Another blast from the past… This build is really old; if you look at the background on the first photo, you’ll see the instructions for one Renault UE I’ve built in 2006… So yeah. Matchbox is somewhat of a forgotten brand when it comes to models; so I thought I’d present here one of their kits I’ve built.

I bought this kit on a whim, and I was put off by the shiny green plastic at first. But once you cover it with paint… the model becomes great. I’m not sure about accuracy; it’s a Churchill, it has a big bridge on the top, and it has a big mortar in the turret. (Which was reloaded manually- from the outside.)

It appears that the bridge was hand-cranked as well.

Assembled tank

The first coat of paint really transformed the model for me. This is when I started to like the tank. I was not very much concerned with the shade of green, I must confess, so it might not be historically correct. I was young, OK?

The bridge is attached, finally. I did a burnt umber oil wash first, but it still looked very much plastic.

Some more weathering. A tip: once you attached the threads, cover them with glue so that they don’t get fuzzy later. (It was not very easy to do the rigging, I tell you that.)

This is the time when I discovered pigments… I put them on diluted in white spirit, and let them dry out. It worked nicely.

Even more pigments; they did help to bring he model to life, though.

So here it is… a really old model (by all standards), but it was quite a nice experience nevertheless. The moral of this story is I guess is that it’s sometimes really worth buying these old gems.