Northumberland Travels (1)

I'm now taking a few days off from painting to visit Northumberland and maximise my use of my English Heritage membership.

On the way up I spent most of the day revisiting three sites on Hadrian's Wall -Birdoswald, Housesteads and Chesters. Birdoswald was the only one I hadn't visited before but all three sites are better signed than in the past so interpretation is a lot easier.

I followed this with a day off cycling around Kielder reservoir and a quick visit to the battlefield of Otterburn, just a mile from our hotel, there was nothing of note except a couple of plaques and a Percy cross, seeing the ground did not help interpretation of the battle.

Next off to Corbridge to see the Roman town, quite a nice site museum with an interesting comment that lorica segmenta may have been used by some cavalry units. Then a side step to Hexham before Belsay castle and gardens. here the highlight was not the buildings but the sculpture by Stella Mccartney

On the way to our next stop on the coast it was into Alnwick for a quick look around, I didn't bother with the castle as it would have cost a fortune and it seems to be more like Harry Potterland. But I did find Barter Books a rather unusual second hand bookstore where I spent quite a while browsing the history section. Then on to Craster for the walk to Dunstanburgh castle and return to the local pub for crab sandwiches and a pint of black sheep.

Scottish & Flemish Pikemen

The Strelets pikemen are now finished and I have completed them as two separate groups, those from the Army of Wallace/Bruce sets I used for the Scottish pikes as many had a saltire or tartan. The others from the Medieval levy I used for the low countries with Brabant flags from warflag for the battle of the Golden Spurs 1302. The Scots The Flemings (in the background are the Scots and a few spare archers I finished)

Old Glory/Derby show

Managed to find a gap in my schedule to get across to Derby yesterday (Saturday). It was just as well as Dave was all alone to man both his book stall and the Lance & Longbow stand. As a result I didn't spend as much time looking around, plus my time was short as friends were coming over for dinner and I am chief chef!!.

Overall impression is that it is still a nice show, good lighting, enough room to move around and lots of friends to see. I admit that this time, nothing particularly struck my attention. I saw a number of items that I'll probably pick up at Fiasco in a months time, especially the Minimi tanks. I've been dithering over these for a while as they say they will cast a thinner base to order, so it is easier to remove.

Both the Battle of the Boyne game and Ste Nazaire games were impressive in scale, but something was missing, I'm not sure what it was, but usually I can find something aspirational in the modelling or game, but not this time? I really wanted to try the Trebbia and/or Granicus games by the SOA, but I never had time, shame

Expenditure was very moderate, the new Osprey on Cromwell in Ireland by Michael McNally (not a relation) and the Battleground book on Ramilles. Lots of temptation on the B&B, I succumbed to some more medievals by Miniart because they were cheap and I nearly bought more GNW stuff by Zvezda just because I wanted two packets (as a just in case) and I would have resold the rest. I was really pleased to see that they went to a safe home with Andy Callan.

Overall it was the opportunity to meet up with lots of other gamers that made it a great day out. Thank guys.

Commentary and criticism - plastic welding

Thanks for all the positive views about on my work expressed here, personally I feel that although my technique has improved over the years , my eyesight and brush control is not as good as it was. However praise is always gratefully received, as well as constructive criticism.

At times, I am asked how I achieve a particular effect, and wherever possible I will try and respond, but sometimes it is difficult and I admit to failing to respond on my plastic welding techniques for adding lances and poles to standard bearers. This is not due to lack of interest or desire to share knowledge, but rather the difficulty of defining a very subjective technique.

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Adding a metal lance/pole is tricky as the metal has to be warm enough to melt the plastic but only as such as it will rapidly harden back again again around the pole. This is dependant on three/four factors:

• The thickness of the metal pole - if it is to thin the heat rapidly dissipates and the plastic just melts without reforming over the pole (with or with out help) too thick and the plastic will just melt completely away from the pole, as a general rule thinner is better.


• heating the relevant pole sections - it is difficult to old the wire without injury so I use a pair of pliers to hold the metal while heating in a candle while ensuring most heat is concentrated on the points of contact. A rule of thumb is a count of three is a weld and a five will cut.


• adjusting the technique for the figures plastic - some figures have a much lower melt point such the Mars which causes major difficulty in getting the right heat into the wire. Some such as the new Italeri have the opposite effect and several attempts are needed before the pole is fixed in place


• Finally there is physical assistance (with care) - if the pole is still warm (hot) it is possible to close the models hand securely around the pole. gentle pressure with small nosed pliers is often all that is needed.

Obviously taking photo's of the above in progress is far to risky.

Alternatives and other techniques

Welding plastic lances/weapons - sometimes it is not possible to use a metal lance/pike/pole because of the stance of the figure or the weapon can't be replaced by a simple metal rod. In these cases I either use:

• Most recently Loctite super plastic, the two part starter and super glue set to fix the item in place.


• or traditionally, positioning the weapon and then heating a pin (see below) in a candle running it along the join to fix the weapon in place.

The pin is firmly held in a pin vice so that it is easy to (use just like a brush) I also use it as a means of "removing flash" then heating it and then runing it along the moulding line

On the workbench - October 09

Since I plan to be away for part of the month I have a slightly less ambitious plan!

• Firstly to finish all the medieval levy/pikemen, just a couple more colours and I'll be onto basing
• Then the Hussite wagons, this has been dragging on a bit as I wanted to make the wagons flexible enough to use for both Ancients and Renaissance, the Polish versions also needed a four horse barded team and I couldn't find anything suitable to start with. However I now have a clear plan so they should progress quickly from now on.

Onto the new and a change from Medievals/Irregulars (well almost)

• Napoleonic Hungarian Insurrection Infantry - using up the HaT Brunswickers
• Stakes for the Medieval Archers
• Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr cavalry
• WSS Hessian Grenadiers
• WSS Saxon infantry

HYW English Men at Arms

This is the last of the current series of posts, dismounted Men at Arms as an alternative to using the mounted knights depending on the opposition.

The figures are dominantly Zvezda plus Revell and a scattering of Strelets. The banners are all from Dansk Figurspilsforenings Hjemmeside look under download for a great set of flags.

Now I'm just starting on the last of the medievals, the Strelets medieval levy pikemen.

HYW English Hobilars

Here is the rest of the cavalry for the army - hobilars. For WRG 6th they are classed as medium or heavy cavalry with lance, but unfortunately the figures I have are rather short of lances.

The figures come from a variety of sources many of which are different Strelets sets plus a few Italeri.