discussion The Road to Singapore: Malaya 1941-42

[rtfoe]

Eh Andrew...you got me confused with Tim I think.

Tim, great work on the pole, insulators and wire. You may need to bevel the outer tube to the pole as it was a one piece mold I think. Not sure if the base was white or silver as in the '70s it was painted silver.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[adt70hk]

Eh Andrew...you got me confused with Tim I think.

Tim, great work on the pole, insulators and wire. You may need to bevel the outer tube to the pole as it was a one piece mold I think. Not sure if the base was white or silver as in the '70s it was painted silver.

Cheers,
Richard

Oops.... Very embarrassing.... Now corrected.....

 

[TIM FORSTER]

Eh Andrew...you got me confused with Tim I think.

Tim, great work on the pole, insulators and wire. You may need to bevel the outer tube to the pole as it was a one piece mold I think. Not sure if the base was white or silver as in the '70s it was painted silver.

Cheers,
Richard

Thanks Richard.

Now that's very interesting. The pole behind the gun in the famous shot of Parsons' gun does look a bit like it has silver paint - but I had assumed that was just solarization from the old photo. Oh well, I may decide to touch it up - but perhaps not for now.

I did bevel the lower part in to the upper in the end - some later photos will hopefully show that. But when you say "one piece mould" are you suggesting that these poles were actually made from something other than wood? If so, I'm afraid that I simply cannot face building the whole thing again!

 

[TIM FORSTER]

Tim

Just had a quick catch-up. The road looks brilliant!!

I've found fishing line works really well for wire too. As an occasional fisherman, having been obsessed by it my youth, I have several different breaking strength lines and diameters to choose from. As you say it will last you a lifetime. In my case I just brush painted it with Vallejo's black primer.

Keep up the great work.

ATB.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew.

I'm afraid my only fishing adventures have been sea angling in Devon on Stag weekends. So this has been my first fishing purchase and may very well be my last!

 

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks everyone.

More to come...

OK, so here is where I am with one of the most important elements of the diorama: the 2 Pounder gun.

I might start a standalone thread for this build, but the long and the short of it is that I ended up going with the Vulcan plastic kit after I found that the Sovereign 2000 resin version was over-scale and inaccurate.

The Vulcan kit actually builds into a really nice piece with only a few parts (e.g. the open sight) needing refinement.

The biggest challenge, however, was to scratch build the side shields which were used on the 2 pounders in Malaya - and, it seems, almost nowhere else. If anyone has any images of them being deployed in combat elsewhere (e.g. France in 1940, North Africa) then I for one would love to see them!

Luckily I was alerted to some images of one of these guns preserved in Russia with the shields fitted - which does suggest that they were used on the Eastern front at the very least.

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These images helped me with some of the details, although I am glad to say that I had already managed to work out most of these from the Bakri shots of Parsons’ gun. As a reminder here he is with the crew in front of the gun with its distinctive shields…

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Here are the unpainted sub assemblies and other views of the completed but unpainted model. You will note that I Ieft off the gunner’s seat and the handwheels at this stage because I was still working out how to fit the figure in place.

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One other modification was to leave the onboard ammo locker lid open. I used the tops of the ammo boxes which came with the kit (with the holes drilled out more) to make the racks inside, although I have yet to find any images of the inside of this locker to know whether this is accurate.

To make the various rivets on the shields I used a technique that was new to me, but which is absolutely brilliant. You put a small drill bit back to front in a pin vice and then use it to punch into a thin pewter sheet sitting on top of a pencil eraser (not the cork block sen here). As you push through the sheet, this makes perfectly shaped domed rivets which you can then pick out of the surface of the eraser with a sharp knife and glue in place with black (slow-drying) super glue. Any excess can then be cleaned up with debonder and a brush.

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You can see the results here…

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[Tim Marlow]

Lovely work Tim. Great to see the old rubber sheet rivet technique in use. Haven’t seen that for years. It should work with plastic card as well…..though lead sheet, rather than dense rubber, was recommended for that. sometimes it pays to grind the drill end flat to get a cleaner cut.

 

[scottie3158]

Tim,
Stunning work as always. I have nicked the rivet idea.

 

[rtfoe]

Thanks Richard.

Now that's very interesting. The pole behind the gun in the famous shot of Parsons' gun does look a bit like it has silver paint - but I had assumed that was just solarization from the old photo. Oh well, I may decide to touch it up - but perhaps not for now.

I did bevel the lower part in to the upper in the end - some later photos will hopefully show that. But when you say "one piece mould" are you suggesting that these poles were actually made from something other than wood? If so, I'm afraid that I simply cannot face building the whole thing again!

Hi Tim,
Doesn't matter if it's white or silver. Most photos in B/W look white and no one is alive to even remember a pole on the side of the road. The material is definitely metal...perhaps pressed into shape when rolled out as it is extruded. The other type of pole was in concrete mostly found in little towns. If you check out some of the pictures of the Baling Peace talks you'd see one of these.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[rtfoe]

"So I decided to go for a material which I haven’t used in years and which, I suppose, is very old school: rubberised horsehair."

Hi Tim, using the horse hair techique is correct. Now, the underbrush along roads in the tropics is unlike those in countries that have four seasons where the underbrush lose their leaves in autumn and are dead or bare by winter then they regenerate during spring with new shoots or leaves. In the tropics the bushes grow 365 days and more. Fighting for the sunlight they basically grow over themselves creating empty dead ranches underneath and these look just like your horse hair. I use lichen or spagnum moss to build up underneath my bushes.

