second look at the task, and went away shaking his head. When Harold came back from his holiday, he found his extension complete, but the dummy window was not there – there was just a plain wall. The builder, it seems, had been so confused by Harold’s instructions that he had assumed it was a joke, so had just ignored that bit of the spec. Harold didn’t seem too bothered, in fact, but I remember that the extra window frame lay in the garden shed for years afterwards, like a sad, sacred relic.

Late edit: I checked this strange story with my mother, and she tells me my version of it is not quite correct - the builder did think the design was bizarre, but while Harold was away on vacation the "dummy" second window was, in fact, installed, complete with mirror, in the wall opposite the genuine window, but it was countersunk into the outside of the extension wall, where it was only visible from the next door neighbour's garden. The extra window frame in the shed was, it seems, a spare one. I think accuracy is important in these things...

There are a number of treasured family tales concerning the poor organisation of outings and picnics – including a group visit to Birkenhead docks to watch the firework display for the Festival of Britain which, by oversight, did not include provision for transport home afterwards – and there is a shadowy legend of how he once fired a shotgun out of the bedroom window (at a rabbit) at 5am, while his wife was asleep in the same room.

Birkenhead bus of appropriate vintage - note the rail on the platform

However, my last Harold story comes from his long saga of ill-fated DIY projects. He converted some bedroom cupboards into wardrobes, and one Saturday he went into Birkenhead to get some suitable clothes-rails – and he bought a seven-foot length of chromium-plated brass tube of the appropriate section, which would cut up nicely to provide an excellent set of rails. Pleased with his purchase, Harold got on the bus with it, but the conductor would not allow it inside the bus, and Harold had to stand on the open platform at the rear. You may imagine him, like Horatius, standing with his pole. Sadly, in the busy Saturday traffic, a passenger missed the bus at a stop, and ran after it to jump aboard, taking hold of Uncle Harold’s prize pole in the mistaken belief that it was a part of the vehicle. In his surprise, Harold let go of it, and the bus drove off, with the newcomer left standing in the street, holding the pole, the pair of them staring at each other in bewilderment as they faded into the distance. He never saw it again, of course, and had to go and buy another.

1809 Spaniards - Milicias Provinciales

Just a couple of prototypes, to see how the paint would look. My proposed OOB for the Spanish army of 1809 includes 4 battalions of provinciales (to say nothing of the mooted provincial grenadiers, of whom I hope to say more on another occasion), and I have been experimenting to see how these might look.

The provinciales were clothed, in theory, very much like the line regiments, but in a slightly simpler uniform, with red facings for all units and brass buttons. It seems likely that some of the units at Ocaña in 1809 wore outdated versions of the uniform. In particular, supplies of local brown cloth being both cheaper and more plentiful than the official white jackets, there were a number of brown-clad battalions, so I have painted up one in the official version and one in the brown variant.

I'll proceed with these two styles, using line infantry castings. I am thinking of having a white battalion, a brown one and two mixed ones. All command figures will be in white for all units, I think.

I have two relevant books on order at present, both coming from Spain. My experience of buying stuff online from Spain is fairly poor, I regret to say, even without including the remarkable Falcata episodes. One of these books is coming from a military model supplier, and it is about the provincial regiments of the Guerra de Independencia - I could do with having it here now for these painting experiments, and I am assured that it has been heading my way since April Fool's Day, which I'd rather not think about too carefully. The other book was obtained through Abebooks - it is a copy of Muzas' book on Spanish flags, and it is coming from a shop associated with a military museum. I bought it on 14th March, and the earliest estimated delivery date on the order is 26th April. That isn't awfully impressive, is it?

Postage from Spain is not cheap, either - maybe mule fodder is expensive at present.

 

Hooptedoodle #171 - Auroras and Pandas

I live in East Lothian, in South East Scotland, on a farm, and there is a north-facing beach about 200 yards behind my house, on the other side of a wooded hill, at the point where the Firth of Forth meets the North Sea.

