Waltzing Matilda (2)

 

It's been a while, certainly. Rather than dwell on that though, I have a new model for you: the Airfix Matilda 2 kit from the 70s in its original packaging. A wonderful Christmas present, thank you, family.

I was a little tempted to leave it pristine in its packaging, but the entire purpose of a toy is to be played with.

Full-colour painting diagram, albeit including the incorrect 'blue' Caunter camouflage popularised by the Imperial War Museum.

No need for an instruction booklet when you can just print them on the back.

Much as I love the old-school Airfix kits, there are two problems: the fiddly little roadwheels (5 pairs! On each side!!) and the vinyl tracks. I'm slowly starting to come around on the tracks though, as the alternative is individual track pieces and I have had trouble in the past getting them to line up properly and look good. The vinyl can be managed by using a needle and thread to tension them around the wheels, then applying copious amounts of superglue to keep them in place. As long as there is armour covering the top of the tracks to hide the resulting glue blobs, it works great.

Track pieces assembled to the best of my ability.  

Assembled model rear view

Assembly went smoothly, the pieces haven't warped much after 40 years although there was plenty of flash to trim and file off. The only hitch was when I got a little ahead of the instructions and glued the hull together before I stuck the driver's hatch into place. The glue wasn't quite dry, so I was able to pry the hull back open and wodge the part back into place with the aid of a lump of blu-tack on a stick. The instructions promise that the hatch is freely moveable, although I'm not sure that would survive painting.

I decided to let the gun mount elevate freely, a bit of a risk, but it seems to have worked: it still moves fine after painting.

Halfway through assembly, I made a half-hearted attempt to wash the frame and the parts I had already glued in slightly soapy water. Either I didn't give it enough, but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I had to slather on a couple of layers of undercoat before it stopped clumping like the surface was oily and rejecting the paint. 

You can't tell the hand-painted numbers from the transfer at table-top distances. Honest.

It was nice to paint the Caunter, although as usual, I cannot find a good yellow with decent coverage. They're always very thin and require so many coats before you get an even result. I think Vallejo paints benefit from a few months or even a year to dry up a bit and get thicker to improve their coverage.

I think this is the best profile, none of the broken transfers are in view.

I was surprised that the waterslide transfers still worked fine after so long, although they were quite fragile, there were some fairly significant breakages during application, so I had to make some repair jobs, some of which were more successful than others...

You can barely see where the transfer ripped during application.

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The other kit I got for Christmas is a very detailed IBG Crusader 2 which, to be quite honest, is a little too much for my limited skills. When I eventually get it in a presentable state, I'll tell you the whole story...