Woodland Scenics Model Graphics

I love cars, I love car games, and I love collecting Matchbox scale cars.  I've collected a handful of Matchbox highway patrols, and needed a way to make them easily differentiated from each other.  Numbers on the roofs of police cars is not unheard of, making them easily identifiable to air units.  A friend had success with some water slide transfers he had lying around, but unfortunately I didn't have that luxury.

I stopped by my local hobby shop for glue yesterday and decided to see what they had available for transfers.  I found these:

These are dry transfer decals, meaning you rub the graphics onto the surface you want to apply to, versus the waterslide or a sticker.  I've worked with dry transfer before, but was hesitant because of the high gloss surface of the Matchbox cars.  The pack was $7, so I thought I'd give it a try.

This particular pack is MG727 No. Gothic, R.R.- White.  As you can see the numbers come in a variety of sized.  Woodland Scenics makes other packs in different fonts, colors, and text.

Application is very simple, and detailed instructions are available on the back of the package.  I simply cut out a pair of numbers, removed the protective backing, lined it up on the roof of the police car, and burnished it with the end of a crochet needle.  You do need to hold the transfer in place to keep it from sliding around during application.  Also, the spacing of the numbers on the sheet were satisfactory to me so overall alignment of the transfers was easy.

The drawback to these numbers is they are kind of fragile.  I messed up a transfer, and easily scraped the part that did adhere with my nail.  A sealant is highly recommended.

It looks like I have a few Dodge tampos to remove from these cars.  This is easily done with a cotton swab soaked in a bit of non- acetone nail polish remover gentry rubbed over the tampo, then dried with a clean swab.

Speed Rally Gear Markers

I've picked up a game called Speed Rally recently.  Part of the game is keeping track of your car's gear on a record sheet.  I found these specialty paper clips that work great:

These are Scrapbook Paper Clips from a company called Scrap Paper Scissors.  I picked these up on clearance at Micheal's craft store for $1.00 US.  Regular price is $2.50.

                                    

Here is an example of each clip used on a Speed Rally record sheet.  At first I thought the triangles would be the best, but it appears the circles and the square (diamond) work the best. 

Of course these could work for other games, too.

Pegasus Hobbies Barbed Wire Review

Today we're going to examine the Pegasus Hobbies Barbed Wire kit.

This product interests me because the box advertises over 29 feet of wire, and it's only $8.99 USD.

Let's open the box and see what we get...

We get three sprues of wire and three sprues of posts.  The wire is very fine, and there is way more sprue here than there is product.  It seems so wasteful, but I suppose that is the limits of the manufacturing process.  They are soft plastic, maybe they can be recycled.

No instructions are included with the kit.  It's been so long since I looked at the box and I don't have it handy; there may be instructions printed on the edges of the box lid.

Here is a bit of the wire with the posts.  The wire is fairly flexable, and  hair dryer, heat gun or a flame would help in warming the wire and allow you to bend it to shape and have it hold.  The post come with hooks on them to attach the wire to.

Here is a close up of the wire.  It is well detailed, and the flash and mold lines are not too bad.  Which is good, because I think this would be near impossible to clean.

I have not had an opportunity to make anything from this wire yet, but to me it seems like this kit is a good deal.  I'm confident that I will be picking up more of them.

Tamiya 1:48 Jerry Can Set Review

This time we will review the Tamiya 1:48 Jerry Can Set.  This is a set that is useful for all kinds of gaming, from WWII up through near future to post apocalyptic, and even sci fi.  This kit retails for $11.00 USD.

The box art shows us getting six barrels, 16 jerry cans, some stowage and a bucket.  Let's see how much we actually get...

I got a bit carried away when I purchased this kit, and began assembling the barrels right away.  We do get two sprues of accessories and an instruction sheet.  This very well could have come with an ad for other 1:48 Tamiya kits, but if it did I have already tossed it out.

