Scratching the itch. A project revisited.

After last weekend's "Kut" game at Newbury, the painting mojo has turned itself off. The game was the culmination of a very productive and rewarding few months of work. I think I just need a little break before resuming projects currently on the table. However, the desire to build something was rather strong. This was fuelled by the realisation that to take Mesopotamia will take more than field artillery and that should I be asked to take part in anything similar in the future, I needed to bring assests to the table.

Last summer I bagan to experiment with cereal packet scratchbuilds. I made a 6 inch 26cwt howitzer. As a first attempt I was pleased with it but time has passed and I've got a little more experience under my belt. It was time to try this one again.

The first build was slightly over scaled. I changed direction this time and found the scale drawings available on the Landships website and took my scale from looking at contemporary photographs. The wheel on the 6 inch 26cwt gun comes roughly up to shoulder height. On me (an average sized bloke), that is 1.5m. So I scaled the wheel to 1/56 using computer trickery and the result is a gun that is much better in terms of scale. Off I went. I found the thick card, the thinner manilla card, the styrene rod and tubing, the brass wire, the superglue, the PVA and those little glass microbeads that are used to decorate fingernails in nailbars.

Here is the bare build.

The brake handles are created using "Instant Mold" making a mould from a piece from a HLBS

8 inch howitzer and then filling the mould with greenstuff.

Now with a lick of paint.

There...much better for size than the first one I made back in 2015.