Supply and Pontoon Trains Fully Assembled!!!

Breaker 1-9!  Breaker 1-9!  You got your ears on, good buddy?  The convoy in its fully assembled state.  Maybe I can find a 28mm Kris Kristofferson figure somewhere to head it up? 

The supply and pontoon trains are now fully assembled.  The various wagons and carts are from the Old Glory, Blue Moon, and Fife&Drum ranges by the way.  Although nothing is painted yet, I like the look of everything so much that I am sorely tempted to order a few more different wagons and carts later in the spring or early summer just to add some more variety.  Of course, the armies of Stollen and Zichenau "need" a vivandiere cart or two, don't they?  And then there is the Berliner Zinnfiguren mobile forge that I need to order soon, so the Grand Duchess can pick up and transport it home when she visits Berlin in May.

A few more Minden walking and seated drivers/drovers and some RSM95 limber horse riders are necessary to complete the picture.  Darn.  I thought I had figured everything correctly when I ordered all of this stuff weeks ago.  Still, I can get on with attaching thing to temporary painting bases and base coating the first four or five items in the meantime.

It's the darnedest thing what happens as one rushes to wrap up any sort of modelling project in which strong glues and/or epoxies are involved.  It's all too easy to become a little careless and sloppy, which can have unexpected consequnces.  For instance, I managed to get the toes my left foot stuck fast to my forehead with several misplaced drops of Gorilla Super Glue, and that makes sitting down to the computer to type this somewhat difficult as you might expect.  Without a doubt, my students will be amused later in the day when I assume my place at the head of the classroom.   

Kidding aside, the glue  I found most useful, least messy, and quickest setting in the assembly of these 13 wagons and carts was Gorilla Super Glue.  The allegedly thick Great Planes Pro-CA stuff from the local model railway shop was awfully thin, in fact, and took forever to set up and cure despite what the hype on the package claimed.  The Loctite Superglue Gel was the messiest I've ever used.  Tiny, web-like strands of the stuff everywhere each time I applied a drop, and it was so thick that applying a tiny bit whenever small parts needed joining was well nigh impossible.  It just simply refused to stop oozing from the tube.  I am not sure that I'll ever get all of it off my finger tips. 

Hands down, the most tedious items to assemble were this hay wagon and cart, which took several days, a number of redos, some choice words uttered quietly to myself, and quite a bit of breath-holding to get all of the tiny pieces glued firmly into place.  How we suffer for our hobby.  But they are all done now and, while not quite perfect, should look pretty good once painted and based. . .  a couple of well-used, slightly ragged pieces of farm transport made available for military service as the need arises.

Fortunately, the Grand Duchess came to the rescue once again (the story of my life).  For some undisclosed reason, she had a fairly new bottle of this Gorilla stuff in her special kitchen drawer of magical items, which I commandeered -- in the great tradition of the world's various military powers -- and used with marvelous abandon.  Funny.  They never tell you how handy spouses or long-term partners might be before you settle down and establish a household together, do they?  In any event, base-coating the first batch of wagons/carts is due to begin Friday evening.

Finally, this particular entry is also the 1200th post that I've made to the Grand Duchy of Stollen blog since August of 2006 when things got started.   Thank you to both regular and occasional visitors/commenters for being a part of things.

-- Stokes 

And as a treat, here is a greatly doctored version of an interrogation vignette that I painted last spring. These figures appeared in the 2014 Wargamer's Annual recently, but that version of the photo suffered from a variety of ills that I have now corrected using Photoshop Elements 9.  The version shown here features better cropping, sharpening, brightening, removal of colorcast, and one additional editing trick that escapes my memory at the moment.  It is now a photograph that's not half bad, and I wish I had submitted better pictures with the article a year ago.  Next time!  In any case, the figures in the little scene above are mostly Minden Prussian officers of one kind or another with a Fife&Drum English officer plus a Eureka Prussian grenadier for the sentry (guarding the chest), which was kindly donated by a wargaming friend in Belgium.