Britains No. 1263 '12 Pounder' light gun

One of those fortuitous eBay finds, these two Britains No. 1263 '12 Pounder' light field guns. Now I was already undertaking my own conversion of a Britains 25 Pounder in order to make just such a light - or 'mountain' - gun. However, this bit of luck negates the necessity of all that hard work.*

They were going for peanuts - another of those sales that had been badly and misleadingly described and so wasn't picked up by the ardent diecast collectors - so I snapped them up immediately (despite having already gone over this months toy budget).

The toy is a pretty simple one and has neither the breech loading nor adjustable elevation of the Britains No. 1201 18 Pounder or the No. 1264 4.7 inch Naval Gun. It uses the spring 'pull back' lever system similar to Britains 25 Pounder gun (and so, in effect, is a muzzle loader). It's also relatively small - being roughly half of a 1/32 figure's height - which is understandable as it is, after all, a 'light' gun.

Historical note: I am not entirely sure what the basis for this model is - or was. It looks to me like an attempt to replicate an early breech-loading piece, a very early version at that as it has no recoil suppressor and is mounted on a cannon carriage. The closest historical piece I can find that is similar to the Britains toy is perhaps the British 1859 12 pdr. Armstrong Gun...

The 20 Pounder version of the Armstrong breech loader. Although these guns had no
shield fitted I no reason why at some point one might not have been retro-fitted.

EDIT UPDATE: My brother has done a bit of research and found a artillery piece which seems to fit the bill as the inspiration for this Britains toy gun. It's the 1892 Ordnance BL 12-pounder 6 cwt. In 1899 a primitive recoil system was rigged but in any case it had a short service life - seeing moves to replace it as early as 1901. Again, the problem is that this gun didn't have a shield in any reference I have been able to find so I must conclude that this *may* have been a bit of creative thinking on the part of Britains (unless anyone out there knows any different?).

BL 12 Pounder 6 cwt in use with the RHA in 1897. Source: Wikipedia

I have it in mind that these shall constitute the light artillery support for my Molaterian Jaegers (they being my designated mountain warfare specialists) and will complete my modest collection of light, medium and heavy artillery for my army, along side those Britains guns I have already collected.

They are well played with but functioning and with a bit of care and attention will provide good service.

*While I won't now need my 25 Pounder conversion for the role I had intended it for I do have a new role for it, so this conversion will continue but in a new guise.

FLW - Poor man's 4.7 Naval Gun Part 5

Dispatch from the Burkish Ministry of War: Today representatives of the Burkish General Staff visited the armament works of Ware-Armatage in England to oversee the progress of the very latest heavy artillery to be procured for the Pasha's Grand Expeditionary Force. This weapon will undoubtedly consolidate the already enviable reputation of the Burkish Marine Infantry and constitute a fearsome force, one that will bolster the Army of Molatero in it's quest for peace and security.

The Pasha - treasured  friend and
strong ally of Molatero

I've finished the plasticard 'disguise' for my conversion project. I decided not to go over the top with detail - it would be all to easy to start banging on rivets and what-not.

I'm really pleased with the boxing-in job I did with the original split carriage. It changes the character of the gun all-together and makes it more early 1900s looking (I think). The wheels obviously help a lot too in this respect.

One thing I did notice - now I do have an actual Britains' 4.7 gun model - is the discrepancy in scales between Britains and Crescent  Both are suppose to be 1/32 - I believe - but the Crescent's 5.5 inch gun is a lot more slender than the Britains' 4.7 inch gun. So I may have to dub my poor man's 4.7 as a poor man's 4 inch gun instead!

Anyway, job done and now it's onto the renovation of the Crescent toy itself. I want to strip off the old paint and give it a new coat of Humbrol N0. 50 Brunswick Green and then paint my plastic parts to match. Then it's a case of putting the two together.

Molatero mechanises! Circa 1904 automobiles

Old news really but I wanted to have it noted in this blog. Last month I snapped up these two early 1900 motor cars models. Made by Arko in 1/32 scale the represent a 1903 Ford Model A (front) and a 1904 Cadillac Model B and are quaint examples of combustion engine technology of this period.

