The Model, Military or Railway tour of '24 - Part 2

After a detour of more than 60km yesterday night I realized that the city Tavastehus is just another name for Hämeenlinna. It's a very nice town:

Anyway,  it's a good starting-point for today's destinations. The first of them being:

The Parola Tank Museum 

Even if this museum displays some models...

...and even some large 1:6 scale RC-models...

...it's probably their hughe 1:1 collection of tanks that reflects several wars and conflicts Finland been involved in that's most impressive:

In the section for anti-tank warfare...

...they even have anti-tank simulator for public use:

They have a pretty decent museum-shop as well:

They have bags of army men. A bit 'pricey' though at €19...

I even found something useful in this museum shop. It finally looks like my army men will drive to the battlefield in the future in this new APC. -Even if it means challenges when driving motorcycle with no space left for anything...

So next out today is the:

Finnish Railway Museum

They even had a scale model of the museum it self:

I was here 23 years ago and I think they had a large model railway here then. Now this was the only running layout. Bous for free push-button to run trains for kids though:

Not many engine models either. This looks very American.

-But they have a large collection of real models:

...and the 'real' American ones are really hughe!

They have a garden café and a garden train...

- and a model of it:

I was happy with a cup of coffee though.

I didn't think the museum shop was so exciting either....

-Until I saw this display (!).

Here they had several rare Finnish models made in Finland. Mostly in H0.

Having already bought an APC today I had no space left in my motorcycle. The models are made by Mestarimallit 

Time to move on.

The Model, Military or Railway tour of '24 - Part 1

I'm working at a museum,  and I love visiting museums. - And especially those exhibiting military-, railway- or modelling items, or a combination them. Last year I had an early summer-vacation in early June and went riding my motorcycle northwards in Norway.  I planned to visit so many military museums as possible on my way.  There was only one 'problem'; They're usually not open on weekdays so early (not in the main tourist season though). Don't worry if you plan a vacation to Norway as many of the 'main military museums' are. But last summer I planned to visit the smaller ones on my way:

- Not very successful...

This year I'm having a later summer vacation and I'm still riding motorcycle. I'm planning a different route though. I'm not turning this blog into a travel-blog, but I plan to daily visit some either military, railway or modelling related museums or attractions for a week, and will post brief updates of some of the impressions which are related to the theme of this blog (just using my phone). I hope you will follow me on this tour this week. 

The first leg from home was pretty long. More than 600 km. Then you need a 'pit-stop' on the way. If you ever pass Värmskog in Sweden, I highly recommend you to stop at Värmskog Kafé. Their shrimp sandwiches are legendary! 

And they serves even larger sandwiches than this.. 

So what's this tour's first stop?

The Finnish Air Force Museum

Interesting camouflagepattern on these hangar doors:

This is a Finnish Fouga Magister, but the Katangese Air Force also operated 3 such aircrafts. Even if it was a trainer it could be armed, and Katanga used them for ground attacks on UN troops

It's also very interesting to see what museums like this have in their museum shops:

But the one thing I wanted most was not for sale. The content was though...

Time to move on and visit something else tomorrow. 

An August Workbench update

So, what is this free 3D-file I recently found and printed?

Here are a couple of hints:

When mounted on a LGB-wagon it becomes a G-scale camera-wagon:

And here is a video when I tried it out at a friend's garden railway yesterday:

Here is a link to the stl-file to the mobile-phone stand if you would like to print one for your self.

...more 3D-printing:

I recently played an 'Old West' game and realized that I was lacking some essential scenery for such scenarios. At Thingiverse I found some free Cactus-files, but since they would take some time to 3D-print, I decided that I would run a testprint with low resolution as it would be quicker and I could se how they turned out.

I painted them to get an idea how they would look, but even if they're printed in low resolution I think they turned out just OK, so I'll probably just keep them as they are.

Since the cactus' turned out OK, I was curious to see if other scenery and terrain for model railways could be 3D-printed an still look OK. This tree is actually a wargame scenery file, but if it's looks good I might consider using it with my model railway.

Painted:

And this is how it looks compared to another spruce which is actually made as 'model railway scenery':

With snow added and temporary 'planted' on my H0e/H0n3O Pizza-layout:

It would be interesting to hear your point of view and opinions on the 3D-printed scenery in the comment-section below. Yea or Nay?

...findings at the local 'Pound Shop':

During a visit to a my local 'Pound Shop' I found a couple of modelling and wargaming related items:

4'x6' Grasmats for only $8.85/ £6.88. I guess they will work great, either modified or unmodified, as 'battle-mats' for wargames:

I also found a very cheap set of make-up brushes in the shop as well, and decided to get them as I've found a YouTube-video that recommended make-up brushes for drybrushing miniatures.

The only 'challenge' was to get them passed the Cashier as he was the talkative kind of type that might have been likely to use them him self. -Off course he asked if I was using them for make-up or technical purposes. - I was tempted to answer 'for make-up' like he would belive me when I answered the latter anyway...

Some new,  and very long lasting projeckts are about to hit the 3D-printer:

PS: More info on the drybrushed miniature (and his colleagues) above will shortly follow in this blog. Please follow.