Grant Armoured Recovery Vehicle

Grant ARV - By Jorit Wintjes -  (original article formerly on the miniaturezone.co.uk website)

The result of a rebuilding project of an old, battered Airfix kit - and the accidental destruction of the scratchbuilt turret (the Airfix Grant turret is totally out of shape, as is the Hasegawa one) I put sooo much work into :((.

Faced with the prospect of doing all the laminating and reshaping again, I decided to go for a recovery vehicle instead.





Stowage boxes and pioneer tools are scratchbuilt, as are the headlamp guards. I loaded the vehicle with stuff from the spares box and tried to give it a well-worn look; it's not as glossy as it looks in the pictures.

The trailer is a stock Airfix one that comes with the Halftrack.

© Jorit Wintjes (June-2004) (original article formerly on the miniaturezone.co.uk website)

Hasegawa Crusader with Airfix Turret

Hasegawa Crusader with Airfix Turret - Jorit Wintjes (original article formerly on the miniaturezone.co.uk website)

The Crusader was built by mating a Hasegawa hull and an Airfix turret.

While the Airfix hull has some dimensional problems - it's too short - the Hasegawa turret looks like anything but a Crusader one.

I scratchbuilt a new turret roof to get the angles and the hatch correct, and spent some time getting the opening mechanism right - only to hide the latter from view with a poorly painted crew figure. Kinda unsmart... Getting the scratchbuilt sideskirts look right (they should bend slightly outwards) was very difficult.

In the end they still look rather flattish, but you have to be rather close to the model to see that (and if you're that close, your attention will be drawn to a number of other shortcomings :) ).





I also tried to improve the look of the tracks by cutting them into small sections to get some sagging effect, but this didn't work out as intended - actually, around the sprocket, it worked just the other way round!

To get an accurate representation I should also have reworked the engine deck, the side stowage bins and the air filters, but I decided to call it a day and simply load it up with stowage stuff (scratchbuilt or from the spares box).

© Jorit Wintjes - Würzburg, Germany (2004) (original article formerly on the miniaturezone.co.uk website)

MiniatureZone Gallery Archives (2000 - 2006) - Jorit Wintjes - Seehund Midget Submarine

This article is one of many articles and gallery contributions from fellow amateur smallscale enthusiasts all over the world that appeared on the old MiniatureZone website during the first six years its existence when there were only a handful of websites dedicated to smallscale models and wargaming. 

If you've been around on the internet since back then, we hope you like the nostalgia, and if you´re a newcomer, hope you enjoy looking too.

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The Seehund midget submarine is actually a 1/87 piece from the Dutch company Artitech. The kit consists of a beautiful one-piece casting and some smaller resin parts; you get two of these waterline subs in one box (or rather bag). I binned the smaller resin parts, made new periscopes and vacuformed a new perspex cupola.

Comparing the result with various references showed two interesting things: 1) there were many small differences between the subs that were actually built and 2) the kit's conning tower is too large for 1/87. This actually made me quite happy - I converted an Airfix MP into a RN officer, and voila: Kiel, August 1945, collection point for ex-Kriegsmarine hardware.

This was really a fun project. Scratchbuilding the smaller parts took perhaps 15 minutes, the rest was painting and  enjoying the result, which could serve as a nice accessory to a harbour layout for a wargame.

Copyright 2003 Jorit Wintjes

MiniatureZone Gallery Archives (2000 - 2006) - Jorit Wintjes - Afrika Korps

This article is one of many articles and gallery contributions from fellow amateur smallscale enthusiasts all over the world that appeared on the old MiniatureZone website during the first six years its existence when there were only a handful of websites dedicated to smallscale models and wargaming. 

If you've been around on the internet since back then, we hope you like the nostalgia, and if you´re a newcomer, hope you enjoy looking too.

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Airfix SdKfz 222

From the Airfix recce set, which I really like. Apart from minor additions (Matchbox MG 34), stowage, battle damage and heavy wheathering it's straight out of the box. 

On the model, the air recce panel (which is dimensionally probably wrong, but I didn't care too much about that...) is dull red and not bright of the glossy 'here-I- am-shoot-at-me'-kind.

Matchbox SdKfz 251/10

A converted Matchbox vehicle - well, 'converted' is way too much, in fact, I simply mounted the Matchbox 37mm AT gun and rearranged the interior. Stowage again comes from the spares box, the crewmen are converted Matchbox figures. Should have done something about the tracks...

Kubelwagen

From the Airfix recce set as well, once again straight out of the box with some minor details (side windows, rear mirror etc) and stowage added. Again converted Matchbox figures as crewmen.

BMW sidecar

From the Matchbox/Revell SdKfz 11/Pak 40 set, which is a nice little model in itself; The driver (rider?) came with it, the other figure is - again - a converted Matchbox figure. Here the only additions are some stowage and the machine gun mounted on the sidecar.

Copyright 2003 Jorit Wintjes