I liked the idea of them as staff run-abouts as they are a bit different to the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that appears to be the default staff car in FLW collections. The proliferation of Silver Ghosts seems to be because of the ease of which one can pick up a vintage model of the vehicle - there are usually several Airfix and SMER kits knocking about eBay at reasonable prices.

Anyway, I wanted to reflect the rickety nature of motor transport at the time and have to admit that the inclusion of picnic baskets on the side of the vehicles - for the champers! - swung it for me.

The question now is do I paint them? And if so in what colour?

A generic military green would allow me to utilise these cars in any army I intend to field I suppose, but I have the urge to deck them out in Molatero Purple or black!

PS - Whilst looking up Arko on the web I found another lovely car which I would like to add to my small fleet, it's a 1904 Buick Roadster. An ideal mount for the dashing Prince Vallzack III!

...But this will have to wait until next payday now.

FLW - Poor man's 4.7 Naval Gun Part 4

The Crescent 5.5 gun with it's split carriage
opened and ready to fire

I'm on to the last major component of my poor man's 4.7, the gun carriage. The original Crescent 5.5 gun was a modern (WW2) design with a split carriage designed to unfold into a stabilising 'V',  while the 1900 artillery piece was still influenced by Napoleonic gun design.

At this point the single piece carriage was the norm and the Britains' 4.7 gun reflects this, so my faux 4.7 should have this feature.

Basically I will be hiding the 5.5's split carriage by covering it in a plasticard shell, boxing it in to give the impression of an Edwardian heavy gun carriage. I'll let the photos tell the story...

Of course I will tart this basic box up a bit with some additional detail, but I will show this at the final put together. You'll notice I have already started to disassemble the Crescent toy ready for the next stage where I repaint it, I'll use the Nitromors to strip the old paint first.

FLW - Second Britains' 4.7 Naval Gun arrives

OK, I admit it - I don't understand the vintage toy market! Today I received my second classic Britains' 4.7 Naval Gun, another eBay bargain. This particular example comes boxed, not that that really maters to me as I intend to use it as a toy, but it's nice to have the original box anyway.

What was more useful to me was that this item was described as 'pristine' and despite having learnt to take eBay descriptions with a pinch of salt now I found that when it arrived it did actually look almost new. Only one small chip in the paint as far as I could see, and bright and shinny and new looking otherwise. I don't think it was ever played with by the looks of the breech.

In superb condition, this example of the '4.7' seems to be a late production
model (from the 1970s perhaps). It is lighter than my older 4.7, and the
construction is modified and less of it seems to be one-piece cast.

As I said in my post about my first 4.7 (which is play worn) I cannot understand the wildly fluctuating prices that these toys garner on eBay. I picked this one up with a box in near mint condition for a nice sum, and yet I know I could pop it back on eBay straight away and get double the price or more - it seems to be purely down to luck sometimes (and how good the seller is at describing and titling their item - as I only found this item with a more general 'diecast toy' search rather than the more sought after 'Britains 4.7 gun' search term).

Anyway - bemusement at eBay aside, this is a wonderful second gun for my Funny Little Wars heavy artillery battery and once my Crescent 5.5 inch gun conversion is done this unit will be complete..Aside from crew that is.

I am still struggling with my medium gun battery - all the Britains' Royal Horse Artillery guns (No. 1201) seem to have disappeared from eBay at the moment. But I will bide my time.

There is added detailing in the gun shield in this (presumably) late production
model and you may just be able to make out the split in the two-piece barrel.
I believe my other 4.7 has a single cast barrel. The lightness of this toy
makes me think it may be cast in aluminium?

Postscript: One of the things I have been trying to nail down since I started this side-interest in diecast toys is exactly what green the Britains' toy gun are. I want to know so I can repaint the ones I am renovating.

I've looked at a few different greens in the Humbrol enamel range but have found that Britains seems to have changed their shade of green over the years. The new gun (above) seems to be almost exactly Humbrol's No. 3 Brunswick Green, but my older 4.7 is a much more olive and darker green.

New arrival - Britains 4.7 Naval Gun

My first Britains' 4.7! Patience on eBay paid off, though I still don't understand why the price of these toys varies so wildly. I picked this up for a few quid, yet elsewhere what appears to be the same gun is going for twenty or thirty pounds.

