Just completed these bits as part of detailing three US figures and I want a little feedback from anyone more intimately familiar with US equipment ( as I based all this on web photos ).

Having spent about an hour on each I don't want to carry on making the rest only to find out they're wrong for what I'm doing ( Feb 1945 setting, US Army in Europe ). I've already made that booboo with the Tamiya Bazooka after doing a nicely rendered M20 only to find out it never saw WWII service.

Thompson with Kerr sling ( leaving aside that I need to reglue the rear sling swivel straight ). The belt can be adjusted if need be but is currently where I think it suits the figure best.



M1 Helmet straps. I know the clip part is slightly oversize but I'll try yo get the next one a little smaller.



Webbelt with the equipment mounted with those little metal dohickies that go through the grommets ( I haven't yet decided if I'll attempt to add grommets or just poke holes and paint the outtside of them ). The equipment can be removed and repositioned if need be as they're mounted with mini attachments same as the real one.



So if there is anything glaring that any WWII US Army buff sees that needs correcting fire away.

Don't know about the accuracy without references (looks good to me though) but your details are outstanding! How do you do it in this scale?!? What materials did you use?

Cheers
Stefan

Your work looks great, just a couple of things
the strap on the helmet is way over-sized, I'm impressed you got it as small as you did but it still needs to be about 50% less in width also the clips and pull-throughs would ave been stamped metal so the metal parts would be flat not rounded (probably same for Thompson, but I'm not sure about that)
I think your web belt looks fantastic, the only problem is that the detail of the molded styrene parts don't match the level of detail you have created!! I say go all the way and scratch it all (epoxy putty is your friend!) or try to find some nice resin accessories to put on there

Good work though!

Hey, don't worry too much about the work you do . Most of us couldn't even come close to that kind of detail. And as for the wrong bazooka ? I had the diesel Stewart tank in a WW II european setting only to find that they didn't use them there. Learn something new all the time. What material do you use for the straps etc. , I might want to try that sometime.............Al

That is amazing work! Wow! Keep showing us your progress.
Darryl

It's not really as hard as it seems, no more fiddly than some PE stuff. The only essential tools are sharp knife, freestanding magnifyer and good tweezers and the only skills patience and a steady hand.

I like to challenge myself, especially since an offhand comment from my daughter last year ( 11 at the time ) while I was gluing up some figures, she said "It's surprising you can do that with such fat fingers".

As for material on the sling the rings are fuse wire, the metal furniture attaching the rings to the webbing and the two clips are 1mmx0.1mm evergreen strips and the webbing is thermal paper ( the stuff used in retail receipt printers ).

I buy lengths of wiring from a local electronics store, I use the stuff intended to wire up speakers, strip back a few inches of insulation from a 12inch length and then pull the strands free one by one ( that leaves me some useful black tubing for hoses ). The rings are made by winding the wire around a section of 1mmx0.25mm evergreen strip then cut down the middle on one side. Then you just slide them off the strip, flatten them down and squeeze them closed where they were cut.

Then it's just assembling it using tweezers and a toothpick to apply thin CA glue to the plastic or metal parts. For any paper to paper I use PVA as it holds fast and doesn't stick everything to everything else the way the CA stuff does.

The rest are made essentially the same, or at least from the same materials.

Well, thanks for the tip. I was starting to think that maybe the straps were made of dental floss or something like that. Anyway, I feel challenged and will try this out.......Al

You wouldn't happen to know the actual measurements of the helmet straps would you ? The ones I did are 0.8mm wide with the clip thing at 1mmx1.5mm so that scales out at 30mm wide and 35mmx50mm ( 1 1/4in wide and 1 1/2in by 2in ). I'm going to try to get the next one down to 0.6 wide and 0.8 x 1.2 so would scale out at about 20mm wide and 28x40mm ( about 3/4in wide and 1in by 1 1/2 inch IRL ).

I don't think I can get it beyond that, I already managed to throw out two clips I'd made cause I forgot about them and they were so small I thought they were part of the debris I was brushing off the board.

The metal parts on the real Thompson sling that are stamped and riveted. I've used 1mm x 0.1mm evergreen strip for those so they're flat ( the real ones are ribbed and have three rivets but I just couldn't get that so the rivets will just be painted ). The clip on the helmet should be flat but I just couldn't get the slots in the ends cut with the sides thin enough without the straps pulling right through so went with wire. Once they're painted up they should look flat as they're only 1 x 1.5 mm so you really only see it with a magnifier ( or in this case the camera zoom ).




Don't tempt me, I'm already contemplating that, at the very least releasing the cover of the holster so it sits up a bit showing the gun sitting in the holster. Making the holster around a scale Colt would be easy enough I reckon, getting the embossed "US" I figure would be the hard part.

Hey Dean
Some fine work done her already mate.I agree that the styrene equipment wouldn'thold up to scrutiny compared to your scratch work!
Something not mentioned is the extra material flap that the first aid pouch is connected to? I haven't seen it like this (not to say it wasn't like this though) but a straight connection through the eyelets as per the holster...It would hang immediately below the bottom edge of the belt.
I reckon you can sculpt the holster no problem, but I suggest shaving down the thickness of what would be the covered parts to allow for the thickness of the putty so it will end up looking correct in scale. As for the 'US' logo, I had a crack at it a while back with wire. Came out not too bad,considering this photo is well zoomified



Brad

Cheers for that, the wire for the US works well. I was thinking of just shaving that part off the Tamiya holster and using it on the home made one.

I'll check on the first aid pouch, easy enough to correct if need be, I was using images off movies where they seem to sit very low with other web gear above them but haven't been able to find an image of the thing on a belt on its own.

Well that was handy, while looking for info on the holster found this

And from that have learnt that indeed the first aid kit just attaches to the bottom row of grommets on the belt with the wire bit at the top of the pouch and more importantly that the M1 carbine pouch doesn't use the wire hanger thing but slips over the belt.

So looks like a few corrections need to be made.

Isn't the interweb wonderful.

As for the M1 carbine pouch, it definitely slides over the belt. This is how they attach a pouch directly to the butts of the M1 carbine as seen in many photos, especially armored infantry