REME Museum Model Show 2024 - Lyneham

 I attended this show as a member of the South Wales MAFVA Club last weekend and was very impressed by both the standards of models displayed and also the museum itself.

Whilst a little on the expensive side (£15 adults, £7.50 Children) it has some very good and quite unique exhibits.

There is also an excellent cafe and facilities. Altogether a great day out. I'll leave the pictures to do the talking.....

Our Club's stand

My Offerings....

1/6th Stuart Recce - fully radio controlled!

1/6th Recce Jeeps & Landrover

1/1 CVRT Spartan

Challenger ARRV behind where we were sat!

Whirlwind Helicopter above our stand

M5 Half Track converted to recovery vehicle

Some nice 1/35 Ferrets

The for-runners to SA80 - individual and Light Support weapons in 4.85mm calibre

Radio Controlled 1/6th scale vehicles

1/16th scale radio controlled tanks

More 1/16th RC tanks

Armortek 1/6th RC tanks - Wow!

More 1/6th RC tanks - these even had engine sounds etc.

One of only 3 (I believe) Sherman BARVs

Churchill ARV with a display of model Churchills in front

1/32 Lancaster cockpit

Lovely paintings of gallantry award winners from the two Gulf Wars

Inside the rear of an AEC mobile workshop

Something Different - Airfix 1/72nd Sherman Vc Firefly

 Idly scrolling through Facebook I came across an image of this excellent plastic kit painted, but still on its sprue, displayed in a box picture frame, and I thought to myself that looks really good!

This got me thinking that maybe I could have a go at this too, just to try something completely different. That's when a visit to Lidl's came in to the picture. Their Summer Madness promotion on Airfix starter kits was just coming to an end and all they had left was the 1/72nd Sherman Vc Firefly - could the same idea work with a tank?

Until I opened the box I hadn't realised that this is a completely new tooling kit, made in the "Quick-build style" with complete track/running gear mouldings. All the parts are on two identical sized sprues - perfect for my purposes - and would easily fit into a frame of roughly 30 x 30cm.

The first job was to prime everything. As the kit was moulded in a light green coloured plastic I chose to spray it grey to ensure there was sufficient contrast once the tank parts were painted in their olive drab.

To achieve this, I carefully masked the sprue sections before airbrushing Vallejo Olive Drab over all the tank parts.

The next step was to dry-brush all the model surfaces with a lighter mix of white & olive green to break-up the larger areas. 

Then the details were picked out - pioneer tools, tracks etc.

The decals were added before Army Painter Strong Tone was used to pick out the areas of shade. Finally the entire model was lightly dry-brushed with Vallejo Iraqi Sand. I also used Strong Tone to shade the sprue names & numbers before dry-brushing light grey just to make them stand out a bit. That was the painting finished.

I found a suitable frame in Ikea. Called SANNAHED it was actually 35 x 35cm and had about 30mm depth between the glass and the rear board. These were on special offer at £10 so I bought two ready to try another project with an aircraft kit. It had a nicely cut mounting card, but this was too wide to use so I dicarded it. I painted the rear board with a Dulux match pot of a neutral stone colour before attaching parts of the original kit box and the kit itself. The card box art was attached using double sided tape and the kit sprues etc. were secured with thin fuse wire.

And there you have it - finished.

On a separate note the kit itself looks to be very good. The levels of detail are good and cleanly moulded. I read somewhere that if you buy the kit on its own (rather than as part of a starter set) it includes an additional sprue of running gear and separate tracks which would probably make a good kit even better. One glaring boo-boo is the inclusion of a bow machine gun! As we all know the Firefly had this gun deleted to increase ammunition stowage!

A brief dalliance.....Gaslands

I picked up the original Osprey rule book for this post apocalyptical car race game at a Firestorm Bring & Buy some time ago and hadn't thought much of it.

