HELMET Soldiers

I really don't know what to say, it is well over a year since the last posting, if anyone wants to know the reasons for the lack of activity, and want to hear some hard luck stories, please contact me off-blog. In the meantime I have finally completed a project begun sometime in 2009, the end result can be seen in the photos above, a British limber team of around 1812.

I had previously finished the two drivers and their horses and the two other horses were converted but not painted. The men are simple constructs from HELMET spares and the horses are old Britains, two with new Lone Star heads. The Harness (tack?) was made from gift wrapping tape, miliput and a lot of foul language. The limber - not at all accurate but good enough for a country boy, is an adapted Imex ACW piece; the shafts are from steam-bent bamboo and there are some additions to the box from red wine bottle foil painted black.

The gun is from A Call to Arms.

I drilled two hooves on each horse and pinned and glued these two animals at a time to the plastic card base. The linking harness is lengths of picture frame wire with the end loops from thinner copper wire, these were super glued to metal pegs driven into each horse at the conversation stage. The wheel pair was completed and ground work for them and the limber before the lead pair were fixed. The whole assembly phase took about 4 hours and nearly drove me mad..................

The base is just over 12 inches long for oldies like me and around 310 mm for the younger ones. I read that at Waterloo the horse artillery 9pdr teams had eight horses, making a team of four is big and complex enough.

We took plenty of photos this morning so should be posting again soon........fat hope.

All the best,

Eric