Kudos to you for thinking hard enough to solve the issue. I have rolls of dead roots which I will use for my stream dio.

The gun is wicked I must say with all them rivets and detai.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks Richard. I really do value any advice, but especially from those 'on the ground'.

The Vulcan kit really is a little gem… apart from the shields and opening up the storage bin, the only things which really require extra attention are the open sights.

The rear sight is provided in the kit, but its just too clunky. So I replaced it with one made with fine wire shaped on a simple jig… and an even finer wire for the vertical cross-hair. The foresight and it’s hinged mount are missing completely - you can see it folded down in the image below - but this was easily added from wire and plastic card.

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There is also a tensioning bar for the side shields which fits into brackets at the top of the starboard side (roughly midway from front to back) and half way down the port shield (nearer the front). It’s missing in the image above (although there is a wire in place), but easily spotted in the Bakri Road photos. It’s the rod which can be seen above the loader’s head…

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The other end can be seen running into the timing strip just above the traverse handwheel in this photo…

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Because it actually runs at an angle between the shield and the main gun sight, it can’t be fitted until the shield is glued in place.

So here are some images of the gun nearing completion after base coat and initial weathering. The main shade is Mr Paint MRP-333 Khaki Green No.3/G3.

Now someone is probably going to tell me that this is the wrong colour, but I have done some research and, as far as I can tell, there is no firm evidence as to what you would expect for a gun manufactured in Australia and sent to Far East in 1941. The shade of the gun in the photos above certainly looks darker than the khaki drill uniforms of the crew and, after all, this was destined for the jungle, not the desert.

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The MRP acrylic sprays beautifully from the airbrush without any need for thinner, but be warned (I learned the hard way) that this is a lacquer based paint and lacquer thinner - NOT WATER - needs to be used for cleaning! Eventually (after having to strip the first coat from the model) I used Mr Color 400 Levelling Thinner.

For highlights I added a little Tamiya Buff XF-57 (Tamiya paints mix fine), then added chips, scuffs and scratches with an even lighter mix of the above, infilled with the original base coat + dark grey and, where appropriate, steel. Details were picked out in various places with different shades - the breach block, for example, should be quite shiny, the leather strap for the spare ammo boxes, etc.

Please note that this is not the final weathering because I am waiting to have everything almost finished - tank, gun, figures and base - before going in for the final unifying dust coat.

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[minitnkr]

Beautiful work.

 

[adt70hk]

Now that is VERY good indeed. Well done indeed Tim.

ATB

Andrew

 

[Tim Marlow]

Lovely job.

 

[scottie3158]

Tim,
Very nicely done.

 

[rtfoe]

I've actually seen the gun at AWM in Canberra when I visited but didn't pay much attention to it and now regretting. I think I may have some photos. Under the museum soft lights I couldn't make out the actual color. My funny comment was "Ah...it's the 2 pounder that was used at Bakri"...somebody should have slapped the back of my head to take more shots of it.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[rtfoe]

Hi Tim, I've only got these two shots and it didn't have the side shields. I think the actual guns were never brought back to Australia.



Unfortunately not much help.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[TIM FORSTER]

Thanks everyone - and especially Richard for the photos. I agree that it's very unlikely that any of the 2 pounders used in Malaya (or Singapore) ever made it back to Australia...

Now, on to the figures…

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It has been two years since my last figures were being readied for my ‘Liberation, Italy 1944’ dio. In the end there were a whopping eleven in all - and I’m not making that mistake again any time soon… I admit that I have been nervous about doing it all again.

In the iconic photograph at the top of this blog there are four men: Sgt Parsons and two of the gun crew. There’s also a guy with a rifle just visible to the left. He may well be part of the 2 pounder crew as well, because in the cine film taken at around the same time there are four actually serving the gun. Obviously there would have been others in the immediate vicinity, but I feel these are enough to tell the story for now.

Finally, there is the Madras sapper, who I have already trailered above. I’m very glad to have him, because otherwise the figures would all be bunched up at the extreme left of the scene. He also adds scale to the Ha-Go and the trees and, just as importantly, helps to explain why the tree has been felled. I just know that some people looking at this diorama are going to be asking: "How come the tree has fallen behind the tank?!

So here are the figures in either their pre-painted state or after an airbrushed coat of Vallejo Medium Grey 987 (which I read somewhere was a good starting point for Khaki Drill). They are largely a mixture of Miniart, Masterbox and Dragon with heads from Hornet or Royal Models. Re-sculpted webbing is made from Tamiya masking tape, over-painted with Mr Surfacer and any gaps were filled first with Magic Sculpt and then Mr Dissolved Putty.

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I took some time to rework the ‘Bombay bloomers’ worn by Sgt Parsons to give them more wrinkles and folds.

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The gunner was the hardest figure of all, because he has to fit. He started out with shorts, but looking at the Bakri images at least one of the gunners had long trousers, so I decided to sculpt these - partly to hide all the surgery on his legs. The head on this guy (and the left hand) is from Royal Models - he has a fantastic ‘triumphant’ expression!

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So... let brush painting commence!

 

[Mini Me]

Hi Tim, just got back around to this and the progress you have made is phenomenal! Keep it coming Sir. :thumb2: Rick H.

 

[rtfoe]

The figures are looking good Tim, like the odd Sikh Sapper.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[adt70hk]

Tim

Really looking forward to these seeing some paint.

ATB.

Andrew