Tiddly Fiddly Firepower

I bought some 0.3mm brass rod by mistake a couple of weeks ago, intended for 1/3000th scale warship masts but too thin for the job. Instead, I thought I'd try to use it for observer's Lewis guns on 1/600th First World War two seater aircraft. I had a go with a Tumbling Dice Breguet XIV model and I think it turned out looking not too shabby. It wasn't particularly tricky to do either, especially as superglue goes off at the speed of light in his hot weather. I might go back and add some guns to my painted models but I will definitely be using the brass rod on any new aircraft I assemble in the future. 

1/600th WW1 Tumbling Dice French Aircraft

As Paul Sulley put a lot of time and effort into expanding the 1/600th scale French range, it is only fair that I order some of the models and paint them up! I've ordered some packs of Breguet XIV bombers and SPAD VII scouts, which I will paint up for late 1917 in the distinctive, but simple scheme before three tone camouflage was adopted, so a nice and easy job. I've also ordered a pack of the Morane Saulnier N 'bullet' monoplane scouts, which will be painted as RFC machines of No.60 Squadron, with bright red engine cowlings and spinners. Tally Ho!

New Tumbling Dice 1/600th French WW1 Aircraft

Voisin 8

Caudron RII 

Breguet XIV 

Nieuport 28 

Salmson 2 

SPAD VII 

Morane Saulnier N 

Nieuport 17 

Paul Sulley from Tumbling Dice was kind enough to send me some samples of the new 1/600th French aircraft he has just produced, although not yet available on the website. These fill some big gaps in the existing range, which is primarily early war, which means that the French, Italian, American, Belgian and Russian air forces are now feasible, give or take a couple of types. The Russian Civil War and Russo Polish War are also possible, so not just the First World War. I'm particularly impressed by the Breguet XIV, which is a lovely model and really looks like the real thing. Excellent!

New French WW1 Aircraft from Tumbling Dice

Some excellent news from Paul at Tumbling Dice today...

"..have just completed the design work on the French WW1 aircraft. The 8 designs will be moulded this week and should be in production next week.

They are

ISA 306 Morane-Saulnier N

ISA 307 Nieuport 17

ISA 308 Nieuport 28

ISA 309 Voisin Type 8

ISA 311 Spad VII/XIII

ISA 312 Breguet Br14

ISA 313 Caudron RII

ISA 315 Salmson 2

A French starter pack will also appear next week."

This opens up all sorts of potential scenarios and brings the French, Belgian, Italian and American air forces into the picture too. I'll definitely be ordering a lot of these, starting with the Starter Pack, no doubt adding some more aircraft to the basket to fill out complete late war squadrons of scouts and bombers.

Zut Alors!

The Red Baron's Albatros DII, Jasta 2, late 1916

After a bit of a delay due to work and family stuff, I wrapped up the 1/600th scale Albatros D.II of Ltn.Manfred Von Richthofen today, applying the decals and then a wash over of diluted Warpaints Pure Red. The upper wing crosses should really have white squares underneath but my I-94 decals were badly off register, so I just used the later ones instead. I will use this model for the McCudden's Cut and Run scenario, which I'm hoping to play over the next couple of days. Tally Ho!

Albatros D.III (Oeffag) Godwin Von Brumovski

I repainted the skull insignia on the 1/600tg scale Albatros D.III today, having originally painted it facing the wrong way, then added some decals to finish off Godwin Von Brumovski's aircraft, or one of them at least. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end and quite fancy converting and painting some more Austro Hungarian Albatros scouts to go alongside this one. Tally Ho! or whatever the Austrian equivalent is?

2025 Review - Painting Things

I painted quite a lot of very small things this year, most of which were 1/600th scale aircraft but there were some 1/2400th ships and 1/600th scale tanks as well. I've also refurbished the bases on two 1/3000th scale Cold War naval fleets for the Indonesian Confrontation, so have bundled them in as well. All in all, not a bad effort and quite a lot of the stuff has seen some table top action too, so a fairly productive year of painting things.