Friday, 13 September 2013

6th Australian Division #1

The 6th Australian Division, commanded by Major General Iven Mackay, became part of WDF on 14th December 1940. They were posted in to replace 4th Indian Division which was sent to East Africa. The Australians were still in training when ordered to join WDF. They gained quickly a reputation for being well organised, tactically astute and ruthless in attack thus being a one-for-one exchange for 4th Indian Division.

I bought a box of the Matchbox Australians and then did some mix-matching with the desert troops I already had. Mainly head swaps but also one torso grafted onto a new pair of legs. This was the Australian officer who was modelled galloping forward while looking to his side: a ridiculous pose. I pinned the heads with cut-down dress makers pins and a blob of all purpose glue. I also used modelling putty to fill in holes in the head-neck interface. As you can see from the photos the camera sees things the eye doesn't! The toys are at the head-swap stage but prior to having a heated needle run over their excess flash bits. I went for a mix of hats and helmets but with helmets predominating.

The officer got new legs, holster, water bottle and haversack the lucky bleeder!


I like the way he's holding the phone away from his ear. 
Must begetting a right bollocking!



UATH!

4 comments:

  1. Crikey James! You've done a fair dinkum job on those Diggers. True Blue!! Seriously though, we don't really talk like that anymore. But you have done a great job with the conversions. As an aside, the Aussies tended to go for hessian covering the helmet rather than the netting the English seemed to go in for.
    Cheers

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    1. Fair play, mate, they were hard yakka but I enjoyed making every one! I have no idea how to do a hessian helmet cover????

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    2. Nice execution James.

      For hessian I use a dab of plastic filler on the finger and rub it around the netting, thus filling the gaps. It does not matter if it doesn't fill all the gaps as it just adds to the look.

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    3. Thanks, chumrade! I'll give that a go on the next batch of chaps; I had some kind of vision of gluing bits of raggy cloth on their lids........

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