Louis Hof, Raceview, Queensland, Australia
Louis writes, “While searching through a pictorial history for something different in horse-drawn vehicles to model, I came across a battered jeep with two wagons full of soldiers. It was captioned as a detachment of Rajput gunners escorted by men of the West Yorkshire regiment in Burma. I just had to model it.” And so he did: Starting with a 1/35 scale Tamiya jeep, he fashioned a tarp from tissue and the wheels from styrene stock. The cars are made from popsicle sticks with styrene-and-wire trucks and wheels from a Panther tank with sheet-styrene backing and brass rod for axles. Louis bisected styrene I-beams for the rails, topping them with flattened styrene strip. He sawed up more wood for ties and drove dressmaker’s pins for spikes. The figures are Dragon and Tamiya, along with a Bofors crew from Italeri. Louis added hats and berets made from epoxy putty, and rifle slings made from masking tape. “It took four months and tested my fading skills to the limit,” he says. “By the way, those two Tamiya horses are still on the sprues.”