My version of an unboxing video, this is an unTINning blog post. Old toy soldiers in a Toffee Tin.
Read and see more on my fully illustrated ‘tuppence coloured’ Man Of TIN Blog Two:
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2024/03/17/old-toy-soldiers-in-a-toffee-tin/
Bits and Bobs for Repairing Broken Britain’s 54mm lead figures from John Forman – Crossposted from my fully colour illustrated Man of TIN Blog Two:
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2024/03/02/more-broken-britains-from-john-forman/
A bad case of Panda Eyes repaired and repainted?
Following my recent post about the late John Tunstill and visiting his toy soldier shop Soldiers at 44 Kennington Road in London with my Dad in the 1980s
a battered boxed set of kilted Gordon Highlanders made for John Tunstill’s Soldiers’ Soldiers range turned up from the family as a gift (coincidence or serendipity?) …
and out of idle curiousity and armchair travel online, I wonder what remains of John’s shop (shown in the Soldiers’ Soldiers packaging box insert) at 44 Kennington Road now?
Read more – Crossposted from my ‘fully illustrated’ Man Of TIN Blog Two
A battered 1938 Taylor and Barrett lead ARP figure ends up in outer space.
See pictures / Crossposted from my ManofTIN Blog Two
Anyone else made any foolish unachievable resolutions for this year’s gaming?
Battling Bronte Sisters (Bad Squiddo 28mm Little Wolves Amazons) meet 25mm Prince August Homecast cavemen boggarts. As close as I will get to Silver Bayonet?
*
It’s that time of the year when New Year’s Resolutions are optimistically made … but maybe not in this house.
My New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions for 2021 were kept deliberately vague …
https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/new-gaming-year-irresolutions-2021/
but even then my vaguest plans for New Gaming Year NGY 2021 often went awry, mostly due to COVID.
The local village Spring Flower and Craft show 2021 never happened so no #FEMBruary figures from Bad Squiddo painted as planned but I did paint some later in the year – The Battling Bronte sisters.
Thanks to Covid levels, I never made it to the Woking 2021 54mm Little Wars Revisited Games Day when it finally happened. Covid dependent of course, but hopefully I might make it in 2022 with my Boy Scouts and snowball fighters who need more gaming time https://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/847/woking-games-saturday-march-correct.
My local history research project talk on WW2 in my local area (as a fundraiser) was postponed by COVID from autumn 2021 to late May 2022.
I think the NGY Irresolutions 2020 will still stand after a year or two interrupted but who knows what might happen in 2022?
New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions 2022
In no particular order
1. Cataloguing Peter Laing 15mm figures as part of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the now out-of-production Peter Laing figures, possibly the first 15mm figures when they launched in October 1972.
https://collectingpeterlaing15mmfigures.wordpress.com
As well as cataloguing what I have over the next ten months, fellow members of the Peter Laing collectors circle on MeWe have been helping me identify figures and supplying photos of figures I don’t have. Then there’s painting and basing more of my unpainted Laing figure stash and getting in some more 15mm skirmish games?
Peter Laing 15mm Chasseurs d’Alpins (WW1 Range) complete with walking sticks!
2. England or Cornwall invaded – Variations on Operation Sealion / Leon Marino
Still playing around with skirmish ideas as part of my Look Duck and Varnish Blog ongoing Operation Sealion Home Guard games, but also found out more about the WW1 ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ or Volunteer Training Corps, good for future VTC Wide Games and Victorian / Edwardian / WW1 era ‘what if’ games.
Arma-Dads Army! 1590s Home Guard Elizabethan Muster of conversions and ECW figures against the Spanish Fury, Chintoys Conquistadors and pound store Pirates …
3. More Close Little Wars forest skirmishes and Close Little Space Wars Games in 54mm … I didn’t get a backyard garden galaxy game in this year.
My lovely Bold Frontiers cardboard trees didn’t get enough of an outing in 2021…
Two Britain’s Ltd. broken Scots charging – a favourite pose – with part repaired rifles, two more figures from the Waifs and Strays group of figures 2021 – “Waifs and Strays” sounds like it should be a Victorian Regimental nickname.
4. I look forward to some more enjoyable tinkering with 54mm repairs of broken lead figures to add to various units. Over the years I have been stashing away battered and broken figures from various donations – cowboys, Indians, redcoats, Scots and Khaki figures – along with the odd intriguing figure bought online.
Arrived last year and put away for Christmas – some very heavy, solid lead and fairly paint distressed Terraton 54mm-ish German semiflats to repair and rebase. Indians, redcoats, trees and farm animals …
5. What else might happen?
Weather permitting maybe will even get some more home casting done outdoors?
