Sunday 10 July 2016

Airfix Waterloo French Foot Artillery

Finally the Airfix Battle of Waterloo Project has started. Here are the 3 guns and crew supplied in the big "new" Airfix Waterloo Farmhouse set. Moulded in a white plastic there was an awful lot of flash to try and remove showing the age of the moulds.

Nostalgia in a box.

However I have been blitzing ebay lately and have more than enough yellow plastic "originals" to make life easier next time round.

I have a lot of half finished figures in the painting queue so the next few posts will appear to be a little random - starting with those 15mm French artillery pieces for the Franco-Prussian War that I promised months ago.

17 comments:

  1. That is indeed very nostalgic - but a million times better than when I tried to paint some of these in about 1975!

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  2. I always found it odd that the French guns didn't measure up to the RHA or even the ACW but this battery still pleases.

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    1. The guns are quite basic in comparison but I am sure Terence Wise has an article somewhere on how to improve them!

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  3. Very nice - great to see the project underway!

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    1. I have some catching up to do if I am to have a return vintage wargame!

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  4. Lovely job, Matt - I am reminded that when I recruited some three 2-gun batteries of these, circa 1972, I was keen enough to replace all ramrod shafts and trailspikes etc with steel pins - I put the ramrod ends back on the pins. I must have been crazy, but it worked OK - I used them for 30 years. I used to be paranoid about plastic figures shedding paint. I never liked painting sheds much either, come to think of it.

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    1. I too thought about replacing the ramrods. However, like painting the garden shed, it seemed too much effort!

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  5. In my youth (early '70s), I painted a lot of the plastic Airfix French including these artillery. Brings back memories.

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  6. So many souvenirs for me too, they look superb!

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  7. right I will mirror your project as I have this set when last produced from Hull plus lots of the originals...great job on French Artillery. glad the blog is still going by the way always had the best name on the blogosphere!

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    1. Fraxinus - Excellent, I look forward to your posts!

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  8. Wow - those take me back. Have you found some of the old yellow figures have very brittle plastic?

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    1. brittle plastic has not been too much of a problem so far - but there have been a few. personally the worst sets I have had for brittle plastic have been the Arab set - I reckon over half of the ones I bought had to be thrown away. I read somewhere its all down to the ratio mixture of the two main plastic ingredients - so it is pot luck whether they fall apart over time or not.

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