Neil's Airfix 54mm 95th Rifleman

[Neil Merryweather]

Afternoon all, sorry for the hiatus; I’ve had a large dose of work and life and household responsibilities getting in the way of the important stuff!

I am, however, pleased to report that there is now progress on the rifleman.

Whilst mucking about with toothpaste tube and lead foil I got the feeling that his left index finger was too short, so I snipped it off and inserted a piece of thin wire as an armature.


In my sculpting I have always struggled with individual fingers so I don’t know why I did this. I had just made up some plastic soup from sprue and dichloromethane , which I have never done before, so I thought this might be the time to road-test it.



It took a few attempts but it now meets with my approval. I will probably use it again for this because it dries a lot quicker than Milliput or Duro and allows me to carve it without deforming the thin wire.



What I realised afterwards is that there was nothing wrong with the forefinger, it is his thumb that is too long…….doh!

I have trimmed it but don’t have a picture yet
I carried on with the strappage using lead foil and toothpaste tube, and a couple of etched buckles.

It took some figuring out what went on first and which strap passed over which- thank goodness for the re-enactors websites!


I tried to show the weight pressing down on the shoulder straps by filing some of it away, but I’m not very happy with it. Trouble is I had such ‘fun’ with the haversack straps I’m not going there again-I’ve got another one to do anyway so hopefully I’ll make a better fist of it with him.

And then I discovered I had left off the powder horn string which is attached by leather tubes to the cartridge pouch belt, so I had to tease the haversack straps apart and detach the waterbottle strap to fit it in grrrr!:rolling:

I used 0.3mm diameter lead solder for the first time since I bought it years ago. It was lovely and malleable but I was terrified of it snapping through work-hardening.

Still I got there in the end –

I have decided to concentrate on this one figure in the sure knowledge that I won’t finish them both for the end of the GB.

And then I couldn’t help myself, but I went all Steve Jones :blow-kiss-2:and decided the Shako cords needed to be improved…….:flushed:



But that’s for next time

Thanks for looking in

N

[yak face]

Great work Neil, and very useful reference for me , im just about at the stage of adding the straps on mine . Co-incidence with the finger too, I dropped my figure and his index finger on the left hand snapped off and vanished , so ive got to fashion a replacement digit as well, and now you mention it he does have a VERY long thumb!!! (maybe I could shorten the thumb and stick the amputated bit on his index finger!) cheers tony

[Neil Merryweather]

Great work Neil, and very useful reference for me , im just about at the stage of adding the straps on mine . Co-incidence with the finger too, I dropped my figure and his index finger on the left hand snapped off and vanished , so ive got to fashion a replacement digit as well, and now you mention it he does have a VERY long thumb!!! (maybe I could shorten the thumb and stick the amputated bit on his index finger!) cheers tony

:smiling2: that should work, Tony! good luck with the straps- I've dremeled out the pack a bit to get a better fit,by the way

[Guest]

You madman - replacing fingers?!!!!!

Amazing work on the hyper-detailing Neil.

[Neil Merryweather]

You madman - replacing fingers?!!!!!

Amazing work on the hyper-detailing Neil.

we each have our cross to bear,Peter..........

[papa 695]

Cracking work Neil.

[Neil Merryweather]

Thanks Ian.

to continue.....
I just had to do something about the shako cords as they had been seriously compromised by the moulding requirement.

This is the kit offering



and this is the reality



So I shaved it all off and made a length of cord by plaiting 3 very thin wires. I know how to do this as I have 3 daughters and I spend many hours doing their hair when they were little. Let me tell you ,1-1 scale hair is a lot easier, even on a wriggly five-year old……..

I wrapped the three strands around a drawing pin on one of the rafters in my loft- it was easier to do it standing up than hunched over the bench.


In the foreground is my first attempt which turned out to be TOO THIN, I couldn’t believe it. It was much easier with the thicker wire.

Here are the 2 shakos – the 95th Rifles badges from the kit seem so tiny in reality, but seen in close up in the photos they look MASSIVE. I had to make the second cockade from lead sheet as I didn’t have a spare for that .


I used a leather punch for the larger disc which I cut notches in, and the poor man’s rivet punch to get the smaller 0.7mm disc……


You can even push the disc out with the pencil lead!
I imagine you could also use hypodermic needles, although I haven't tried it myself. They should be even cheaper than the pencils,and they are available in various sizes on evil bay.
Anyway that's all for now, thanks for looking
Neil

[Guest]

Nice work with the Shako Neil :smiling3:.

[Steve Jones]

You are indeed an honorary member of the dark side. Changing fingers and braid are a tribute to your desire to produce a realistic figure. Stunning work Neil and I look forward to seeing how you tackle his nose hair LOL Keep up the great work my friend

[Guest]

Brilliant work on the shako Neil.

[Neil Merryweather]

I’m afraid I’ve been away from the bench for a while due to work, but I have some more baby steps to report.


I’ve added a rifle sling from toothpaste tube with PE buckles – it doesn’t look like much but it took me several attempts and several sacrifices to the carpet monster…..

In my internet searches it seems that these days the well-dressed Rifles re-enactor cannot be without his D-shaped mess tin in oilcloth cover , which Airfix does not provide.

I was expecting to have to scratch this from Milliput or something, and then I remembered that I had something similar in the Revell WWI Tommies set.

In fact , something perfect

These remained unchanged for at least a hundred years!
I used tissue paper for the oilcloth cover, stuck with double sided tape, which is much less messy than glue



I carved into the rolled greatcoat a bit to define the edges and I filed a depression for the new strap



Then I strapped the mess tin to the rolled greatcoat with more toothpaste tube and made the retaining straps from tissue paper (I couldn’t believe how small these pieces were when I was doing this- I hope Steve the Rivet is impressed!)
I sealed the tissue with thin CA.



Well that’s all for now but I think the end of the making is in sight, and after that just the painting will be left, which I am not looking forward to.

Thanks for looking

Neil

[Steve Jones]

Totally impressed! Wonderful work. You too must be a love child of Mr T LOL

[Jim R]

Hi Neil
You are certainly going the extra mile with this. The plaited braid is a huge improvement. Very inventive using pencils for discs.
Jim

[Guest]

I'm sure we're all impressed Neil. Great work at such a small scale.

[Neil Merryweather]

I'm calling the making part done ,now.

the whispy bits are evidence of my first attempts with the pyrogravure ,of which more another time.
now for the painting :flushed: