I thought the question about making perforated elongated holes in the Barrett rifle post was interesting, so...how about some advice?

This light machine gun was also known as the Benet - Marcie. It was used in numerous wars and by many countries from (I think!) the Russo-Japanese until post WW2. Can anybody confirm the weapon's history? A lot of variations were made over the years, but I'm going for one of the very first -1908.

I'm going to try making this in 1/16th. I have cut and fitted a suitable sized barrel into plastic sheet cut to shape the stock and hand grip. I've just bought some very, very thin, stainless steel washers (Small Parts.com - one of my favorite online stores!) and plan to cut them down to make the cooling fins. Any thoughts on how to make the rest?

Don't get wigged-out about the photos. Some of them are non-1908 versions of the Hotchkiss, but it's hard to get enough photos of the 1908 from all the right angles. The first and second photos are of slightly different versions from 1908.

All the best,
Dan

Dan,

All weapons are geometry problems which can be best solved using lengths of strip plastic, plastic rod, plastic sheet, brass wire etc. The problem I see many figure modelers have with them seems to be that they generally see them as "sculpting" problems. To my mind this is a mistake since most weapons - except primitive ones - are manufactured using mechanical processes and so end up with a very mechanically geometrical appearance.

In attempting to "tame" a wobbly plastic sculpting medium into rigid and hard edged geometric forms is counter productive and will inevitably lead to imperfections in form that come from trying to make shapely pears into regimented geometric orange crates. ANY weapon can be made from the wonderful assortment of plastic strips that are available in many different useful shapes from Evergreen and Plastruct. These include extruded round and square tubing and solid strip in round, rectangular, half round, quarter round, hexagonal and even triangular cross section shaped strips. By heat stretching them you can even make larger shapes into finer sizes.

Get a good side view of your weapon, reduce or enlarge it to your selected scale, and use this as a plan to form your final piece. I usually make several copies so that I can cut them apart if necessary and replace old ones that get chewed up in the process. With the above materials at your service, all it takes is to now analyze the form of the weapon and break it down to the simplest geometric components parts, size them up with your plans and fabricate and glue them together. Having been a model builder for most of my life, this is precisely the way super detailing is done to model airplanes, cars and tanks. Every mechanical shape is little more than a series of simple shapes conglomerated together to make a more complex whole.

Easier said than done. But this is how I do it and I always marvel at what is possible with enough thought about the process.

Cheers!!

Mike

Mike - Cheers and thanks for the advice. Hadn't looked at it that way before!

I should have said that I have plenty of plastic strip and started with two sizes of that cut to approximate the shape of the stock and a barrel. Now I have added a second smaller barrel below the "business" one. Waiting for the delivery of the washers to fit the "cooling fins".

Looking at the weapon geometrically, I can see how that would work. If you use that approach there should be a lot more cutting to shapes and fitting vs. sculpting or surgery.

All the best,
Dan

hi Dan,
here is a link to a SBS i did about sculpting a 1/16 sten over at HFM,i love the challenge of making weapons old or modern and theres always a way to achieve the results,i prefer to make the main barrell out of brass rod and try to make it run through the whole weapon if possible and then build on to this.The benefit of brass rod is you can get a good scale barrell and it is also hollow for realism.

http://www.hfmodeling.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=2160

I have made weapons from baker rifles to M4 using this method in scales from 75mm to 120mm

Hope it helps.

Steve

Thanks Steve - Yes the SBS is very helpful! Beautiful Sten!

All the best,
Dan