We have very low light pollution here, and big skies, and we regularly get alerts to watch out for the old Northern Lights, the Aurora. Our situation should be ideal, but we've never seen them/it. Once my son and I dashed down to the beach at about 11pm, armed with binoculars and camera, and found it was actually foggy down there. I once did a similar midnight sortie and found it was snowing. The only time I've ever seen the Aurora, in fact, was from an overnight flight back from Canada years ago. Since then, not even a glimmer.

The picture at the top is not mine, it is borrowed from a very nice Facebook site called Edinburgh & Beyond Photography, which is a worth a visit, and it was taken from our own beach, right here, on 16th April. The dark blobs on the picture are, from left to right, the cliffs at Seacliff, a headland called The Gegan and the Bass Rock (complete with automated lighthouse) - it's all very familiar to us. We, of course, were in Edinburgh, miles away, and saw none of this. Knew nothing at all about it until we saw the picture online.

We'll see it one day, that's for sure - the picture at least confirms that it is a possibility. Our Aurora-watching history puts me in mind of a cherished TV commercial from yesteryear...

Just Another Half Fort, Please...

When I first started fiddling around with sieges - maybe 6 years ago now - I bought myself half a fort. Having studied my Chris Duffy book, I decided that half a fort on one edge of a table gave a useful "slice" of a full siege ("slice" as in "pizza"), and I have used this set up from time to time since then.

I am still short of some decent-looking siege trenches, but I know what sort of cross-section of hardwood mouldings will give me something useable, so it's just a matter of getting around to that bit. The fort itself has always been a work in progress anyway (a "works in progress", perhaps?). The hardware I invested in was the 15mm scale "Vauban Pack" offered by Terrain Warehouse (circa 2009), and it came pre-painted to a decent standard. TW offered a limited range of pieces, but the general format looked more useful than some of the alternatives (someone makes a square fort, for example), and the configuration is hexagonal, which sits rather nicely with my hex-gridded table, apart from anything else.

The TW products did not include gatehouses, or damaged sections, or very much in the way of flexibility, and the glacis sections as manufactured forced you into a limited number of shapes and patterns, but it seemed good for cutting my teeth on. I intended to get more pieces as time and funds permitted, to give a larger installation, and to adapt items from other makers and scratch build to add sophistication (or "fiddly bits" to use Vauban's own technical term).

I kept meaning to get around to this. At one point, around 2011, I read that Terrain Warehouse were offering the rights and moulds for their scenery range for sale, and I was panicked into getting in touch, but I let things slide again and the fort remained a half-fort.

The sections I have are:

4 straight wall sections (each 100mm long, to give an idea of proportions)
3 bastions
2 ravelins
plus sufficient glacis sections to match all of these

The illustration at the top shows this lot laid out.

Well, the latest news is that I am now in touch with the guys who bought the Vauban Fort rights from the previous guys who bought them from Terrain Warehouse. The pieces are not currently in production, but it seems likely that if I specify exactly what I want they should be able to make the sections. Whether they will paint and flock them for me I do not know yet (though I'm confident that I could handle that bit myself). I don't want to say too much about who and where and what until things are more definite, but it looks promising.

So if I could get pieces and glacis bits to give me a full circular fort that would be very nice. This, in turn, would involve me in hunting out and modifying and scratch-building the required Fiddly Bits to keep Vauban happy, allow the townspeople to get in and out and model some particular fortress or other. Since these pieces are required mostly for a Peninsular setting, I am also keen to be able to blend the Vauban pieces in with older, medieval or renaissance fortifications to produce the sort of scruffy hybrid which was the normal installation in Spain. Imagine me cutting and flocking glacis sections, covered up to my elbows in glue and green fluff, happy as a pig in wassname.

I'm currently working out what bits I need to get this started, and I'll send some drawings to these mysterious new owners. I reckon another 2 wall sections, 3 bastions and 2 ravelins, plus glacis to fit, will give me a full fort, and I might get some extra bits for the odd outwork if I can see how to do that. I've also checked out the available gates and drawbridges and suchlike from Magister Militum - all very interesting. As and when I make some progress I'll publish an update on how it's going.

Picture of my fort in action, taken by Clive (The Old Metal Detector) during a
play-test in Summer 2010, with additional buildings by JR, Hovels and others,
plus the odd chair (photo used without permission - thanks, Clive)