Among my selected summer projects I have been working on some models for a future 1/87 diorama of a yet to be decided Eastern European location. My summer vacation has seen work done on the K-Model TU4 and I have also been cleaning up some Micro_Miners models and experimenting with Soviet concrete wall segments.
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| Four mine tubs and an overhead loading machine liberated from their web of printing supports before final clean up. Here seen in front of a 1/100 scale Siemens Avenio tram from Majorette. Each tub is 1,5 mm long and the loading machine barely 2 cm. |
As described earlier, the Micro_Miners models arrive in small card board boxes on their printing support webs and plate hot glued to bottom of the box. Once released from the box each model or part has to be separated from the printing supports. With small snippits the job is fast over and the few remnants of the supports can be removed with a small file or sanding stick. The two part overhead loading machine was very fragile and I took great care not to damage anything. Despite that one of the brackets keeping the driver's platform on the machine's left side broke. It was quickly reglued with AC-glue.
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| Four wagons attatched to the bottom of their small card board box with hot glue. |
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| The overhead loading machine's two parts still attached to their frightening maze of print supports. |
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| Equipment from the underground workings of a mine ready for priming. |
The mining equipment is planned to feature on a diorama in a Eastern European setting on the territory of the former Soviet Union. Quite where is still undecided but I'm leaning towards one of the three Baltic countries or Ukraine. The narrow gauge mining equipment with 6,5 mm. gauge isn't the main focus, but will add interest and a very clear indication of what's going on next to the 9 mm. gauge railway passing through the industrial location.
Currently I'm sourcing parts that are typical 'Soviet' in style. Despite the Soviet Empire being long gone at the time I'm modelling, buildings and road vehicles are still showing the Soviet legacy. There'll obviously be both Ladas and Zils as well as above the ground steam heating pipes. What is also an absolute must on any ex. Soviet industrial location is the ПО-2 (PO-2) concrete element fence surrounding military barracks, hospital compounds and industrial locations. Read the history of the PO-2 fence in depth here.
While the PO-2 fence is easily available in the military modelling scales 1/76 and 1/35 I had to search long for elements in 1/87. But the German firm PTL-Bahn have them as item 210051 'Betonmauerelemente'. I bought the two remaining bags of 10 elements each from the German trader Modellbahn-Exclusiv allowing me to build a wall 64 cm. long.
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| Grouping of items for a future diorama: 750 mm gauge TU4, 600 mm gauge mine equipment and in the rear the ever present PO-2 fencing. |
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| The stuff seen from above on a small piece of foam board testing viewing angles. The future diorama will be much larger. |
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