Hittite Refurb project: Chariots, part 1

 

I finally have the first units out from the refurbishment project of the rather large and diverse group of figures I acquired from the collection of the (sadly) late William "Bill" Mc Hugh about 18 months ago. 

The chariotry certainly has pride of place amongst these figures 

The painting on these was already very good, but they suffered considerable damage, with loss of crew figures, missing wheels, loosened yokes, etc, as well as loss of adherence to the basing (this is essentially the original basing, which I quite like, and it is atop flex steel). 

Bill hadn't painted the horse furniture consistently, however, so I needed to correct that on many of the models. There were six of what I have termed "Type 1" chariots like these, with a square, boxy, fairly plain cab. 

Here's the second pair of chariots.

I also added reins to the chariots. Now, they should really have 2 reins to each horse. Having done this before with some Assyrian 4 horse chariots, it looks good but it can be very fiddly. I decided that one reign to each horse would give the desired effect with half the fuss. 

I think it does the job acceptably. 

The reigns are made of dental tape, pre cut and painted an appropriate color with craft acrylic paint.

Most of these "Type 1" Chariots have 3 crew figures. Hittite chariot crewmen used spears and Javelins, rather than bows like the Egyptians. 

The third and final pair of chariots of this set. I don't think I'd like to have these guys thundering down and headed straight at me! 

I added some minor ornamentation to some of the cabs that lacked same. The reigns were attached to the drivers hands with super glue. This was allowed to sit for a few hours, and then the reigns were attached to the horses and the excess cut off. paper tape, from an old I/R 54mm Napoleonic set was used for my first chariots 3 decades ago, but I haven'/t been able to find anything like that. The dental tape works OK, but frays easily and sometimes resists taking paint well. 

Some minor touch up and detailing of a relatively small number of crew figures was needed as well. That's 6 chariots done, and 12 more to come!