Smaller Things

I'm not much of a fan of mainstream TV, and haven't gotten caught up in the popularity of Stranger Things, but that doesn't mean I don't get caught up in fads.  Of course, tending to the obsessional, those fads are usually of my own making.

M88 recovery vehicle during cold weather testing
(US Army photo by Greg Netardus)

Right now, my fad is Smaller Things, specifically 1/72-1/76 scale vehicles.  They are also stranger things in their own way: they are oddball vehicles.  But, really, what other kind of model would draw my interest?  Oh, I'm sure there are people who build tiny run-of-the-mill Sherman tanks and German half-tracks in innumerable quantities, but that's not for me.  I'm fascinated by things like airfield ground support equipment, armored vehicles that ride on wheels instead of tank tracks, and  recovery vehicles of all sorts. (For those not familiar with recovery vehicles imagine a bulldozery, tow-truckish kind of beast built out of an honest-to-goodness tank).

I have to admit, this is not really a new obsession.  It's more of a relapse.  I remember when I first came across Airfix's 1/76 scale vehicle sets.  It was during one of their bankruptcies and those kits were hard to find.  This was in the pre-eBay days, so I scoured the used-kit mailing-lists that came every month and rapidly populated my collection with multiple copies of those multi-vehicle sets.  I even built some, including the Crash Tender, K2 Ambulance, and the Coles crane on a Thorneycraft Amazon chassis.



Around that time, I also came across the Bellona Military Vehicle Data booklet series, chock-full of 3 views of every kind of (admittedly Anglo-centric) unarmored military vehicle you could think of. I scooped those up at every opportunity too. They were magical.  (I did mention oddball above, no? Perhaps I meant something more than just the vehicles)

Then, the pièce de résistance, I discovered Gerald Scarborough's guide to kitbashing Royal Air Force vehicles in the anything-for-a-dollar bin of a rundown old hobby and bowling supplies shop.  I even made a list of all the conversions I wanted to do, which  - 30 years later - I still keep inside the front cover.  That was, obviously, the publisher's intent since the publisher was none other than, you guessed it: Airfix.  Then, I found other things, like children, and swim meets, and pesky career stuff to keep me busy. This particular obsession went dormant once again with only minor, occasional relapses, characterized by idle dreaming and plastic- fondling. None were serious enough to make me actually build something.



Well, nothing except for a bus in 1/87 scale, the HO model railroad standard.  The Ford bus depicts a vehicle from Erie, Pennsylvania in the 1950s.  But that's a model railroad topic and far, far removed from what we are here to address today.  Not another word on that. For now.



I'm not sure what exactly triggered my most recent Smaller Things relapse, although I think I can blame it largely on Bill, a fellow member of our IPMS Birmingham club.  Bill is an exquisitely good modeler and all around great guy, who also constructs oddball vehicles, often from nothing more than a photo, a set of drawings and a few sheets of plain white styrene plastic.

Somehow- I'm suspicious it's the dark arts - he manages to encourage other people (i.e., me) to also scratchbuild little oddball vehicles.  My own slippery slope began with an (as yet uncompleted) scratch/converted Royal Air Force Alvis/Pyrene Salamander crash tender.  Many will remember this vehicle fondly from its iteration in the Matchbox diecast toy line.  My starting point for the plastic model was the suspension of the JB Models 1/76 Alvis Saladin armored car, a subject also well known to Matchbox fans. The Smaller Things urge was further reinforced when Bill suggested I use the S-model kit for the Jeep in my YB-49 Crash Site Diorama.

My "small" problem finally broke completely into the clear when I decided to kitbash a half-track and a Deuce-and-a-half cargo truck, based a single known photograph from North Africa in 1943.  Why?  For no other reason than I thought it looked cool.  At that  point, I realized that the current outbreak had become uncontrolled.





Oh, and it was Bill who both proposed the Second Hand Rose club challenge and who put a couple of Dragon 1/72 scale M1114 Humvees up for adoption (including the one at the top of this post, which I built for that challenge).   After all, what was I to do, refuse his generosity?

So, what's on the desk right now?  More Smaller Things of course!  One is the challenging, but unexpectedly enjoyable, Ace Models LAV-R armored recovery vehicle as used by the US Marines. I'm building this kit instead of the far easier Trumpeter kit of the same subject as practice for the similar, yet oh-so-different, Canadian Husky ARV, also from Ace.

Austin K6 CO2 Tender (Photographer unknown)

The other ongoing build, bless Mr. Scarborough's heart and the plans he included in the Modeling RAF Vehicles book, is a long-planned conversion of the Austin K6 crash tender from the Airfix Emergency Set into an RAF CO2 crash tender!  Can't you feel the excitement?



The technique I'm using for the conversion involves wrapping styrene over balsa forms.  I learned it from - of course - Mr. Enabler himself, Bill.  Success with this conversion might just be enough to make me finish that languishing Salamander crash tender.  Then I can pair it with another old Matchbox favorite, the Alvis Stalwart (a.k.a. the "BP Exploration Truck").  The Stalwart is now kitted in 1/72 by Ace. One of these, in overt violation of the Official Stash Reduction Policy of 2017 (Continuing Resolution), is inbound from Ukraine at this very moment.

I'm not sure what will break the current fever of smaller things, but I have an inkling it might be some heavy iron. One of the themes for our IPMS Birmingham Phantom Phlashers' 2018 Spring Contest might just be enough. I expect my recovery will be assisted by the good folks at Xtradecals who depict the efforts of the paint crews aboard the  USS Saratoga. That being said, we also cannot discount the parallel work of the fine men of HMS Ark Royal.  Perhaps the heavy thud of a Cold War ship-borne interceptor catching the wire on a carrier deck will cure me.

Then again, I might need that neat little deck tractor to spot that heavy iron on the flight deck.