Weekend Pleasure in 1:144

Here two pictures of a Mini-Diorama I built the last weekend.

Nothing special, just something you can use to take a picture of a small tank or truck.

The foundation is made out of plaster of Paris; the rest is from what I had on my workbench.

The frame is one of those small picture frames you can buy for some dollars.

So at the end you get a small diorama for less than USD 5.

Puma-Meeting Somewhere in France in 1944

Once I received my own Pumas from the Panzer Depot, I knew that I needed to build a diorama. Nearly at the same time I got the first German tank crew from German company, Preiser.

So my idea was to build a scene somewhere in France. The Pumas would meet with their commander to get new orders. As a foundation, I decided to go with a wooden picture frame from the big “I”.

The ground is a piece of Styrodur or better kwon in the USA as blue foam. I shaped the terrain with several tools until I had the feeling it would work. The meeting point was a kind of an intersection of two small roads.

I pained everything with brown color, before I clued the grass and the sand on it. For the road I went with some dirty powder I took from a road not far where I live.

For the fence I took small toothpicks. All trees and the green is made with stuff I had at hand. 

German fortification somewhere in Italy

Here I will show you a picture of one of my dioramas I left in Switzerland.

While it is very well known that the Germans built Bunkers in France (Atlantic wall), in Denmark, the Nederland and in Germany itself, it is not so well known, that they built a lot of Bunkers in Italy.

Besides the Gustav line or the Hitler line, which were more field fortifications, the Germany had strong bunkers on different locations.

 The diorama is complete made out of foam. The dimensions of the bunker are based on other bunkers I have and on some drawings I found on the Internet.

Airplane built the easy way

For all like me, who do not like to build a complete airplane I present here a nice idea.

I found this last weekend when we visited the USS Hornet in Alameda CA.

On the middle deck they had two of these trailers to transport only parts of an aircraft. If this is the original idea behind I do not know but I liked it.

For all who like ships I can only say, go and visit the Hornet, even the ship is no longer in the conditions of world war II, is is still very impressing to see a lot of the rooms, the flight deck and the tower.

Here a link for google map: http://g.co/maps/uw25x


Here the homepage of the ship:
http://uss-hornet.org/

collecting ideas for a tank workshop

Hi all,

I need your help and feedback.

I would like to build up a German tank repair shop.

So I'm thinking about what all could be found there?

I will start the list with some details but please spend some minutes and send me your input too.

Many thanks in advance.

What would I see at a German tank repair shop?

- a crane

- a welding unit maybe with two gas bottles

- a ramp

- a lot of boxes

- old and new spare parts

- gun barrels
- recovery tanks like the Panzer IV, the Bergepanther or the Bergehetzer
- no Berge-Tiger, first there were only one or two, located somewhere in Italy and then, the crane   
  they had was good for everything but not for recovery

- ???  

My very own tank :-) M5 Stuart

I live know for nearly one year here in California, but that we have a reall WWII tank in town was new for me.

First I thought it was a joke but then I went to this park, and yes on a corner there it is. A original American M5 Stuart tank. Okay, if you once had a chance to see a German Tiger or the King Tiger in the German Tank Museum in Munster, you will think, this is more like a can. The tank is in a good condition, everything outside of course is moved away and it looks like the engine is missing too. With the color I have some problems, for me it looks like green instead of the old olive green what I saw on other old tanks but I like him.

So as he is in my hometown, I will call him now my own tank.

I hope you will enjoy the pictures.

Promotion for me

Normally I do not like promotion, but in this case as it is for me, why I will do a exception.
At the moment I offer a small kit to build a diorama like the one with the Tigers, which I blogged yesterday. So if you are interested, please feel free to take a look at Ebay, here is the link: diorama 1/144