Coffee Table chatter Dutch Friday!
Peter and I had the great pleasure to spend time with our Dutch friends on our way to and from the German show we traded at last weekend at Hieden at the ISSMC.
Jan Giesbers is a good friend, extremely talented model maker, designer and author. He has co-authored several books on the subject of the Dutch Army, has over 100 models in his range of 1/72 scale models across WW1 to post war subjects with many Interwar and WW2 models. We have the pleasure of spending a few days in his man cave whilst staying over with him and his family as we both traded at the German show in Hieden the International small scale models convention run by Bertold Tacke. Jan also runs his own building business with many buildings in his local town built be him and his father over recent years.
Here are story unfolds in pictures and comments.
Warning, severe MAN CAVE envy may occur upon reading this article!
A sign as you enter Jan's Man Cave
Jan outside house AWSOME Man Cave. He designed and built it himself. Its also his business office along side his home.
When we arrived, Jan was busy "shooting down" the biggest wasps I have ever seen, about 1.5 inches long! Mr Day, pronounced them to be "German Wasps". Jans hit rate increased perceptively at this point using his builders insulation gun. I checked the downed wasps and confirmed their eyes where indeed very close together, so confirming Captain Manwearings method of how to spot a German?
Inside the Man cave. Jan has a life times collection of model kits bothg built and boxed unbuilt. Now, I grew up as a kid on a diet of Airfix kits and so this place is just a memory heaven
Mr Day inspecting the contents of one of the very many complete kits in boxes of 1/72 and HO scale models in Jans collection
We spent a blissful day on Friday making models, chattering, drinking beer and some coffee, eating fie cheeses, Jan loves Cheese as do most Dutchman I know. For me, to spend 3 hours modeling was a real pleasure, a luxury I have not enjoyed for a good while now. Work is work, but this was a pleasure
Over Beer and cheese, Jan has already kindly allowed EWM to remake some more of his models in a "war gaming format". Jan kindly agreed to us remaking his excellent Marmon Harrington MK III. So I spend some time using his library of reference books and his masters to make a wargaming version of this kit. It has many variants, which I plan to release in the near future.
Mr Day was busy creating a master, the MG carrying version of the Polish Fiat car. We have made this, curtosy of Steve Cox who mastered the original for us. Peter modified this casting to make the towing version.
At EWM, we are completely redesigning our website currently and so there are many new releases not on the store as I will need to add them to the new site, not the old "master catalogue". Expect a flurry of releases when the new site goes live!!!!
Some of the many versions of the Mark III and other models in his range along side a particularly fine Dutch beer. More a Beer chatter, than a coffee morning in the Nederlands!
EWM in Germany, selling model Germans to German modelers. Its the same weekend as Colures in Newbury. This is our third visit to Heiden and this show. We have a good reception with modelers from all over Europe coming but especially German modelers. Thanks to all those we saw again.
You know, its a real shame when its actually cheaper for EWM to travel to Germany and trade, than it is to appear at a UK show such as Colures! Somebody somewhere, got something VERY wrong I think? But thanks to all those EWM customers of ours who "VISITED" the show AND took advantage of our post free "Colors offer" as we were in Germany.
Some more new releases – sorry not on the webstore for reasons explained. These babies will be at Derby though, Designed for gamers, fully detailed, lift off roofs, internal floors and stairs. Easy to built, they come flat packed, with instructions. First 4 made and in production, 4 more designs to follow shortly with a number of accessories. Partly a collaboration with our German friend Jens. More details to follow.
And so back to Jans place after the German show.
Every Dragoon kit ever made and some. Still work in progress on the Man Cave as you can see.
link
And so we leave on a sunny Monday morning. Jan and his almost finished Man cave, our coffee, beer and cheese chatter sessions and his lovely dog Fienna.
link On our way back we discover remains of the Atlantic wall and some German Dragons teeth next to Fort 1881.
Mr Day exercising outside fort 1881. Although closed when we got there, it will be visited on our next trip to Antwerp in November. Under the guns of this fort, which was part of the atlantic wall, is possibly one of the best wet fish and fish and chip shops I have found in the Nederland's. Both will be sampled in November.
To see more of our story in pictures and words and comment, go to
link Thanks for reading,
Cheers
Paul T@EWM
takes on quite a substantial project.
