Modelmaking Misadventures: The Ascenscion Island Chronicles.

[Doug ex-em4]

These vans are great. The second one looks as though it could have been designed by Sir Nigel Gresley.

Doug

[Andy in Germany]

These vans are great. The second one looks as though it could have been designed by Sir Nigel Gresley.

Doug

Thank you. The "additions" for the Maximilian rules will probably ruin this effect...

‘Randomised violence has no excuse. Organised violence needs none’.

That may well become the motto for the "Auxiliary" Police...

[Andy in Germany]

Duplicate post

[Andy in Germany]

And so the silliness descends, with help from some more card, bits of wire and collected junk, and the innards from several cigarette lighters*.

In this guise, the van is being driven in “the races” by the Ascension Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party, which broke away from the “Ascension Socialist Workers Party” due to “ideological differences”; Publicly, this is because they advocated violent revolution and blowing up the Governor’s residence. In fact, it’s because the only thing they actually blew up was the shed the Ascension Socialist Workers Party had rented as a headquarters.

The “Ascension Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party” originally used the van outside factories, exhorting the workers to revolution through their loudspeaker. It also serves as a meeting room for the revolutionaries, because the membership has never risen above two.



With the advent of “The Races” the ARSWP saw their big chance; they made a ram and turret out of scrap, found a couple of machine guns from somewhere, and announced they were going to “Bring the fight to the complacent elites”. They kept the megaphone, and during races the sound of motor vehicles is intermingled with the occasional snippets of Marxist doctrine.



They did hint that they might use the van to make another attempt on the governor’s residence, but Captain Bryant, and possibly more importantly, Sgt Williams of the Royal Navy Air Service Police pointed out the likely consequences of such tomfoolery, and the idea was quietly dropped…

*My clients collectively burn the tobacco output of a small South American country every week, so I have a ready supply of used lighters…

[Andy in Germany]

Posted by mistake due to computer illiteracy...

[Andy in Germany]

Apparently this style of design is called “Streamline Moderne”, which according to the Internet, fount of all knowledge, is characterised by “curving forms and long horizontal lines” which were popular in the 1930’s to “give an impression of sleekness and modernity”. Possibly a little out of place on an island where an indoor toilet is a rarity, but there we go.



On the other hand, the hotels and entertainment district of Georgetown will be very keen to present an illusion of exactly this sort of modernity, so this will probably become a vehicle for deliveries in places where the wealthy patrons my see it.


I may make a sign for the Auxiliary police as well; it’s about time they had a vehicle to call their own, and of course, there are magnets hidden in a few places to allow extra bits and pieces for it to be used in “the races”; probably also by the Auxiliary Police or a group they’re paying to do their dirty work…

[Moriarty]

Me like.
Funny looking toaster, though - no slots for the bread .. .

[Andy in Germany]

Me like.
Funny looking toaster, though - no slots for the bread .. .

"The Flying Toaster" may become the new name now...

[snitcythedog]

Very nice work.  I am always amazed at the organic shapes that you can whip up using card. 

"The Flying Toaster"

Keeping with the 30's idea of modern, it should be the "Supersonic Toaster".  Atomic Toasters would come later in the 40s-50s.   

[Andy in Germany]

The Empire Strikes Back...

As reported previously, in the inaugural race on the Island of Ascension, the “Ascension Socialist Revolutionary Party” won against several aristocratic drivers. This was of great concern for the establishment; after all, if the lower orders can get away with this sort of thing, who knows what they may decide to do next?

Keeping the working class in their place is one of the roles under the broad remit of the “Auxiliary Police”*; the rather murky political police force started by Prime Minister Oswald Moseley. However, the idea of what is effectively a government run ministry entering the Races as a competitor and potentially shooting civilians is not -yet- considered politically palatable.



Instead, the Auxiliaries have quietly funded one of the local organised crime groups to convert a van and enter as an “independent” competitor. They’ve even given them an experimental Gatling gun to test out. The gang also added the rather makeshift “armour” on the front and the equally makeshift oil dispenser to spray oil in the path of following vehicles.



