NAPOLEONIC-ERA FIELD ARTILLERY

My best guess is this is a Napoleonic era artillery piece. This is said to be a 1:45 scale metal and wood kit from "Scale+" of China, bought on AliExpress for about $15.
The gun carriage and axle and wheels are solid wood. The fittings are metal. The gun is brass. The cannon balls in the wooden monkey are steel. I should probably paint them black.
I added metal straps and chains to the carriage.
The wheels have thin strips of metal cut from wine bottle tops as the tyres, painted black metal by Vallejo.
The base comes with the kit and is painted with Floquil spackle "Gravel Gray".

 

1804 STEAM LOCOMOTIVE (COALBROOKDALE / TREVITHICK)

This is the Airfix / Hornby 1:24 scale "1804 Steam Locomotive", sometimes known as the Trevithick or the Coalbrookdale Locomotive or the Pen-y-Darren Locomotive (kit #A05871). 
Although there are no records of the first operations of the Coalbrookdale Locomotive of 1802-1803, and there is only a single drawing and one letter remaining, it is the mother of all steam locomotives and the first working version of what became the more famous "Pen-y-Darren" locomotive which hauled 10 tonnes of iron, five wagons, and seventy men over 16 km of plate tracks in Pen-y-Darren, Wales, in 4 hours on 21 February 1804. It moved an astonishing 4 km/hr, and Trevithick walked alongside tending the engine!
This is considered to be the first actual functioning steam locomotive to operate on iron plates (tracks) and to pull a multi-tonne load. The new machine utilized high pressure steam and was considered to be highly dangerous by other inventors.
More dangerous was the fact that the firebox door was located on the front of the engine directly below the single massive piston. On the first journey no further water was added during the run.
The kit came to me from the IPMS Ottawa club president at a swap meet, and it went together in a weekend. The body of the locomotive, really only the boiler, is covered in actual wood planks to both insulate the boiler and to protect people from the heat of the boiler. This became very common in early locomotives.
The body is painted Tamiya regular gloss black, and the wheels and gears Tamiya flat Hull Red.
The gear teeth and outer surface of the iron tyres is hand-painted Vallejo metallic black, then everything was sprayed with Vallejo matte varnish. Highlighting of the black metal edges and bolts and such was done with the old toothbrush silver up with a craft silver felt pen. This gave the black the look of actual iron. Rust powder (PanPastel 380.3 Red Iron Oxide) was applied to discrete places, but not too many as this machine was well cared for and only ran a short time before becoming a stationary engine in the mine. Soot and smoke residue came from Vallejo pigments 73116 carbon black; and some lightening was done on the wood siding with Vallejo pigments 73113 light slate grey. Oil and grease and water stains come from the new Vallejo 73813 "Oil Stains" weathering acrylic painted in with a tiny brush. It worked well to make the piston rod and guide rods look lubricated and real.
The base is a plain wooden oval from the dollar store sprayed with Floquil spackle "Gravel Gray", then weathered with a line of oil and water drips between the tracks. The plate tracks come with the kit, but I had to make small flat stones for the track bed (sleepers), then nail small spikes through the track and stone into the base. Same colours and methods as per the locomotive.
The finished model placed second in the 2016 annual 'all things British' contest sponsored by IPMS Farnborough, being beaten for first place by only one point and missing the Cody Tree Trophy! Damn! 
It won a gold medal at the Montreal MIMM 2016 contest.

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

Second place winner in the Trains category at CAPCON 2017 on 30 September 2017.

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

1804 Steam Locomotive - Trevithick or Coalbrookdale Locomotive

RENAULT BUGGY SCHLESSER 2000

This is a 1/26 scale metal-body model of the Buggy Schlesser by Renault which competed in the year 2000 Paris-Dakar-Cairo overland race. The model is produced by Bburago from Italy (kit #59201). Everything except the outer body is plastic; while the outer body is metal and comes pre-painted in blue. There is a very extensive high-quality decal sheet which took far longer to apply than did construction of the car. I bought it at a flea market as I had wanted to try a metal body car kit. The steering system works, and there are three spare tyres in the boot which are only partially visible through the rear wheel wells. The doors are functional. It was a fun kit and I can recommend it as a parent-child project which can be done without glues or paints and produce a fine finished product.

