Prussian Garde du Corps 2

The Prussian Garde du Corps are finally finished. They only took me four and a half months! However, as I also painted two other squadrons, two batteries and a battalion of Bavarians in that time I'm not downhearted.

The Garde du Corps in full cry!

If you click on the photos to embiggen you'll notice that there is quite a lot of variation between the two squadrons, which were bought from two completely different sources. The rear squadron (which I painted first) is quite a bit slimmer than the one on front.

One of the great things about them was that in each case I was unaware I had bought them until the box of figures actually arrived. They were part of job lots of DK figures where it was not entirely clear what was in all of the bags. This is a slightly nerve-wracking way to buy figures, but also quite fun!

As they might have appeared c. 1972

The push for Prussians will continue in the next post.

Have a great weekend

WM

Trumped Up Charges

Sound the Charge!

The Garde du Corps have their CO and trumpeter at last.

The trumpeter was supposed to be a quick and simple conversion using my new-found soldering skills. What actually happened was a near disaster and copious bleeding after I stabbed myself in the finger with a craft knife.

Sound the Recall!

My first mistake was to bend my wee man's right arm just that little bit too far as I was attaching his trumpet. The metal used in some DK figures has a rather crumbly consistency that really doesn't appreciate this sort of treatment. The inevitable result was a detached arm and a jagged stump. Fixing this required a major amount of additional soldering, filing and paring and it was while doing the latter, of course, that I managed to stab myself.

Converting is a risky business, so I had an inkling this sort of thing was likely to happen. I'm just thankful that I didn't end up with a total write off.

Cést la guerre, as they say. Sound the charge!

WM

By no means the last trump!

Coke Can Kürassier 2

Sharply dressed!

My Garde du Corps standard bearer is finished.

Fortunately, there is just enough paint and varnish to blunt the edges of the flag and reduce the risk of major blood loss to anyone attempting to pick him up. He'd still be quite effective as a letter opener, however.

I'm quite tempted to have a go at a full-scale infantry flag using this technique. I reckon it'd work quite well with anything that didn't have to be too symmetrical.

The next post will feature the officer and the trumpeter. The latter really did lead to blood loss!

WM

....but not too sharp!

Coke Can Kürassier

Having decided on a push for Prussians, I've brought the second squadron of the Garde du Corps to the front of the painting queue.

Pictured is the trooper I've selected to carry the standard of the regiment. I thought I'd give coke-can metal a go for the flag to see how it behaved in comparison to paper. It was surprising simple to do, and I'm particularly pleased with the sharpness of the waves and folds that it was possible to put into it. It also looks as if it will be a lot more durable than any of my paper flags. The drawback is that I don't think it will be possible to paint designs on flags of this type before they go on to their poles.

The baldrick around his shoulders was made by simply hammering a length of solder flat and then cutting it into a strip. The whole assembly was then liberally stuck down with super glue.

I spent a very pleasant couple of hours putting this all together. It's going to take a little longer to paint!

WM

Prussian Garde du Corps

DK 143 at the gallop

The First Squadron, Prussian Garde du Corps, are complete.

As the castings I need to finish the Leib Hussars are still in the post I should really press on with the second squadron.

A fine body of men

However, there is to be yet another pause in Prussian cavalry production while I deal with another wee project. All will be revealed in the next post.....

In the meantime, I've combined the hussar and garde squadrons to give an impression of what either of the completed regiments might look like. It's making the French rather nervous.

WM

Vive la France!

Prussian Rearmament

Worth a try. There'll be no árm in it!

I've been forced  to take a break from the Leib Hussars for a while due to the belated realisation that I was a couple of castings short. Reinforcements are on the way, but in the meantime I'm cracking on with another unit of Prussian cavalry. I'm hoping that it'll help me get over my cavalry aversion, which lingers on despite having completed three squadrons.

The implement of triumph or disaster approaches....

The unit I've chosen is the Prussian Garde du Corps. There were several reasons for this: it would give me much-needed experience in painting white uniforms; it would brighten up my otherwise sombre-looking horde of Prussian blue meanies; and it would give me another chance to play with the soldering iron. The figures I have for this regiment are 12 x DK 143: Prussian Guard Cuirassier.

Until a few weeks ago my only experience of soldering was a week's work experience in about 1982. The job was to remove components from old circuit boards. It taught which was the hot end, but not much else.

Having tackled the Swiss musket butt conundrum by simply constructing them out of blobs of solder, the next thing to work out was how to re-attach things that had broken off. I'd absolutely no idea how to do this before I started, so what follows was entirely experimental.

Just before I became entirely too overconfident!

As the pictures show, the problem in this case was how to re-attach a broken arm. There was no obvious way to do this apart for holding it next to the casting, applying heat and solder and then seeing what happened next.

What I thought I would try to do was "paint" a little bit of solder over the join with the tip of the iron, in the hope it would sort of seep into the crack and bind the two parts together. At first this seemed to go rather well. What is not pictured is what happened next, which was the sudden attachment of an enormous blob of solder over the join. This immediately set hard and looked impossible to get off without melting half the figure.

The patient (on the right) is restored

The only thing for it was to set to with a craft knife and a file to see if I could could get something at least vaguely resembling the original arm. It took about 15 minutes, but the result, I'm very glad to say, repaid the effort. The new arm even seems to be rather stronger than the original. All my DK guardsmen have been cast with a distinct "nick" in their sword arms which is definitely a bit of a weak spot. If you click-to-embiggen the last photo showing the old and the new side by side you'll see what I mean.

The next thing, of course, was to paint him. He was rather fiddlier to do than the hussars due to his much more complicated fixtures and fittings. The completed regiment, I'm hoping, will look quite fetching.

I got away with it, but more though luck than judgement!