Humvees ? (ish)

A week or so ago I purchased these vehicles from a nearby "Poundworld" store (easily confused with Poundland, but virtually identical.)As always I was a bit dubious as to their scale, but using my  "Rule of Thumb" (- a large Foundry Street Violence  figure is about the size of my thumb from joint to tip), I thought they measured up quite well, so I took the risk and splashed out £1 (approximately $1.50) and bought a set. I figured that even if they were complete and utter pants then at least I'd have sixteen usable wheel and tyres. The photograph on the right shows that they scale in very well with foundry figures.

As can be seen from the next two photographs they are cheap rubbish.  They're made of  a soft(ish) type of polyethylene, but whilst for the most part they're malleable, they can also be surprisingly brittle and one or two of mine have minor breaks.

The stickers on them  were easily removed using a scalpel to lift up an edge.  Had they been transfers (decals) then I was well prepared with a bottle of acetate (from the same store), but they lifted off easily enough. I had no real reason to try and hold on to the stickers so they were binned.

Here's a photo of the model, reduced to its component parts. The internal silver seating etc. obviously had to go (I thought even a re-paint wouldn't be enough to save it.  The pull back and let go motor part would have to be left as the rear axle uses it .The solution for the internal detail would have to be the same as any solid model, there wouldn't be any ! The right hand photo shows the blank card I used to fill out the window spaces. The template resembled a box, but with angled corners.  I tried using superglue to fix the card in place (and to repair some of the breaks), but it seems that the plastic doesn't like it, so I resorted to UHU glue, which seemed to work just fine and hold the card in place.

I painted the first couple of vehicles using some old Humbrol enamels  thinking that the plastic wouldn't take kindly to acrylics. As I only have black and white glosses in enamels and I wanted more  of a  civilian-style colour, I experimented with a gloss acrylic red and it worked out just fine as can be seen in the photo. There really is not a lot of detail  on these models, so there is not a lot to pick out, which suits me fine. I've also never painted windows on a vehicle before, although I've seen it done and even though it looks pretty poor on close inspection, I'm quite pleased with the overall effect.

As a footnote, I was so pleased with these and knowing that I'd need a few Humvees for an ATZ scenario, a couple of days after purchasing my first set of four I went out and blew all my pocket money on another  3

sets.  Here's the results so far:









Next week's blog may well be delayed as my eldest son is getting married and it seems I'm obliged to attend. It means another 5-6 hours drive down south for the weekend, but on the plus side I may well be able to finish reading another zombie novel !

As always thanks for taking the time to look, all comments are of course appreciated and welcome and if you're new to this blog and I haven't already welcomed you, then "Welcome! ", I hope you enjoy your stay and find something to interest you.