Here is a close up of one of the sprues.  Though not pictured correctly, each sprue comes with enough parts to make six barrels; three American and three German.  There are enough parts to build 16 jerry cans and 20 pieces of vehicle stowage.

The instructions are pretty straight forward, giving general info on the front and assembly instructions on the back.  Note that there is a big difference between the American and German barrel.  I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and assembled them some incorrectly.  The lids are not interchangable and do not fit on each other well.  Also, the jerry cans are 3 parts each; two halves and a handle.  The handle is thin and fiddly and the cans take care to assemble correctly.

Here is a shot of a sprue with an Amazon Miniatures 25mm/ 28mm Secrets of the Shadow Reich figure and a 1:48 Lindberg Tiger I.

And here is a close up with just the Amazon figure.

Here we see the lovely Greta posing with a collection of the barrels.  They look a bit small next to the model due to the thickness of her base.  She is based on a Litko 25mm round.

And finally a close up of the jerry cans.

Again, the Tamiya kit gives you about double what is pictured on the packaging.  It comes with tons of pieces for customizing and detailing vehicles in all kinds of genres, or anything else you'd want to use them for.  This kit really is a good value.

Tamiya 1:48 Road Sign Set Review

Here's another review of a 1:48 scale kit from Tamiya, this time the Road Sign Set.

From the picture on the front of the box it looks like an OK collection of items for the retail price of $11.00 USD.  The pictures shows us a ton of different kinds of signs, a telephone/ telegraph pole, two street lights and a fence with a wagon wheel.

Upon opening the box this is what we find:

It looks like we get two sprues of accessories, a sheet of waterslide tranfers and an instruction sheet.

I've had this kit for awhile and have already assembled two of the street lights.  Also, I believe there was a small slip with more Tamiya 1:48 models and accessories that has since been thrown out.

This is one of the sprues.  Both sprues included are identical.  There is enough materials on one sprue to do 2 lamp posts, 1 telephone/ telegraph cable, 1 billboard, a long fence (with our without a wagon wheel) and  a pile of small signs.

It appears that you effectively get double the number of pieces pictures on the box cover.  Not bad at all!

This is the real bummer.  You get one sheet of water slide transfers.  There are enough transfers here to do one sprue- worth of signs.  You would have to make your own waterslides for the seond sprue, or paint them by hand or other creative solution. 

The instruction sheet has some info on the usage of signs throughout Eurpoe during WWII and tool and equipment information.  The back side shows which countries each of the waterslide signs would be found.

Here is a shot of a full sprue with an Amazon Miniatures Tales of the Shadow Reich 25/ 28mm figure and an AT-43 walker.

And a closeup of the sprue with the figure.

And one last shot with the figure next to an assembled lamp post.

All in all I think this is a decent value for the price.  You do get a lot of components, but a second sheet of water slide transfers would have wonderful.  The pieces are well done and are a good variety.  I would like to have more of the lamps and telephone poles, but I couldn't justify buying a second, third or more boxes for just those pieces, though even then it's not a bad value.

Lemax Collection Mill Stream

This steam was purchased at a DIY store after Christmas time. The set consists of two Mill Stream sets and one Mill Stream Fork set. The weeks following Christmas and Halloween are a great time to pick this stuff up for next to nothing. As the store I went to was already picked through, I had to bite it and get this stuff for only 70% off before it was gone. Click pictures for a larger view.

The Mill Stream set claims to come with 11(!) pieces. Six of those are little, snow- covered pine trees, two are end caps for the stream and only three are acually river pieces; two straights and one bend. The fork comes with 10 pieces; 6 trees, three caps and 1 fork piece. They are cast in a hard resin or plastic and are fairly heavy and durable. Each piece also has little felt pads on the bottom so they don't scratch or damage your gaming board (or whatever.) Each piece is about 1/2" thick and when all three sets are combined together they stretch just over 4 feet.

Unfortunatly it came with a snow finish. That had to go.

