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Arnhem Ambush Alley


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Another new diorama for me, although to be honest I have already almost finished it before getting round to doing a WIP for it.  I wanted to do a diorama where you can't see everything that is going on in one glance, and have to look round the whole thing to see everyone and everything. The plan for this one was to have a narrow street approaching Arnhem (fictitious street not in any way related to an actual location), with high walls on both sides and a building, behind which a group(s) of German soldiers would be waiting to ambush the Para recce team on their way to the bridge.  I started off using a 12" x 12" wooden panel from Hobbycraft that I have used before and make great bases.  However I was unable to find a cobbled street base that fitted what I wanted, so decided (foolishly perhaps) to mould my own individual cobbles and lay the street out myself.

 

Here is the base with some 5mm foam board on top and the start of the road way:. The crater at the end was done by drilling a hole in the base then building the crater up with foam board and modelling paste from W&N Galeria. The cobbles were moulded using plaster with varying amounts of grey ink added and some weathering powder sprinkled into the mould for contrasts.  They were then individually fixed in place using white PVA wood glue.

 

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This is the base with the main basic road way finished:

 

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Once the first road was done it was a case of fitting in various walls to make the scene as restrictive looking and narrow as possible. The first wall was left over Tamiya wall pieces with a scratch built gate made from plasticard.  The crater was built up more using modelling paste with some bricks thrown in for good measure.  There are two broken sewer pipes in the bottom of the crater but these ended up barely visible unfortunately.

 

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Once all this was set I ordered some resin parts from Diodump in Holland, plus some grass matting and wooden floorboard. These arrived in good time but I got stung for VAT twice unfortunately (another hidden benefit of Brexit?)

 

 

 

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To be continued....................................

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Next up was the wall on the other side of the road and the paving. The wall was scratch built from foam then a metal gate added made from plasticard, painted and weathered in AK rust tones using chipping fluid.

The paving stones originally were going to be just cut out from the foam board but they looked wrong, so I cut squares from thin plasticard and lay them down instead. Still not 100% happy but better than before.

 

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Bollards were made from the cut ends of a couple of old paint brushes.

 

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Once this was in place the gaps in the cobbles were filled with a mixture of white glue and garden soil.

 

Next up to start on the cafe building.  This is a great product from Diodump but is a very heavy piece of resin once built. I decided to fix it to the base using threaded rods and nuts as with glue alone I don't think it would hold for long!

 

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The cafe was painted using mostly MIG and Vallejo acrylics, with chipping fluid used on the blue woodwork.  The Grolsch signs were copied from the web and printed on transfer paper.  Th ekit includes some advertising as well as the windows etc, although it is designed to be viewed from the outside only, so has no interior.  As I wanted to put people inside and visible I had to think about making some interior window frames and details etc.

 

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In the meantime it is starting to look part of the scene :)

 

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This is building up very nicely. The paint brush bollards are a great, inventive idea. The Dio dump stuff looks very neat indeed. Especially Iike the slightly rusted metal door and peeling posters. The ground colours are lovely. Tell me was the cobbled moulds a bit of an bottom ache or would you recommend? Did it take very very long or ok-ish? Thinking of using myself but wasn't sure. 

Edited by Muchmirth
Mis type
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Hi, thank you for your kind comments 😊

The silicone brick mould that I have was easy to use but difficult to get rid of air bubbles in the plaster. I found the a kitchen blowtorch and cocktail stick the best way to get rid of them. Each mould session did 100 bricks so once you get into the zone it is pretty quick. Laying them afterwards took some patience though 🤔

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Here is a bit more on the interior. I made the inside window frames from thin balsa wood then sandwiched the 'glass' between them and the wall, which tidies up the inside quite well.  The kit includes printed corrugated paper curtains but as they are only printed on one side I needed to find something extra.  Eventually I ended up making them from cutting up a Covid face mask (unused of course!) which are in plentiful cheap supply :)

 

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Once the inside was worn and weathered it was bolted to the base and gaps filled etc. The street lights are from Diodump and the porch light made from a bag stud. Extra wiring added with solder. The kit includes some posters and advert signs.  Doesn't show up very well in the photos but one of the upstairs windows was broken and glass shards glued to the surfaces below the window.