It did have some rust spots and chipped paint, but I treated the rust patches with some Hammerite Krust. You just paint this stuff onto the rust spots and in 15 minutes it acts chemically with the rust and becomes black and hard. These areas can then be cleaned up or painted over with a top coat - I decided to preserve the toys original state and just polished these spots up and will finish them off with some light engine oil to prevent any reoccurrence of the rust. I'm really impressed with it.

I hope to nab a second, I have several on my eBay watch list and I guess I just have to be lucky.

Poor man's 4.7 Naval Gun - Part 3

Last Sunday I prototyped my new shield design for my Crescent 5.5 gun conversion, today I have been finishing off my new wheel design. I wanted a 1900s style solid wheel design - a 'Percy Scott' style - similar to that on the classic Britains' 4.7 Naval Gun which I am modelling my conversion on.

I started off by making some plasticard discs and then added the additional bracing and hubs. I used a few spare metal washers to add some strength, and also because they happened to be the exact size I was after.

Then I cut out a couple of strips of plastic to form the rims of the wheels and glued them to the outside of the discs. I suppose this was one of the trickier bits as curling the plastic around the discs was a bit fiddly.

I am rubbish at maths - I am more the visual type of guy - so I worked out the diameters and spacing of everything by trial and error. Making a paper template which I could wrap around the wheel as a make-shift ruller for marking my wheel tred measurements...

The Britains' 4.7 didn't have any treds on it's solid wheels, but I liked this idea, I think it's evocative of the period. Besides, I don't want my '4.7' to be exactly the same as the Britain's one, just similar.

In the end I didn't bother faffing around with complicated methods of dropping the axle height (to match the Britain's gun) I just decided that this height was acceptable.

Next I will box in the tail supports and then figure out how to disassemble the Crescent gun ready to strip of the original paint prior to repainting the complete conversion.

Renovating a 'spiked' Britains' 1201 gun - Part 1

Spiked - 'rendering a muzzle-loading gun inoperable by driving a nail into the touch hole' [Wikipedia]

In breech-loading times this act of rendering a gun inoperative - usually to prevent it falling into enemy hands - was achieved by obstructing ['plugging'] the barrel and then firing a charge. The resultant explosion burst or 'spiked' the barrel.

When I bought this Britains' Royal Horse Artillery gun (No. 1201) toy on eBay I was surprised that I picked it up so cheaply, but I can't imagine that others knew something I didn't when it turned out to be a bit of a lemon. What I thought was a simple obstruction in the barrel turned out to be a determined attempt to spike the gun!

For whatever reason the original owner of this toy had driven - or glued - what I thought was a metal rod into the barrel. Despite all attempts it simply wouldn't budge and so in the end I had to resort to very drastic measures with my Dremel and having done so I was shocked to discover just how good a job had been done of breaking this lovely model...

I could not understand why someone would do such a thing, but my daughter quipped that perhaps some long suffering parent had finally tired of being assaulted by 'little Jonny's' barrage of match sticks and so resorted to capping his mischievous fun!

Anyway, having performed my surgery - once I determined how far the blockage extended up the barrel - I cleared not one but several metal spikes which had rusted themselves together...

Well, having taken this model appart I now had to think of a way to put it back together again. As well as the obstruction it seems like the toy had been stepped on as well - talk about adding insult to injury! The barrel was slightly bent, as was the gun carriage and one of the wheels, and the muzzel was deformed.

The extent of the damage done to this 'lemon' 1201 now clear I decided that a full renovation was in order. Obviously this toy would never again be considered a collectors piece after my butchery, but I hoped at least I could make the toy operational again.

Above: I clipped the retaining pin heads and disassembled the 1201 before I
sawed my way through the rear of the barrel. Happily this turned out to be
quite easy and would allow me to strip the paint off the parts effectively.

I supposed that my rebuilding would involve two phases, first I would have to repair the barrel so that the to could operate again and then I would have to conceal my work. The easiest way to do this I reckoned was to strip the paint off the various parts and then to repaint the gun once I had performed my work.

First thing was to start to repair the bent, gouged and rusty inner barrel and the best way to do that - I thought - was to install a barrel sleeve or inner tube of some sort...

