Finally put the finishing touches on the truck mounted kitchen for a self-propelled Field Artillery Battalion in Germany, circa 1974. Thanks for the suggestion for the Resicast field stoves, they really worked great.

I still need to make the ladders for the side platform as well as the support legs, but I'm waiting until I have the truck finished and on wheels to get the final measurements. The truck will pretty much be the AFV M35 with some Eduard PE and that's coming along nicely.

I have more shots in my gallery.








Tom

Tom-- looks good, Buddy!
DJ

Outstanding. I can smell the SOS cooking now. MMM, MMM!!

She really came out great Tom, look the whole thing. The interior area is the best, love to see this in field dishing out, soldiers in line at 15 meters apart while the First Sargent looking on. Do you have plans on adding bulk food and such to the interior.

Joe

Joe I'd love to add some sort of food, but I'm not sure exactly how to do that. I have the mermite cans, the coffee and cold drink dispensers, as well as some large pans and pots that came with the field stoves, but I'm not sure what else I can add. I'd like to put some sort of meal in the pans and maybe something inside the pots, so any suggestions on how to do that would be appreciated. As far as other rations are concerned, I do have lots of shelf space so if anyone's got any good photos of that let me know and I'll see what I can do.

I do have some MRE boxes (they're close enough to C-Ration boxes) and I'm planning on setting up a headcount table with the boxes at the head of the line. The real problem for me is that I'm no good at all with figures, and I know that's what would really add to this.

BTW, I'm really looking forward to seeing your water buffalo completed. I also scratch built one a few years ago, but instead of using wood, I used empty plastic 35mm film containers.



Tom

when I read the title I thought of food projectiles.

This is better than I thought. Amazing work & looks very clean as well.

I wonder about your sources for the kitchen utensils. They're cool.

Tom,
That certainly looks the part. I love the replication of canvas over plywood & 2x4s to waterproof your built-up. I have a sheet (PowerPoint) of Vietnam era C-rat boxes if you want to get closer to the "real deal." Send me a PM with your e-mail addy. Great job on the buffalo too.
John

A good way to make anything like this is epoxy putty, like Miliput or A+B.

For a pile of bread rolls, you can hollow out a resin cooking container or make up an open C-Rat box and then roll a bunch of small balls of putty and just throw them into the container. When cured, paint 'em bread colour.

Use the exact same technique for a container of apples, oranges or potatoes, except paint 'em apple, orange or potato colour.

For soup, hollow out a resin pot or make one from a cylinder of something with handles, then place a disc about 2/3 of the way up from the bottom. On top of the disc add a few small bits of dust or sand to give the disc some fine texture (I do NOT want to know what is the "texture" in real army soup, thank you!), overcoat with a thick layer Mr. Surfacer 500 to unify everything and then paint "soup" colour when all dry.

For track pads & gravy make an oblong sausage from epoxy putty that is the right size (i.e. too small for my appetite) and then slice it into Salibury steaks. Layer them in a hollowed out rectangle baking pan (making them look semi regular with a space open for those that have already been dished out) and then add a layer of the Mr Surfacer 500 as the "gravy". Let it dry and paint Salibury steak colour.

You can see how this can be expanded to cover a lot of the dishes normally found in a field kitchen. Use your imagination on how they are arranged around the serving opening and all of a sudden, your mouth will be watering with the memories of all that fine chow.

Or, of course ,some other part of you could remember the later effects of all that chow and protest, but, you get the idea and I think we're done here...

Hope it helps.

Paul

Paul, great suggestions! Once I get the vehicle done, I'll follow up.

Tom

Don't forget to add those trashcans with the water heaters in them to "sterilize" the mess tins and the other empty cans to throw away garbage. This is one of the things I always like abot Half Arty was this truck. We didn't use one in the Armor battalion. They'ld just run a bunch of meremite cans out to the compay in a jeep. I think they even put the coffee in a mermite.

Yeah, I've already thought about the immersion heaters in the garbage cans. I have some really good info on the immersion heaters (downloaded the TM) and they won't be too hard to scratch build.

I'm actually more worried about doing the garbage cans. To look right, they have to have the scallops down the side and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to scratch build them. I guess the best thing since I want three of them, is to make a single model and cast/mold them, but I've never done that before.

Anybody make any aftermarket garbage cans in 1/35?

Tom