 

 

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Next up was my first attempt at building a tree.  I took some maple twigs from a dead branch in he garden and glued them together into a rough tree shape, then covered the tops in lichen. This was comprehensively drenched in spray glue and varnish until I was sure nothing would fall off, then added some scatter to simulate some leaves. Once that was dry I sprayed a thin coat of red brown over the lot to simulate early autumn leaf colour.  I am pretty chuffed with the result for a first attempt but probably wouldn't use real lichen again as it is a bitch to stick!

 

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So that is the base pretty much done and together, next up is some 3d printed interior furniture from  Firma49 in Czech Republic, and some figures of course :)

Edited by Matt P
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Furniture for the cafe interior has arrived from Firma49 and assembled/primed ready for painting. Detail is superb although cutting through all the little 3d 'sprues' is fraught.

 

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These are some of the figures that will be used in this dio.  A few of the German troops will get modified with different arms and most will have Hornet heads.  A lot of the German units at Arnhem were hastily convened battle groups that contained all manner of troops, so I have deliberately mixed the Axis troops to imply that, although they may not be actual units involved in the battle. 

 

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The Bronco jeeps kit is excellent and extremely detailed, so may take some time...... I have made one before but this kit includes two :)

 

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The furniture for the inside of the cafe is done, as are the ambushing Germans in position :) (The head on the running German has been repositioned since the photo was taken!)

 

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Not too much to report in the way of progress this week. I have started the first Bronco Jeep kit, which is beautifully engineered and incredibly detailed, but really frustrating with the size of some of the parts, particularly the photoetch (which I hate anyway!). To be honest most of these details won't be seen anyway but you have to try :)/ The rear basket carrier (not shown on this pic) was defiitely challenging to say the least!

 

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A bit more progress made now with both British Jeeps basically complete and primed. They just need jerry cans, weapons and ammo boxes adding (and wheels of course!).  The figures are primed and have resin heads instead of the kit items. Not sure the makers are though as they were an Ebay find some time ago, and have been patiently waiting for a transplant ever since. 

 

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Both jeeps are now finished and painted, just waiting for a bit of mild weathering and the crews to go in.  I am assuming that prior to landing the vehicles would have either been new or certainly well maintained and clean, so minimal weathering needed I think?  For small vehicles the parts count on these Bronco kits is enormous, with lots of parts unused and left over. Also lots of very fiddly photoetch, some of which if not visible I just left off to be honest.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well it has taken a while to do any updates due to work ( which really does interfere with serious model making!), and the fact that I wasn't happy with the paint on the British figures so did it again. It tok a while to get the hang of the Denison smock pattern.  British figures are Bronco in the jeeps (with resin heads). The foot soldiers are a mix of Masterbox and Dragon figures with lots of arm/hand head swaps. Heads on the standing figures are Hornet. Still got some parts to add but I can almost see the finishing line from here!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well it is finished at last (just about). I still have to put a name plate on it but other than that I am calling this done.  I shall put more picks on as an RFI post. Altogether I am immensely pleased with the result as it is my most challenging and detailed diorama yet.

 

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Looking good.  I always have an interest in Arnhem as both my Grandads came up the road to relieve the paras.  One artillery and one infantry.  One didn’t make it and is buried in Oosterbeek cemetery.  I have been over and do like to visit the Netherlands.

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  • 3 months later...
On 9/27/2021 at 8:55 PM, bar side said:

Looking good.  I always have an interest in Arnhem as both my Grandads came up the road to relieve the paras.  One artillery and one infantry.  One didn’t make it and is buried in Oosterbeek cemetery.  I have been over and do like to visit the Netherlands.

Thank you. I visited that cemetery back in the late 1970's when we did the Arnhem march. The history of Market Garden has always fascinated me. 

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