Set Two of Implements of Carnage

However on a recent visit to the shop I saw they had in stock the pre-printed skid templates and both of North Star's sets of "Implements of Carnage" and I couldn't resist.

Four of the finished models - some cost me just 79 pence in B&M!

I showed my 12 year old Grandson some YouTube videos of the game and that was it he was in!

Partially assembled Dune Buggy & Scrambler - there are two of each in set two

He came to stay a couple of week's later armed with a bag full of battered old Hot Wheels cars and we got started.

Tool box and fuel cans in the back of the rusty pickup

So far I've created six vehicles, one of which is one of two Dune Buggies that come with set 2. There are also motorcycles that come with the sets and they are on the bench at the moment.

Finished Dune Buggy less weathering

The special dice and counters you need for the game have been 3D printed and I will create a track on an old GW paper play mat, so next visit we should be able to try out a game.😆

Rubicon 1/56 M5A1 Stuart

 As part of my cut price stash from the IPMS Avon show, I bought a Rubicon M5A1 Stuart for £12.

I decided I’d paint this up as a British vehicle but in its delivered Olive Drab colour.

As with every Rubicon kit I’ve made, it comes with two sprues & decals bagged separately and a very clear and detailed instruction booklet. The parts are moulded flash free in a light grey hard plastic and offer a number of options for the builder.

Turret completed with hatch open and test fit for Warlord figure

There’s early, mid and late production engine deck details, turret MG armour shield, turretless MG armed recce version, mudguards on/off, Cullin hedgerow device, turret hatches open/closed…… plenty of choices.

Track units before assembling inner drive sprocket and suspension details

I built the model more-or-less following the instructions; however I left the track units off to ease painting.

Main lower hull components include a checker-plate floor which you will see if you opt for the turretless recce version

The completed sub-assemblies awaiting primer

There really weren’t any issues during assembly, it took less than 30 minutes including cleaning up the parts! The only small point I’d note was that the front mudguards are moulded as part of the hull, whilst the rear mud flaps form part of the combined side mudguards. I cut these off and attached them individually as this is where divisional and unit markings would be displayed.

Matt White primed sub-assemblies

Parts just clipped together to illustrate the Recce Version. You have the choice to swap turret for MG ring after you've finished the model so you really have two vehicles in one!

Once assembled, I spray primed all the finished sub-assemblies with matt white. I thought I’d try my hand at “pre-shading” so sprayed all the areas of shade with a dark Panzer Grey before giving the whole AFV a spray coat of Vallejo Olive Drab. I’m not convinced this made any real difference though, so I need to experiment more.

Track units carefully sprayed in Olive Drab, to leave tracks dark grey

I was careful to only spray the running gear Olive Drab, leaving the track in Panzer Grey as it is of the rubber pad type.

All the weathering finished prior to pigments and matt varnish

Weathering consisted of firstly dry-brushing the entire model with lightened Olive Drab to give some variation across the AFV’s panels. I then painted the pioneer tools and applied the decals.

What the vehicle looks like in Recce mode there were another two .50" MGs you could add!

Next, I used Army Painter Dark Tone wash around all raised detail and shadow areas. When all was dry a light dry-brush of Vallejo Iraqi Sand was applied overall.

After the first application of pigments

I used Army Painter Rust Wash to treat the track joining pieces and ran a few rust streaks around the tank where I thought they’d naturally occur.

Finished model with re-applied pigments😅

Finally, a new one for me, I used some Vallejo Earth Pigment powder to further weather the vehicle. This looked really good until…..

In the colours of a Guards Division Brigade HQ vehicle. Note the rear mud flaps taken from the side mudguard moulding

Last job was to spray an overall coat of AK Lucky Ultra-Matt varnish which promptly blew off all my pigment powders!!

I waited until all was dry and re-applied the pigments and this time fixed them in place with dilute PVA.

I added a spare commander figure from the Warlord Sherman Firefly and I was done.

Fantastic little model, highly recommended.