I bought a hollow brass rod from my local model shop (80p) and enlarged the existing barrel bore until it slid snuggly inside. The diameter of my new inner barrel matched the diameter of Britains' original bore. This new inner barrel gave me a smooth and straight barrel again and to finnish off all I had to do was to trim off the excess length at the mussel and at the breech.

Next I had to fill in the hole I had made in the upper barrel. There are various materials I could use - my trusty Milliput which is design to work with metal (among other things) or I could go the whole hog and try something like Evo-Stik's Hard and Fast Metal Epoxy Putty. The Evo-Stik is a true metal putty so would complement the die-cast of the toy very nicely, but the down side is that it dries within 10 minutes and can't be smoothed so easily (though it can be filed and sanded when dry).

I am more comfortable with Milliput, it's slow hardening time means I can tinker with smoothing the surface to get the ultimate match to the barrel. It's not as hard as the Evo-Stik, but Milliput is hard, and it's shock absorbant. So Milliput it is - but first  must strip the paint off my toy and for that I brought out the big guns (pun there for Tim!) with Nitro Mors stripper...

Above: You can't quite tell from this photo but the Nitro Mors is bubbling
away nicely here as the thick Britains' paint slowly lifts off the toy. (Tip: Ventilation!)

Having stripped the parts down to the original metal - more or less - I'm ready to start my re-building...

In Part 2 of this renovation I put everything back together again and finish off by repainting the gun. Hopefully the finished toy won't look too much of a disaster,

Poor man's 4.7 Naval Gun - Part 2

Well, I started the weekend with Friday's post about my intended 'Poor man's 4.7' project and today I end the weekend with a little update on my progress. I've finished off the gun shield prototype - it's a little lacking in detail (rivets and what-not) but I will save that for the final version.

One problem I had to solve was the Crescent 5.5 model's elevation mechanism as bits of it jut out at the front, interfering with my shield. So I cut out a section of my shield to allow the gun to elevate freely...

Trouble is that this means that I have rather a large hole in my shield now. So I designed a set of cowls to cover the holes but still allow the gun to rise and descend...

I think this gives the shield the Edwardian period look I was after, but I will be happier when I have the rest of the detail done. One of the things I want to do is to make a telescope like the Britains' 4.7 - I think it will finish this off nicely...

Next I'll make my wheels - I think I have come up with a way to make bigger wheels without raising the gun any higher.

eBay bug - Britains' Royal Artillery Gun

I seem to have caught the eBay bug (I'm a late starter) and have been keeping an eye out for any of the Britains artillery toys for my Funny Little Wars project. I'm not entirely sure if this was a bargain, but I did really want one of these (No 1201 Royal Artillery Gun) so I felt it was £6 well spent...

As you can see it does have a spot of rust, but I don't think it's in that bad nick. £6 seems OK to me as there are some stupid prices being asked for these...

There again I have over-spent big style this month and am waiting for the wife to say something. The only way I can think of redeeming myself is to put my old Scalextric stuff that's been gathering dust in the attic for years on eBay to fund my new addiction!



Second 1201 Gun arrived - photo studies
I managed to pick up a bit of a clunker at a ridiculously low price (due to being badly titled on eBay I think), it actually cost more in postage than to buy. This poor thing has obviously see a fair bit of action on the play room floor and the mechanism is shot (excuse the pun) and the wheels and barrel are a little crooked. But it seems to me to be a good 'fixer upper'.

UPDATE (again!):
Two things - first I think you can see from the last photo exactly why the gun will not fire - there is an obstruction in the breech. So I have to remove this (it's pretty tightly stuck whatever it is), once this is done the gun *should* fire as intended.

Talking of which, I tracked down the original instructions:-

Box: The latest pattern Royal Artillery Gun Patent No 34218/30 FIRING Pull back breech cover, place shell in breech, leaving about quarter inch exposed. Depress lever on right to fire. The Gun is also designed to fire a shell by an Amorce Cap. Pull back breech cover as for ordinary firing, place Amorce Cap in circular depression, insert shell and depress firing lever. Note, the gun is more powerful and realistic by this method. (Amorce Caps are not supplied with the gun). R.A. Gun No 1201 Copyright Models Manufactured by W Britain in London, England Trade Mark Regd No 459993

Wow! I gotta try firing with a cap! :)