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  #11  
Old 02-16-2016, 02:22 PM
Thumb Dog Thumb Dog is offline
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It’s been a few days since my last entry here, as I have been busy building the remaining Construcciones Costales paper models. After finishing the series, I have the feeling that I was not so much a Beta tester, but rather the Alpha tester, as I can’t imagine that the designer ever built one of his own works. Poorly measured parts, tabs where they shouldn’t be, no tabs where they should be, bad color matchup. However, if you can work your way through the problems, they build into interesting and colorful 80 year old models. And after all, isn’t that what vintage paper modeling is all about?

Number 8 in the series is Emisora de Campana, or Campaign Radio Station. (I apologize for not including the appropriate accents in the Spanish words. I know they are in my computer, I just can’t find them right now). The station is operated by a lone signalman. He certainly keeps a tidy bivouac, he may have even starched his tent. The quickest build in the Instrumentos de Guerra series, Mr. Sparks and his equipment sit on a mat board base with only a handful of mirrored parts this time. As should have become obvious by now, these models are not designed to a consistent scale. Similar to the early plastic models that were designed to fit into a standard sized box, these models are drawn to fit on a standard 32 X 23 cm page. More to come.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog
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Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-025.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-027.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-costales-8.jpg  
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  #12  
Old 02-16-2016, 04:01 PM
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You definitely do these up proud
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  #13  
Old 02-17-2016, 02:31 PM
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Thanks, Vermin King.

The Construcciones Costales series also includes a pair of tracked vehicles, the Number 1 Tanque and the Number 7 Auto Oruga, or Caterpillar Track Truck. The tank does not represent a specific type of vehicle, but it looks to be a two-man light to medium tank, with both a machine gun and cannon. Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong, but nearly all of the more sophisticated war fighting material used in the Spanish Civil War came from outside sources, as depression-era Spain did not have a vigorous automotive or modern defense infrastructure. Also, it seems that neither the Nationalists nor the Republicans had much money in their war chests, so many of the aircraft and vehicles used in the fighting were worn-out cast-offs from richer and more powerful nations. The gunrunning on both sides of the war must have been a very lucrative business.

The half-track truck is a fair representation of a typical truck of the time. The subtitle on the Auto Oruga sheet is, “para Transportes de Artilleria.” Too bad J. Galvez didn’t draw a field gun to be carried on the bed of the truck, but the Tanque does fit, and here it is, a precarious load at best. The military worth of tracked vehicles was still largely unproven at the time, as it would take the Blitzkrieg to alert the world to the true terror of fast moving, armed and armored tracked vehicles. It’s interesting that the still untested half-track was included in the Costales Dozen.

The usual set of problems presented themselves during construction of the models. One glaring error is found on the hood of the truck, where the green camo does not get a chance to meet up with similar green camo on the other side the hood. It’s this type of oversight the leads me to believe Galvez stopped caring long before the project was finished. I particularly like Galvez’s colorful pen and ink technique used throughout the series of models, but his engineering is lousy. In order to do my best with these models, I apply my metalworking technique, namely, continue banging on the thing until it looks the way you want it to look.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog
Attached Thumbnails
Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-makeup-shots-005.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-makeup-shots-006.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-costales-1.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-030.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-032.jpg  

Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-035.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-makeup-shots-003.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-costales-7.jpg  
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  #14  
Old 02-17-2016, 03:54 PM
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Printing off that extra strip for where the hood joins the cab is a nice touch.
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  #15  
Old 02-17-2016, 04:04 PM
sparky00 sparky00 is offline
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Excellent models, and a wonderful slice of history too. I profess near-total ignorance of most things nautical. What would be the difference between a conning tower and a flying bridge?
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  #16  
Old 02-17-2016, 04:59 PM
Thumb Dog Thumb Dog is offline
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Hi, VK and sparky00,

VK, you noticed that, eh? It's one of the mirrored "metal" strips from the truck bed. It needed to be done.

sparky00, it's my understanding that a conning tower on a battleship or other ship of the line is a heavily armored "safe room" or "citadel" from which a fighting ship can be commanded during battle. It's a safer place to be rather than the more vulnerable bridge.

As for a flying bridge, most boats and ships over 30-35 feet will often have two or more areas from which to control the boat...a wheel, throttle, etc. A flying bridge is usually an open-air control center on the boat's highest accessible deck. A quick look at Google Images will more clearly explain the differences than I can here. Thanks for your comments and question.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog
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  #17  
Old 02-18-2016, 05:27 PM
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A pair of wheeled vehicles are up next, the Number 5 Carros Blindados, or Armored Car, and the Number 6 Ambulancia Sanitaria, or Sanitary Ambulance.

