# Diorama Find



## Owen E Oulton

Yesterday I went to a militaria show at the Holland Armouries here in Ottawa and found an interesting item. The show usually has a number of vendors selling models and other items, often only peripherally connected to the military and one of my friends had a toy building which I picked up for only CDN $5.00. It's an old playset building meant to be used with 54mm plastic figures, making it approximately 1/32 scale. The building consists of six parts, four walls and two roof pieces which snap together bu means of pegs and holes. The walls are moulded in brick red and the roof in medium grey. Theyre moulded in the same plastic as the figures (i.e. "Green Army Men"), most likely polyethylene which is pretty much impervious to glues, but several years ago I discovered that hot-melt glue from a glue gun will stick to it.

The building measures about 230mm x 265mm and 150mm to the peak of the roof. There are two doors in one end wall and one on each side wall with several windows on the first storey and two windows on the second storey of each end wall. The walls are engraved to look like cut and dressed stone, with the roof looking like slate tiles. 

The building will do very nicely as a British Army building with the addition of appropriate signage and painted in typical white with forest green woodwork and a dark grey roof. I've got a piece of 25mm Styrofoam SM blue-board which will make an excellent base, and I plan to include a few figures and a Tamiya No.35308 British Light Utility Car 10HP (Austin "Tilly") painted in Royal Engineers bomb disposal markings. I've got an idea to pick up the Miniart No.35564 1/35 Office Furniture & Accessories set to show through an open door and the windows (Yeah, I know it's a German set, but what the hell...). I figure this will take quite a while to do, so I'm scheduling to get it done for IPMS Ottawa's CapCon 2021 show -- hopefully.

For reference, I'll have to watch the entire series of the British TV drama _Danger UXB_, of course! Oh the sacrifices one must make...:grin2:


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## Milton Fox Racing

Looking forward to the build up thread! :cheers2:


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## Rainfollower

Reminded me of your earlier post:

https://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/170-military-aircraft-models/567986-1-35-tamiya-austin-10-tilly.html

https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/young-queen-elizabeth-ii.jpg


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## Steve H

Danger UXB. One of my favorites on PBS long ago. I applaud your upcoming diorama!

But don't we live in terrific model kit times (even as the hobby seems on it's deathbed from a retail perspective, compared to the '60s and '70s)? Look at the kit you're choosing as the centerpiece. If I had told you that you could buy an Austin 'Tilly', a mass produced commercial plastic kit, if I told you that would exist you would call me mad and carry on with your scratchbuild project of same.


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## Owen E Oulton

Indeed. The Tamiya Tilly is an amazing kit. I've completed one as the vehicle that then-Princess Elizabeth trained on in early 1945. The kit even includes the correct decals for that very vehicle, though they don't mention that marking option either on the box or in the instructions. I've got a second in the works being converted to a Salvation Army canteen truck. The Royal Engineers EOD vehicle will be my third. There are many amazing kits coming out. Hobby Boss brought out a Delta Force FAV last year and Meng brought out a 1914/1920 pattern Rolls Royce Armoured Car at the beginning of this year. We are truly living in a new Golden Age of scale modelling, and that's just with the mainstream styrene model kits. Add in the resin manufacturers, who are using computer-designed and 3D printed masters and one could really wax ecstatic!


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## Owen E Oulton

Well, having waited on a second Office Furniture set (only took 14 months) and waiting out the nursing home's CoViD lockdown, I'm slowly getting back into my Royal Engineers Office Diorama. It's a really nice kit with two small office desks and wooden chairs, telephones, field phones, small chemical fire extinguishers both separate and on wall mounts, lanterns, drinking glasses and a nice selection of multi-national war posters on glossy paper. There are three maps, one for the US, Germans and Soviets. I'm searching Google images for Blitz-era maps of London to put on the wall. I've found a few which I'll scale down and print out on a colour LaserJet. I tried to get out to the Hobby House today but it started raining and while it was nice to be out in real weather after 5-1/2 months inside, it was a cold rain and I was wearing a tee-shirt (and of course a fetching periwinkle purple-blue mask or chin-kini as I call it) so I returned to the comfort of my room.

The one shortcoming of the kit is the desk telephones. To make a British Post Office 300 Series bakelite telephone, one must delete the hand crank on the side, lower the cradle arms and add a 2mm disc of .010" for the dial. The handset is useable but not completely standard. It's not completely accurate but at 4mm square and visible only through the windows it will pass. I've ascertained that this 1937 model of telephone was in use in a photo of the Cabinet War Rooms exhibit in the Churchill Museum in London.

I've ordered a Bronco WWII British & Commonwealth War Correspondent Set to get a portable typewriter (the kit's description says there are 2 of that sprue) to top things off. I'm scratch-building some file cabinets from .015" styrene.


