Keep Your Powder Dry

Well frame guns actually. So not really cannons. Leven is reported as having 88 of the things in his artillery train in 1644, more than half the total number of pieces in the entire train. Not surprisingly, no frames survive, and there are no records of what colour they were (descriptions are pretty scant too). We do know that the Scots treated their larger ordinance carriages with pine-tar, so an ochre colour is probably not too far from the mark. Scottish ordinance was usually bronze rather than iron favoured by the English foundries: the one surviving frame gun barrel is brass. In later years the Scots moved to iron pieces wrapped in leather, I have chosen to paint my frame gun barrels black. As you will be aware, my fighting men are all from the same manufacturer. I knew that they make frame guns and Scots artillery crew, the problem would be trying to find a suitable pack horse to carry the frame gun (in lieu of a limber). There's one in their WW2 British 14th Army sect...

Here's my attempt at a step by step guide on how to do it - a really simple task, that just seems very daunting. All you really need is a little confidence in what you are doing. But be warned - once you've done a few, it becomes quite addictive. First clean up your figures, removing any mould lines and flash. This is especially important for the head, do this whilst still attached to the sprue. (As it is much easier to do now.) Next up the scary bit. It's only scary the first time you remove a head. Grab the head with a pair of pliers and twist. Try and twist in one smooth motion, and keep going until the head comes off. In case you are wondering, those are really small pliers, not an extreme example of 15mm scale creep The 'head twist' doesn't work for some figures, mainly because of their pose. In these cases you will have to cut them off. I have a nifty pair of snips that does the job cleanly. However I do much prefer the head twist method as it lea...