Pound Store Plastic figures, Early War Miniatures 1940 Range (for Svenmarck invaded!) and vintage Airfix OOHO figures to restore or rebase for some skirmish games.
More time for Bronte ImagiNations?
My Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Snowball Games need attention!
My skateboarders could do with painting!
Not going to run out of fun things to do …
What are your New Gaming Year plans?
I hope that your gaming plans for 2022 go agreeably awry as well.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, NYE 31 December 2021 / 1st January 2022
Anyone else made any foolish unachievable resolutions for this year’s gaming?
Battling Bronte Sisters (Bad Squiddo 28mm Little Wolves Amazons) meet 25mm Prince August Homecast cavemen boggarts. As close as I will get to Silver Bayonet?
*
It’s that time of the year when New Year’s Resolutions are optimistically made … but maybe not in this house.
My New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions for 2021 were kept deliberately vague …
https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/new-gaming-year-irresolutions-2021/
but even then my vaguest plans for New Gaming Year NGY 2021 often went awry, mostly due to COVID.
The local village Spring Flower and Craft show 2021 never happened so no #FEMBruary figures from Bad Squiddo painted as planned but I did paint some later in the year – The Battling Bronte sisters.
Thanks to Covid levels, I never made it to the Woking 2021 54mm Little Wars Revisited Games Day when it finally happened. Covid dependent of course, but hopefully I might make it in 2022 with my Boy Scouts and snowball fighters who need more gaming time https://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/847/woking-games-saturday-march-correct.
My local history research project talk on WW2 in my local area (as a fundraiser) was postponed by COVID from autumn 2021 to late May 2022.
I think the NGY Irresolutions 2020 will still stand after a year or two interrupted but who knows what might happen in 2022?
New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions 2022
In no particular order
1. Cataloguing Peter Laing 15mm figures as part of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the now out-of-production Peter Laing figures, possibly the first 15mm figures when they launched in October 1972.
https://collectingpeterlaing15mmfigures.wordpress.com
As well as cataloguing what I have over the next ten months, fellow members of the Peter Laing collectors circle on MeWe have been helping me identify figures and supplying photos of figures I don’t have. Then there’s painting and basing more of my unpainted Laing figure stash and getting in some more 15mm skirmish games?
Peter Laing 15mm Chasseurs d’Alpins (WW1 Range) complete with walking sticks!
2. England or Cornwall invaded – Variations on Operation Sealion / Leon Marino
Still playing around with skirmish ideas as part of my Look Duck and Varnish Blog ongoing Operation Sealion Home Guard games, but also found out more about the WW1 ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ or Volunteer Training Corps, good for future VTC Wide Games and Victorian / Edwardian / WW1 era ‘what if’ games.
Arma-Dads Army! 1590s Home Guard Elizabethan Muster of conversions and ECW figures against the Spanish Fury, Chintoys Conquistadors and pound store Pirates …
3. More Close Little Wars forest skirmishes and Close Little Space Wars Games in 54mm … I didn’t get a backyard garden galaxy game in this year.
My lovely Bold Frontiers cardboard trees didn’t get enough of an outing in 2021…
Two Britain’s Ltd. broken Scots charging – a favourite pose – with part repaired rifles, two more figures from the Waifs and Strays group of figures 2021 – “Waifs and Strays” sounds like it should be a Victorian Regimental nickname.
4. I look forward to some more enjoyable tinkering with 54mm repairs of broken lead figures to add to various units. Over the years I have been stashing away battered and broken figures from various donations – cowboys, Indians, redcoats, Scots and Khaki figures – along with the odd intriguing figure bought online.
Arrived last year and put away for Christmas – some very heavy, solid lead and fairly paint distressed Terraton 54mm-ish German semiflats to repair and rebase. Indians, redcoats, trees and farm animals …
5. What else might happen?
Weather permitting maybe will even get some more home casting done outdoors?
Pound Store Plastic figures, Early War Miniatures 1940 Range (for Svenmarck invaded!) and vintage Airfix OOHO figures to restore or rebase for some skirmish games.
More time for Bronte ImagiNations?
My Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Snowball Games need attention!
My skateboarders could do with painting!
Not going to run out of fun things to do …
What are your New Gaming Year plans?
I hope that your gaming plans for 2022 go agreeably awry as well.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, NYE 31 December 2021 / 1st January 2022
Repairs have begun on the first of the ‘waifs and strays’ toy soldiers, the khaki figures with broken rifles.
