Broken Britain’s Cavalry Back on Fimo Hooves

Huzzah! A tiny patriotic Victorian crowd celebrating Royal Weddings, Empire Day and so on – 15mm Peter Laing Late Victorian Parade Range  Civilians. 

54mm Broken Britain’s Cavalry as they were on arrival …

A tiny Royal Wedding cavalry escort  …

In a previous post I wrote about beginning repairs on some 54mm Broken Britain’s figures kindly donated by toy soldier collector John Forman.

First I repaired the two Khaki Yeomanry Cavalry by pinning hooves back onto legs and repairing a missing leg with a wire armature and masking tape leg.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/the-remount-section-gets-a-visit-from-the-lead-vet/

I have now stoutly repaired the other Household Cavalry Life Guard horse, which was missing a lower leg and two hooves, so could not stand up.

Drilling into the missing lower leg, again a 1mm thick wire was inserted at the right sort of angle. Masking tape was then wound round in strips and glued as I went.

Finally Fimo polymer clay (Sculpey in the USA) was moulded to make stout, stable and secure hooves for the three legs.

Three hooves and the back left leg now repaired. Reins need repainting red.

Once baked for half an hour in the oven, I fixed each of these Fimo  hooves on with superglue. It is still possible to carve Fimo after firing or baking, so I trimmed these slightly to keep them stable but bring out a slightly more slender hoof shape. Not too slender though as they need to be stout enough for use in tabletop or garden gaming, H.G. Wells Little Wars style.

Further Acrylic Gloss paint seals and hides  the joins.

These horses will then sit well on a thin balsa base each for stability whilst gaming.

Once a recast arm has arrived from Dorset Soldiers next week (they emailed to say they had had production delays), I will finish repainting the Life Guard. This looked like it had been overpainted long ago but thankfully the original face is in good condition.

The fourth horse, a Life Guard officer’s rearing horse, needs a recast arm and head but at least the tail repair was simple using Fimo, then repainted gloss black. I also repaired a missing Zulu foot with Fimo while I was about it as well.

Work is underway on repairing the jigsaw of limbs that are some Broken Britain’s Zulus  that I bought last year, along with some broken rifles  of John Forman’s Broken Britain’s Infantry donation and also of the metal detectorist’s finds that were in a pretty bashed and buried condition when I bought them.

More posts on Broken 54mm figures as they are completed.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN on Royal Wedding Day 19 May 2018