Few miles away from where we live is what used to be a garden centre. Over the years it expanded and now calls itself a retail park.A while back a seafood shack appeared selling assorted shellfish three days a week... so today (Friday) we thought we'd go and get some.
We arrived a bit after opening time - and it was shut. So we wandered around the centre. Couple of 'shops' we hadn't been in before or particulary noticed - one was a kind of craft centre that also sold a few tinplate toys. The other was basically a bric-a-brac shop...
| This lot were the second buy. 6 little trawlers. Actually you can buy these cheaply in most sea side towns, it's just that these ones were cheaper and the timing was right! |
| Very much just novelties, they would probably suit 15mm rather than 20mm, but they'll do the job. |
| Size wise they fit nicely between my other fishing boats. |
| Chronologically this tin plate flying boat was my first buy. As you can see from the pilot and copilot it sits nicely with 25mm figures. I suppose I could take out those big wheels and clockwork mechanism and repaint it. I won't though. As it stands it has character! |
| Another view that helps show how well it fits in with 25mm figures. I admit I really like this 'toy'. |
| Before I bought the above this post was originally going to start here! This is most of my 'fleet' that is currently useable or repairable - haven't included a couple of vessels, including the 20mm resin cargo ship. |
| One of the things I said I would do is compare New Providence with the Arctic Princess. They are similar in many ways, but I think the extra size of the paddle steamer makes for a more useful ship for 25mm figures. So I might do an upsized version of the Arctic Princess at some stage. Possibly like the paddle steamer but with 2 funnels? |
| I did a number of cargo ship variants using the Tealight Ironclad templates. Although useful, none of the wheelhouse/bridge areas were really satisfactory - much happier with the balsa wheelhouse/bridge designs. So I might do a couple of balsa cargo ships to replace these rather than repair them. Might have to carve a U Boat at some stage... |
So that is probably (probably) the end of my ship building for a while, though possibly not an end to ship repairing. See how it goes. Considering I had only originally intended to do a couple of fishing boats!