Of course, one of the problems with making deals with street gangs, is that once out on the track, they may well decide to have a go at some class warfare themselves, so I doubt the races will always develop in the way the Auxiliaries are expecting…

*Officially “Ensuring and maintaining the security of the crown”.

[FifteensAway]

Having never seen anything quite like that - except as trailers - I went internet hunting and found: https://www.rvmhhalloffame.org/museum-inventory/.  A bit more of the 'sleek' variety than your model but at least I found verification.  And I take no responsibility regarding any further inspiration you may get from other items at the link. 

And glad you mentioned about the oil spreader because I was thinking to comment that it was a bad idea to have the propane canister in front of the armor like that - spoil cooking dinner later (no idea if such canisters existed in 1930s) and might explode if hit and ignited. (Did a little checking and propane used at 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles - but not necessarily portable)

Cool model - and love the magnet idea, adds so much versatility.

[Andy in Germany]

I’ve established that it’s possible to make rounded models, even quite small rounded models, and also frames, if they are fixed to a solid base, but this time I wanted to investigate open girder construction.

Having made a vague shape that didn’t look like it was going to warp when I turned my back, I hit a new problem, namely rivets. On previous models, I’d drilled lots of holes in the bodywork and inserted pins in them. This worked well enough on the ‘steam powered’ tank, even if the inside looked slightly terrifying.

Unfortunately, on an open frame this wouldn’t work, so after asking here and elsewhere, I tried nail art rhinestones.

This worked well, and as an added advantage was a bit quicker than drilling holes for every rivet, it just came out a bit blingy, like a steampunk contraption built by Gucci. Still, it meant I was motivated to prime the model, and quickly…



Much better...

[Andy in Germany]

What with the new job and catching a very badly timed bout of 'flu, I've not progressed much. However...



The next job on the current project was a base for the model to go on. This should be simple enough; a square of laminated card, paint, cover, add a bit of detail; job’s a good ‘un.

Now, I know that card likes to warp, so before doing anything else I added a couple of coats of shellac, aka French polish, which on other card models made them much more stable. However, it probably didn’t help that I used watered down glue for the first layer of ground cover. Or that I then messed this up and had to repeat it. By the time I’d finished, the result looked like a damp towel.

But was it bad enough that I needed to repeat the model? I wrestled with my inner perfectionist. My inner perfectionist won.



I built the second base more slowly, pressing each stage for 24 hours when it had dried. I used neat glue for the ground cover, and then flattened it again. After a week of this, and painting the base, I added grass… and it warped again. Just a bit, but enough that there’s a crack under the kerbstones.

I reckon I can fix this, though; I’ve got a plan…

[Andy in Germany]

Well, it turns out that making a model from lots of tiny pieces of card and then insisting on adding rivets to every possible join takes a bit of time. However, the base section of the Zeppelin Tower is finally structurally complete.

To my frank astonishment, the structure is also pretty solid. Those chaps who designed the originals for these clearly knew their stuff.

To my equal astonishment, the cunning plan to straighten the base out worked too.

This is a trick taken from cabinet making for using veneers: if you glue a layer of veneer to a piece of plywood, it will warp, as wood likes to do. To avoid bendy furniture, the solution is to add another piece of veneer on the other side to cancel out the warping.

In my case, after all the surface detailing had dried off, I glued paper on the underside of the base and let it dry overnight under a couple of books. The next morning, voilà: flat base.



Anyway, this is based on the only remaining tower of its kind in Recife, Brazil, which in the very short heyday of airships was the first stopping point for airships to South America from Europe and which would have hosted giants like the Graf Zepellin and the Hindenburg before the twit with the bad moustache came along. Of course, in my alternative history, 1930’s Germany is a loose federation of tiny states once more, and airships are the way to travel across oceans, so these towers are a regular sight around the world.

Ascension is developing rapidly as a junction for many airship routes, so in reality it would probably have several airship masts, but don’t ask me to make them all…

[Codsticker]

That is a great looking structure - well done.