 Flashman14  | 23 Jan 2019 1:21 p.m. PST |
Who was the principle manufacturer of this HO scale stuff from the 80's? I still have bridges, a trench/gun emplacement thingy and several ruins as well as lengths of walls. It was all packaged and sold alongside Airfix and Matchbox kits and figures. I know there are new manufacturers of this kind of thing, but who pioneered these products in the US? |
| JimDuncanUK | 23 Jan 2019 1:31 p.m. PST |
Bellona (I think), certainly in the UK. |
 Sgt Slag | 23 Jan 2019 1:54 p.m. PST |
I did vacuum-forming in my Junior High School plastics shop class, around 1979. It wasn't difficult. The Instructables site, as well as YouTube, are full of how-to's on the subject. It is inexpensive to do, as well. Funny thing is that you can pour Plaster-of-Paris inside an example, and use that as your master to make additional copies, yourself. Cheers! |
| DyeHard | 23 Jan 2019 2:17 p.m. PST |
MPC
(Model Power Corps) I think this maybe what you recall. Airfix models and men on a vacuum-form base:
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| DyeHard | 23 Jan 2019 2:22 p.m. PST |
Later, ESCI did a similar thing:
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 Bobgnar | 23 Jan 2019 2:32 p.m. PST |
Ditto to Jim, in the UK, but available in the US. Here is nice site on them.
link |
| khanscom | 23 Jan 2019 2:37 p.m. PST |
I remember ordering Bellona quonset huts from (I think) Lowry's Hobbies in the '70s. |
| Desert Fox | 23 Jan 2019 2:54 p.m. PST |
Bobgnar, GREAT link! Is Bellona available today? |
| nevinsrip | 23 Jan 2019 3:44 p.m. PST |
The early ESCI battles sets came with vacuformed battlefields. I think that ROCCO did some smaller pieces in a dark green to go along with their vehicles. Bellona came in plastic bags with header cards. They were hung right by the cash register, at Dave's (RIP) Hobby Shop. |
| D A THB | 23 Jan 2019 4:24 p.m. PST |
I am still using some of Bellonas walls, bridges and river sections bought in the mid eighties. I wish I could have found more. |
| bobspruster | 23 Jan 2019 4:31 p.m. PST |
It was great stuff considering the prices. I still have a bridge and one or two gun emplacements. |
Wyatt the Odd  | 23 Jan 2019 4:58 p.m. PST |
Roco did four sheets about A4 or letter sized. Each one had a couple of different emplacements. They all came in the same box.
link There were also the Miniscenes which did rivers. Miniscenes was Bellona. I have some of the rivers (still packaged), a hillside emplacement, a ruined building and a few other things. The one I really liked was a large (Airfix?) piece with two basement dugouts and a lift off ground floor. Wyatt |
| Vintage Wargaming | 23 Jan 2019 5:08 p.m. PST |
Plenty of photos of individual Bellona items and a couple of catalogues on my Vintage Wargaming blog link |
| shaun from s and s models | 24 Jan 2019 1:39 a.m. PST |
i still have 2 vac formed terrain pieces, one is bright green with some railway track on it.
must be over 50 years old i reckon |
| Flashman14 | 24 Jan 2019 9:55 a.m. PST |
Thanks for that! Bellona is certainly part of it – I have some of the pieces pictured, but I don't recall that name. Was it sold under a different name in the US? I think I still have the Anti-Tank Strongpoint somewhere. (Second from bottom on the right) I also had that fortified beach position though it may have been crushed and binned in the intervening years. We used it for Anzac v Japanese games inspired by a Mel Gibson movie that gets no love today, but was highly impressionable to me then: Attack Force Z!
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| Flashman14 | 24 Jan 2019 10:07 a.m. PST |
Ah – this is what I remember: "Miniscenes":
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| czartank | 22 Jul 2019 1:51 p.m. PST |
I used to have their ww1 trench, still have a lot of the 1/300th scenery and their river sections. |
