The Little World

I am so ignorant. I know nothing. I know less than John Banner as Sgt. Schultz. But I get to find out a lot of things.

In this case the impetus proved to be the Library diorama business. I wanted to do the Soviet airfield at Uszhitmi and needed a vehicle for it. I thought a GAZ car or fuel truck would do – and shot off to the hobby shops to get one. No go. If I was building 1:35th all would have been well, but 1:72nd had no kits even vaguely near to the thing.

Then I remembered a stash item – a Petlyakov model by Amodel that had a Soviet truck as part of the kit. The whole thing was very cheap from Metro Hobbies because I suspect no-one cares about it – but I could take the truck out of the kit and build it up. Glory be – it was a starter truck!

Amodels have brittle plastic and a good deal of flash, so it is a chore to clean the parts up – but once done, you are left with a pretty well-fitting set of parts. They are delicate, but detailed.

You just keep trimming and cementing away until you have enough sub-assemblies to make a truck. And all the while you are idly surfing the net trying to find out what a starter truck does…