1/35 Coffee-tank...

[MaxHeadroom]

  Coffee-tank??? Weird!

Don't worry, dear friends, I won't build this:

 

My build will be a scene from the times of smuggeling coffee from Belgium to the county of Aachen/Germany.

A short historical background:
After the 2nd WW and in the early years of the Fed. Rep. of Germany drinking coffee was a luxury, because coffee was very much expensive in Germany (in 1951: 500 g/16 DM [Belgium: 500 g/4 DM]).
So smuggeling coffee was a good deal.
Usually people were smuggeling in groups by foot.

And sometimes cars and lorries/trucks were used.
A lot of them were captured and collected on the yard of the customs headquarter in Aachen:


But why did I say "coffee-tank"?
Now, some gangs had used stolen vehicles from the belgian army.
These vehicles had a light armour because the german customs was granted to use firearms.
Here you see such a captured "coffee-tank":


And this is my first model for the diorama: a US M3A1 (late production) White scout car (by Hobby Boss/China).

In the early years, german customs was a poor organisation. Mostly by foot or bicycles were used.
(Here a german/belgian patrol [The german uniform looks close to the dress of the former Wehrmacht.]: )

But to prevent the smuggeling and hunt the smugglers cars were needed.
So I imagined a former german-army staff-car, captured by alliied forces, used in alliied service, than given to the german customs...
A 1940 Opel Kapitän Saloon (by ICM/Ukraine).
(Below the 1950-version [marginally difference]: )


The first pictures of the build will follow in the next hour.

Norbert

[MaxHeadroom]

Now!

The diorama will be called "Kaffeefront Aachen, 1951".

What I need:
a) an evidence to prove it's a scene at the frontier
b) the coffee-tank
c) the Opel
d) a kind of shelter for the Opel
e) a surrounding
f) (a) customs officer(s)

a) First, I'd build a barrier:

Parts are taken from the box of leftovers.

The shield in the middle of the barrier will later be printed by a traffic-sign (white, circled with red, HALT!, black stripe, GRENZE! [STOP! FRONTIER!])


b) the Hobby Boss kit (No. 82452)

(with a frame made by wire of sparklers. A tarpaulin will be added also.)

c) the ICM kit (No. 35477)

(Look at the front-axis; it's piece of art by ICM! I know some ICM-kits and I love and curse the filigree.)

d) A shelter?
Why? (The customs vehicle must be hidden to grant a successful surveillance of the smugglers and to follow them.)
How? (A ruin in the woods close to the barrier, because I am forced to use a small base (No room for a 1-square-meter-diorama.).

I used a structurated sheet of brick-paper by NOCH, Germany.
Funny is, the sheet is designated as scale H0 (1/87), but the mesurement with a ruler brings the bricks verrrrrry close to the dimensions of 1/35 standardised german bricks of the "Reichsformat" (imperial size), used until the 1950ies!!
Below the bricks, I'd used corrugated cardbord (the gaps will be closed).

The door- and windowframes and the rest of the floor are made by whisks taken from McDonald's.

e) The surrounding will show a forrest path, the ruin and a battered wood.
Why battered? Battered because the woody region around Aachen was very frayed in the fall of 1944 while the battle of Aachen. So I only will place some young trees, otherwise only bushes, a hand full of flowers, undergrowth, climber/ivy, tree stumps and much dead wood.


f) The customs officer(s) will be made by german soldiers of the Wehrmacht, because of the similitude of the uniforms.

Norbert

(will be continued)

[apophenia]

Great theme Norbert! 

[GTX_Admin]

Looking forward to this one.

[MaxHeadroom]

Thank you, apophenia and GTX_Admin!
It's a theme of close homeland..., why seek far afield when the good is so close?
I think, there are a lot of model-building-themes, some people don't realize.
Just look in the neighbourhood, present or past; carwash on own property, policecar heading for burglars in the street around the corner, and so on.
So I choosed the "coffee-front" of the late 1940ies/early 1950ies - no war, but exciting in equal measure.

Maybe later I also will build a stand-alone model of a "Besenporsche".
"Besenporsche?" you will ask. (grin)
This is a "Besenporsche" (Broomporsche):

German customs owns in the early 1950ies two expensive special equipped Porsche 356.
The Porsches had added hydraulic brooms to brush away crowbars from the surface of the roads scattered by the smugglers to stop the patrol by damaging the tires of the customs vehicles.


But it's a future theme.

Norbert

[Frank3k]

Great project! If the Opel Kapitan model is at all like their other WWII car kits, the attachment points for the wheels are very small. Leave them off until the very end, or reinforce the attachments with a metal tube or similar.

They are otherwise great kits!

[Dr. YoKai]

 Are you sure you aren't Brian Da Basher in disguise? Terrific backstory, and an entertaining prospect for a diorama. As a Java Junkie myself, I look forward to seeing the progress.

[jcf]

Those are generally known as caltrops.  :)

[raafif]

naturally the miscreants used other vehicles as decoys to fool the authorities & draw them away from the real route of the smugglers

[Antonio Sobral]

Hi Norbert

Thanks for the history lesson!
This is the kind of detail that makes learning about the past much more fun and interesting.

The tip about the Noch paper will also be really useful.
I have seen it at my local hobby train store but, to be honest, never paid it much attention...until now :)

[MaxHeadroom]

Thank you all for the premature praise!
But be patient, I need some time to build, especially because my workbench is temporarily stored in the cellar and I'm forced to use the common dinnertable and a case-of-emergency collection of tools.
We are busy by renovating our home (since months and for months furthermore).

To Frank3k: You are right, ICM-kits must be handle with care. As I'd said above, because of it's extraordinary filigree of the -in comparison- hard plastic. The ukrainian kits are a pleasure and a curse in the same time.
Nevertheless, I like them very much.

To Dr. YoKai: "Brian da Basher in disguise" makes my face blush - it's an honour, thank you.

To jcf: These things we call in german "Krähenfüße" (crowfeet). (Thank you for teaching me "caltrops".)


To raafif: Yes, the smugglers also used other vehicles to fool the customs.


To Antonio Sobral: Because the "Coffeefront" is relatively unknown outside eastern Belgium and the far west of Germany, in my opinion a short history lesson with the little help of some pictures was necessary to explain the background of my build. Themes of the various theatres of WW 2 aren't necessary to explain in common.
In my experience a lot of products for modelrailroaders are useful for modelbuilders. Usually the products were made bigger than the scale, they are are named for. I suppose, it's for a better handling or view.
Therefore a lot of HO-scale products were verrrrry close to the 1/35 scale and a lot of Z-scale products fit in 1/72! You only have to use results of your internet-investigation and a ruler to find out the scaled measurements.

Norbert

[MaxHeadroom]

Now, while the Opel Kapitän and the White scout car will in mayor be build FROM the sprues, all other things will be build BEYOND the sprues, so I hope, the topic of the forum is fullfilled. :)

After preparing the barrier and the ruin, now I started making the structure of the base's surface:

I'd took a tile of styrofoam and and cutted it to it's shape.
First I "digged" the (interrupted) water jumps at each sides of the woodpath by scalpell.
Then; how to create the ruts in the woodpath?
The answer was simple: I used my index finger and let it glide under pressure over the styrofoam. Two ruts in the correct distance makes the woodpath close to reality.
Then I'd marked the position of the ruin and took a lead pencil to sketch the tracks of the custom's Opel, paying attention to the fact, the car is making a curved track to vanish behind the ruin. So, the tracks of the rear axle and the front axle are a bit different.

Next step will follow.

Norbert