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## Owen E Oulton

Well, the War Correspondents kit finally came in. The typewriter is comprised of two parts - the chassis and the carriage with roller. It seems to be a 1937 Underwood Champion portable sitting in the lower part of the carry case. The top of the case is not supplied, but since I'm placing it in an office setting I don't actually need the case. Several nice medium format and 35mm cameras are supplied, so I'll have enough to place some of them on shelves in the office - after all, where do you think all those photos we get from Google Images come from? One of the photographers will also find its way into my Danger UXB diorama.

This all happened as we went into outbreak status here, so I've got nothin' to do but modelling. One of the staff in my nursing home tested positive, so we're under isolation for 2 weeks. Luckily I'm all stocked up with supplies.


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## Milton Fox Racing

How are the isolation builds coming along?


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## Milton Fox Racing

Wow! I watched a youtube video on the kit contents and the detail is amazing with very little flash. The faces and clothing are fantastically detailed. The camera parts are incredibaley detailed and intricate. And the typewriter is a beaut! All a little bit to big for my dio needs but very nice.


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## Owen E Oulton

Milton Fox Racing said:


> How are the isolation builds coming along?


Slowly, but they're coming along. I've got three dios on the go; this one, the Danger UXB one and the Rat Patrol 1990 one featuring a Desert Storm Chenowth DPV jumping a ditch. The latter two are nearly complete, and this one is just getting under was with the arrival of these sets... Were had one PSW test positive which is why we're on isolation for 2 weeks, but she's asymptomatic and on sick leave. Meanwhile all the residents and staff tested negative. Never been so glad to have been accused of negativity. Still, aside from 3 weeks in September, I've been on lockdown for ten months... Mega-funtastic -- NOT!!


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## Owen E Oulton

Owen E Oulton said:


> Yesterday I went to a militaria show at the Holland Armouries here in Ottawa and found an interesting item. The show usually has a number of vendors selling models and other items, often only peripherally connected to the military and one of my friends had a toy building which I picked up for only CDN $5.00. It's an old playset building meant to be used with 54mm plastic figures, making it approximately 1/32 scale. The building consists of six parts, four walls and two roof pieces which snap together by means of pegs and holes. The walls are moulded in brick red and the roof in medium grey. They're moulded in the same plastic as the figures (i.e. "Green Army Men"), most likely polyethylene which is pretty much impervious to glues, but several years ago I discovered that hot-melt glue from a glue gun will stick to it.
> 
> The building measures about 230mm x 265mm and 150mm to the peak of the roof. There are two doors in one end wall and one on each side wall with several windows on the first storey and two windows on the second storey of each end wall. The walls are engraved to look like cut and dressed stone, with the roof looking like slate tiles.


Well, since I managed to get most of the furniture I need for the office, I've begun construction. As noted, I had glued the walls together with hot-melt glue, but it was somewhat lumpy and the alignment was ever-so-slightly off, so I disassembled it and carved off all the glue. It turns out that there is one glue other than hot-melt that glues the plastic walls together, and that's J-B Weld steel-filled epoxy, so I carefully reassembled the walls and taped them together with aluminum duct tape on a styrene base. Taking the tape off one end I found that the joint between the J-B Welf and the styrene popped free, but that's no matter since AC will glue the epoxy to the styrene. I'm going to need to get the Bronco CB35037 W.W.II Allied Female Soldier Set which comes with two female British figures. One is RAF and the other is ATF, but the physical uniform is identical save for the headdress so I'll just paint them both khaki.


https://www.super-hobby.com/zdjecia/2/2/3/1793_rd.jpg


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## Owen E Oulton

Just got notice that my 3D printed cast iron radiators for the office came in today. I ordered them from Carpet Monster Models in the UK. Came to $15.34 CAD shipped and took a month to arrive. Not too shabby and adds a touch of verisimilitude.


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## Owen E Oulton

Just received the 3D printed radiators from Vincent at Carpet Monster Models. He actually sent 3 of the long radiators and some extras - a short radiator, a fancy picture frame and 10 stielgrenaten. Took an extra week for my friend to deliver it across town, but they're first class. The support structures look like they'll be easy to remove with a no.11 blade and will come in useful as greeblies. The print layers are undetectable with the mkI eyeball, and can barely be felt with a fingernail. The resin used to print then is a neutral light grey similar in colour to the styrene used by ICM or MiniArt for their figures. All in all a top-notch product. Available from Carpet Monster Models for £3.50 + shipping.


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## alpink

ver·i·si·mil·i·tude
/ˌvərəsəˈmiləˌto͞od/
Learn to pronounce

_noun_


the appearance of being true or real.


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## Owen E Oulton

alpink said:


> ver·i·si·mil·i·tude
> /ˌvərəsəˈmiləˌto͞od/
> Learn to pronounce
> 
> _noun_
> 
> 
> the appearance of being true or real.


Well, that's the whole point of historical scale modelling, isn't it?


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