These shots are the pieces before painting. As you might be able to see, the banks of the river are big rocks and boulders covered in snow. There are also tree stumps and branches dotting the banks. The water portion is sculpted to look like moving water, painted and then coated with a clear coat of some kind. The coating is quite soft and sticky and picks up fingerprints easily.

All snow covered areas, tree stumps and branches were hand painted black. The rock and water areas were left as- is. The tree stumps and branches were drybrushed first with a dark brown, then a brown- grey mix and finally a light grey.

White glue was used to adhere the magic ground cover mix to all of the black painted areas. A mix of green course turf and brown fine turf were then applied sporradically on the pieces to break up the uniformity.

The project was simple enough and though it was a bit expensive than I would traditionally have spent on terrian (around $25), it is still cheaper than purchasing a river or stream specifically made for wargaming.

Tamiya 1/48 Brick Wall, Sand Bag & Barricade Set

There are a lot of products on the market that simply don't picture or describe the contents exactly on the packaging.  I cannot stand this, and have always hesitate to purchase these items in the past.

 I'm assuming others feel the same, and so in an effort to aleviate some of the mystery surrounding these products I've decided to review them here as I pick them up.

Tamiya has several sets of 1/48 accessories.  I have purchased all of them, but today we'll start with the 1/48 Brick Wall, Sand Bag & Barricade Set.  This box retails for $13.50.

1/48 scale is about 33mm.  This may make these items too big for true 25mm figures.  For modern "28mm" figures, that range anywhere from 28mm- 32mm and are on a thickish base as well, this kit appears to work fine.

The cover of the box shows two brick walls, 6 tank obstacles and a sandbag position.  Not pictured on the cover, but on the side of the box, are wooden posts that can be used as fenceposts or used to create pylons for barbed wire.  So how much of this stuff do we actually get?  Let's take a look:

This is the full contents of the box.  There are three total frames; one of tank obstacles and wooden posts, and two of sandbags and brick walls.  Also included are single page, double printed instructions and an advertisement for other Tamiya 1/48 kits. 

There are enough tank obstacle components to construct eight of them.  That's two more than on the box cover!  Score! 

There are 24 wooden posts, which will allow you to build four of the barbed wire pylons.  They can also be used for regular posts, or anything else you'd need a log for.  Four doesn't seem like very many obstacles for wargaming.  Also, there is no barbed wire included in the kit.  There are instructions on how to make very decorative wire, or Pegasus Hobbies sells some too.  A review of that will come soon.

Looking at the other sprues we get 58 sandbags.  These are flat and hollow, and look like they stack up quite nicely.  It's too bad one can't buy just the sprues of sandbags.  It looks like there's enough sandbags to make two emplacements similar to the one pictured on the box cover.

The walls are excellent as well.  They are completely modular, so the half walls can be put together to make full walls, and they all interlock.  There is significantly more wall here than pictured on the box cover.  One could make a good size ruined building with one kit.

So that's all of it.  I think it's an excellent deal for $13.50, and will be picking up more.  The pieces are generic enough to be used in any modern setting from WWII to the future.  My only complaint is that they come in this "variety pack."  It would be nice if one could buy just brick walls, or sandbags, etc. 

If I didn't answer any questions, please ask!

UPDATE:

People had asked for pictures of the pieces next to models for scale reference, so here we go!


Here is a 25/28mm Amazon Miniatures Secrets of the Shadow Reich figure, along with a Confrontation AT-43 walker and a Lindberg 1:48 Tiger model set up with an assembled wall section.

Here is a close- up of the wall.  This ruined corner was made by stacking 3 wall sections on top of each other.  The wall appears brown because I used a sand blasting gun to weather and distress the piece.

Here we see the three models again in front of the tank obstacles.

And finally, a close up of the sandbags around the Amazon Miniature.  I tried to stack them, but they are slippery and did not want to stay in place for this shot.