MiniArt Street Accessories with Lamps & Clocks (35639) 1:35

[Mike]

Street Accessories with Lamps & Clocks (35639)

1:35 MiniArt via Creative Models Ltd

 

 

Until the post-war age, much of the western world’s street furniture was made from cast or wrought iron, as it was relatively cheap, long-lasting and strong.  A lot of this metal was hoovered up in service of the war effort, particularly in the UK where it was more of a propaganda exercise so that the people would feel like they were contributing in some way.  Street lamps, bollards, the frames of benches, and fencing were constructed in this way, and because watches were still luxury items to an extent, clocks were sometimes mounted prominently on brackets or posts for all to see. 

 

 

 

This set contains a selection of these type of items, and arrives in a small top-opening box which holds nine sprues in grey styrene, six in clear, a small decal sheet and a black & white instruction sheet with colour code chart at the bottom of the back page.  From these sprues you can build three posts, one with three lamps on angle brackets, one with a solitary lamp, and another with a clock mounted at its top.  Each post has ladder-rest arms at the top of a fluted stem, and a wider base that is made from two halves.  The lamp enclosures are made from two clear halves with a styrene top and separate ferrule at its apex.  There is also a bracket and floor at the bottom into which the clear bulb is placed for added realism.  There are parts for four clocks, two of which can be made double-sided by gluing two faces back-to-back, with decals for all the faces, separate hands for them all, and large domed clear lenses to be fitted over the faces.  A clock or a lamp can be mounted to a fancy right-angle bracket, so you can customise the appearance of the assemblies as you wish.

 

 

Additional parts can be used to make up six large circular man-holes with separate lids that have waffle-textured surfaces, six rectangular grids with separate slatted covers, three benches with iron end-frames and two identical sets of slats for the seat and back.  There are also six bollards made from two halves bearing a passing resemblance to a pawn from a chess set, plus six lengths of fancy iron fencing, which are linked together by two-part iron posts with either one or two lengths of fencing between each post.

 

 

Markings

The decals are printed by DecoGraph for MiniArt to their usual high standard, and there are six clock faces in three styles available for your use.  The instructions have colour call-outs throughout, and these numbers refer to the chart on the back page that gives you codes for Vallejo, Mr Color (enamel C-range), AK RealColor, Mission Models, AMMO, Tamiya, plus colour names, which should allow most modellers to track down some suitable colours.

 

 

 

Conclusion

A great set of accessories for your next diorama.  Detail is excellent, and the clear parts are just what’s needed to give your model extra realism – a lamp with an LED hidden inside maybe?  Add some every day grime and weathering to the painting as appropriate to the situation, and your model will be all the better for it.

 

Highly recommended.

 

This set is out of stock at time of writing, but should be back in stock soon

 

Review sample courtesy of

[bootneck]

Nice review and I'm sure that I've been down that street on boxart.  Could it be Vienna I wonder?

 

cheers,

 

Mike