Read more at my overflow / progression blog site, Man of TIN Blog Two:
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2021/10/15/repairs-begin-on-the-waifs-and-strays-rifles-1/
More about where this curious mix of battered and broken cowboys, injuns, khaki infantry and redcoats came from in my previous post:
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2021/10/09/repairing-vintage-toy-soldiers-1-waifs-and-strays/
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 15 October 2021
A post about Repairing Broken Britain’s, Crescent and toy soldiers from other makers including these battered Hanks and Sutton Zulus, c.1912
54mm Khaki Infantry, Cowboys and Injuns, redcoats and home cast flats with an interesting back story, all needing repair. One of my winter projects …
See more toy soldier pictures here:
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2021/10/09/repairing-vintage-toy-soldiers-1-waifs-and-strays/
Posted on my Man of TIN Blog Two site, set up ready for when I reach my free 3GB capacity on my original Man of TIN blog WordPress.com here.
Miscastings or half castings that are not too bad do not always go straight back in the ladle.
To avoid fumes and mess, I restrict my casting to days outside in warmer weather with no threat of rain; hot metal and moisture make an explosive mix.
As a result casting days (or days when I have time and feel like casting) are infrequent enough that I save the 90+ % figures that are ‘nearly all there’. I can then do some simple repairs on missing musket tips and other fiddly bits. Even missing heads can be swapped …
“Where’s your head at?” Missing a head, why not try swopping one with a Pound Store figure?
Such repairs that I make are usually fairly simple ones, such as drilling out a miscast musket to insert a short piece of wire.
On the repair tray where missing musket tips are replaced, heads swapped and bows repaired …
Old Toy Soldier DNA
You might notice from photos that I often drill, file and repair over sheets of white A4 paper, which I have folded into four and unfolded again to make a cross shaped crease.
This is because I keep the metal filings, drilling ‘swarf’ and trimmings from old Hollowcast figure repair, roughing up the base when rebasing or cleaning up home castings.
From time to time during repairs, I carefully slightly fold the crease-crossed A4 page and slide the metal filings and trimmings into a small lidded pot.
Why do I keep this toy soldier ‘magic dust’ mixed together in a small pot of this “old toy soldier DNA“?
It not only keeps the workbench of my roll-top desk clean but it also means that I can then add a minute pinch of this unique and special mixture from time to time to the casting ladle when home casting.
Each new shiny casting might then have inside it a tiny nano-percentage of an old Britain’s hollowcast casting or old flat tin figure.
Each shiny new casting then might have a small part of all the accumulated bravery, courage and adventure from the countless battles that the old damaged hollowcast veterans (from various makers and owners) have been through over the last hundred years or more.
Reinforcements for Tradgardland, Lurland or Afrika?
A small number of these unpainted Schneider castings of pith helmeted Colonial figures and fierce Natives will soon be heading towards Alan Gruber at the Duchy of Tradgardland blog as reinforcements for his interesting Lurland and Ost Afrika campaigns.
http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/search/label/Afrika
http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/search/label/Lurland
Alan has sent me some interesting spare figures and heads to keep me busy throughout Lockdown, so this is a small thin flat thank you heading to the Duchy of Tradgardland Post Office.
Fight well my tiny men, you have the brave DNA of old toy soldiers in you!
Previously on Man of TIN …
Here is one of the first blog posts that I wrote back in 2016 “type casting”. My WordPress avatar / host page @26soldiersoftin is still named after these famous “26 soldiers of Lead” of Gutenberg (or whoever first said this quote).
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/typecasting/
We finish with a fine picture of a dapper, almost Duke of Edinburgh looking Donald Featherstone, casting away on the kitchen stove in his cheerily enthusiastic 1960s book Tackle Model Soldiers This Way. 
“In the author’s house, everyone slaves over a hot stove”. Note the plate drying rack and safety equipment of a shirt and tie. An inspiration to us all!
Inspired?
If you want to have a go at casting, these companies sell new moulds and casting equipment:
Prince August (Ireland / UK/ EU) do some great starter sets at their website
or their official eBay shop mouldsandminis https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/mouldsandminiatures?_trksid=p2047675.l2563
Berlinner Zinnfiguren (Germany / EU) https://www.zinnfigur.com/en/Casting/
In America, Rich at Dunken has now acquired several old manufacturers’ collections of moulds https://www.dunken.com
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 17/18 April 2021.
I have been chatting by email to MGB recently about repairing old toy soldiers and received an interesting parcel of plastic figure bits and bobs for future conversion work. Thanks MGB!
MGB mentioned that he was starting a new blog about his 54mm repairs and gaming.
It’s well worth a look https://wargamingwith54mmtoysoldiers.blogspot.com/
Some very fine colourful medievals in his latest September post.
WW2, Medievals, Colonial era – lots of interesting things so far and some fine repairs and repaints.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN
Man of Tin blog 