When I was a boy - maybe 8 or 9 yo, almost 50 years ago - I found with awe in downtown Coimbra a shop window crammed with Airfix boxes while strolling with my mother. Suddenly, in the Toy Shop street all other shops had the same thing: lots of Airfix kits in the shop windows! There also I understood that the mosquito that bit me didn´t bit other kids, as they would pass on the same shop windows and didn´t even look at those boxes that were for me the closest thing to paradise that I have ever seen. Quickly the deal with my mother was to take two at a time, after all a sole army needed someone to fight with. I´m not sure but I think the French artillery and some British infantry were the first. Or was it the French infantry against the British Guards band? Or both ACW sets of infantry? Frankly I can´t remember right as all free time and money became for ever connected with buying those magic small boxes. Of course I started to go with my grandmother to downtown too and had a particular interest in picking my father that worked nearby. In fact my father became my main assistant as he was also very fond of modelling even if he prefered cars, trains and peaceful stuff. So one model for him and two or three for me would be our deal each time we were passing on Adelino Veiga street.
The French artillery set is beautifully designed but with may errors, which for me in those days were completely indifferent. Later on, I found in the Funcken books and in the Millitary Modelling magazines (also bought in downtown Coimbra) that the limbers were very wrong in toy like style, the gun tubes too large and the wheels too small. Even so these guns went to defend the Alamo or to attack it, went to the Napoleonic Spanish army while others I have no idea were they went. Some were converted like this others stayed like the originals. Recently I got a number of them from the exchange made with TC and decided to have a go at reusing them but with some changes.
The wheels of the guns were discarded but reused at the limbers. For that I copied the measures of my own Hat industries limbers, built new ones from plastic card and tubing and stuck the wheels in the axle as they are the same size as the Hat ones.
The horses used are also from the Airfix set plus a few others from here and there. Next to the horses you can see the blue artillerymen which will be cut in half in order to produce drivers. The horses are in 1/76th scale while figures are 1/72nd but everything came from the same factory so I just hope they get along.
The guns themselves got new, larger wheels from the Esci Russian Crimean artillery, a trick I learned from Will McNally, of the super famous Fire at Will blog.
The horses got new stowage made from GreenStuff and the figures torsos were pinned to Italeri Prussian Cuirassiers legs as knee tall cavalry boots are necessary. In the meantime, not shown here, the backpacks and epaulettes were melted with fire and some whips were glued to the right hand of the drivers. Also the ropes tying the limber to the horse got some heat for better hold and looks.
They are ready to be painted.
Next: this lot painted.
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