AIR DEFENCE GUN - 88mm FLAK 18 (1935)

This is the Fujimi 1:76 scale "German Anti-Tank Anti-Aircraft 88 m/m FLAK 18" model (kit #02) of the famous German gun. The 88mm gun first appeared in 1916, built by both Krupp and by Rheinmetall-Borsig. As the Treaty of Versailles forbid this type of gun production, manufacturing was moved to Bofors in Sweden Krupp continued working on improvements, and in 1933 rolled out a new high-velocity version which was immediately used by the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Further improvements led to the 88mm Flak 36 which had interchangeable rifling tubes.

Wiki says: "Flak is a contraction of German word Flugzeugabwehrkanone meaning "aircraft-defense cannon", the original purpose of the eighty-eight. In English, "flak" became a generic term for ground anti-aircraft fire. In informal German use, the guns were universally known as the Acht-acht ("eight-eight")." 

An impressive weapon, it still took an average of 16000 shells for any particular Flak 88 to shoot down a USA daylight bomber. At night, the guns were aided by searchlights and sound detection, but the shell usage was far worse. It was a far better anti-tank weapon, and the only thing in the German arsenal which could stop the new Soviet main battle tanks until the Nazis caught up in tank design.

The overall colour is Tamiya acrylic XF-62 German Grey, with Tamiya acrylic X-10 Gun Metal for the technical end of the gun. Light rust was applied to the lower carriage using PanPastel 380.3 Red Oxide. My mistake was to install the large forward shield which had been invented for army use in land battle due to the immense height of the gun. In anti-aircraft mode the shield was not installed. I bought this kit used at Hobby House in Ottawa on Wednesday morning, 20 July, and finished it by nightfall that day. I have not finished a kit in a day since I was ten years old. It was great! Try it.

FRENCH 75mm ARTILLERY

Known as the "75" (Soixante-Quinze), this 75mm artillery piece holds the distinction of being the very first modern artillery gun and is credited with having the first hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism. This meant it could be repeatedly fired at the same target without being re-sited. The official name is the "Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897", and several French arsenals produced the gun by the thousands starting in 1898, with over 21 000 being built by 1940. The 75 was used by at least 12 different armies during a 40 year period, and was the main US artillery piece during World War One. The gun was so famous as to be included in songs and artworks, and became part of French culture.
In the Great War the British Army artillery corps and air defence units used 29 of these French guns. In June 1940 the British bought another 895 of the guns, as well as a million rounds of ammunition, from the USA which had used 2000 of them in the Great War and still had a huge stockpile. Called the "Ordnance, QF, 75mm Mk 1" by Britain, the army would also use this field gun as an anti-aircraft weapon. 
The model is a 1/24 scale kit (#9692) from Life-Like Hobby Kits of the USA. I bought this early-1970s kit, still sealed in shrink wrap, at a military antiques show in Ottawa in late May for $10., and was delighted to find it a far larger item than expected at 23cm overall. The kit is rather good with some nice detail and little flash and almost no sink marks. The only drawback is the large raised circles for fitting the front seating and brake tubes.
The whole kit went together in two weeks. I used Tamiya and Model Master spray paint rattle cans (MM 2937 Gray Primer for the body; and TS-3 dark yellow for the wheels), and a gold ink pen for brass details. It was weathered using water-based black paint and grey powders. I added ropes and netting and poles, in addition to wooden seats and a rope pull cord for the firing mechanism. I also added metal pull rings at the end of each wheel axle.

Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897

Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897

Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897

Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897

Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897

Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897

Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897

A heavily modified Canadian artillery corps French 75 at the Canadian War Museum