The model of the armored car is an example of the type of improvised weaponry used by both sides during the Spanish Civil War. The car is made up of flat panels that were simple to design and construct. Notice I didn’t say armored panels, as they were more likely made from boiler plate, a more readily available and easier to handle material. Of riveted construction, no sophisticated welding was used in these homemade ironclads. Most likely built on a foreign truck chassis that was not designed to bear the weight of the plate, breakdowns would have been a constant headache, with parts procurement a nightmare. The top-heavy car sports a turret armed with a single machine gun. Vision ports for the driver are at a minimum and I hope there are two or three spare wheel and tire sets inside the box, as they will be needed in short order. Built by the score in secret garages throughout Spain, this type of one-off armored car has become an icon of the Spanish Civil War.

From the hell of a pillbox on wheels, let’s step into the safer confines of the Ambulancia Sanitaria. Built on the chassis of a 1930’s Fiat Balilla, (it says so right on the grill), the ambulance offers a little peace in our world of malevolent models. A small and light Italian car, the Balilla would have needed a stretched chassis to make an ambulance practical. The model shown in the photograph is a bit different than the one on the uncut sheet. In an early attempt at image manipulation, I duped the Red Cross from the roof and placed one on each side of the ambulance making for a more colorful car. This model is the only one of the Costales Dozen that I recognize as a vehicle based on an existing prototype. All the other models in the set are but interesting creations from the artist’s mind.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog
Attached Thumbnails
Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-020.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-043.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-049.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-cropped-balilla.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-costales-5.jpg  

Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-costales-6.jpg  
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  #18  
Old 02-19-2016, 09:43 AM
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Enjoying the narrative.
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  #19  
Old 02-19-2016, 02:11 PM
Thumb Dog Thumb Dog is offline
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It’s back into the air, with the final two models from the 1938 Construcciones Costales Instrumentos de Guerra series, the Number 4, Un Trimotor and the Number 3, Zepelin.

The trimotor bomber may seem like an unlikely candidate for this group of models, but fascist Italy did supply the Nationalist forces with several low-winged Savoia-Marchetti bombers. The trimotor design was a stopgap measure to the problem of low-powered engines. Ideally, these medium bombers should have been equipped with only two engines, eliminating the third in the nose of the aircraft. The central engine, being just ahead of the cockpit was noisy, smelly, caused unneeded vibration and it obstructed the forward view. But it was necessary to increase the payload enough to make the machine a practical bomber. The model’s row of passenger windows was not usual on a wartime bomber, but as we have seen, the paper models in this series seemed to pay little attention to real world prototypes. This model was built from a poor scan, but I was lucky to find it at all. Original prints of these and other related models are for sale on the internet, and their prices are too dear for me. The internet sellers usually keep the images small and watermarked, so if a collector finds a large, clean copy, he had better pounce on it, good scan or bad.

The last model to be reviewed here is the Zepelin, or more correctly, Zeppelin. As a lover of all things dirigible, I’m pretty sure the Spanish Nationalists did not operate a six-engined rigid airship during the war. The model’s cross section has seven sides, unique among the big rigids, real or imagined. As usual, mirrored parts were necessary for the fins and propeller discs. The finished model is tricky to display, as it looks silly lying on its side on the shelf, hence the simple stand inserted in the model’s center of gravity. The flying Zepelin really caps off the collection, as the group photograph shows.

For those interested in the many foreign aircraft used in the Spanish Civil War, I highly recommend visiting Spanish Civil War Aircraft for an illustrated list of the remarkable collection of planes involved in the conflict.

I had been looking for the entire collection of Costales models for some time, and finally stumbled onto a set of all 12 in flickr. For some reason, I can’t seem to go directly to the poster’s account, so here is the location of the first image in his Costales collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/kubink...in/dateposted/ Look below the large image to the thumbnails and go right for the rest of the Costales scans. Go left a couple of frames for a vintage Russian version of a Junkers F 13 paper model. While a few of the scans are not of the best quality, they are a place to start in your search for better images.

That’s all for this particular series of Spanish Civil War paper models, but there will be more to follow. Keep in mind their propaganda value, especially to the young mind. Children, adolescents and adults would have all been quite aware of the war, seeing marching uniformed troops, armored cars in the streets and warplanes in the air. Family members would have left home to fight the war. The publication of models such as these would have given the young mind a sense of participation and loyalty in the cause. I don’t believe the models were actually issued by the respective governments during the war, but remember, this was a war between fascists and communists, and support of a free press was not at the top of the list on either side. These paper models may not have been commissioned or authorized by the warring factions, but if they had displeased the local ruling powers, publication would have been halted, one way or another.

Here is the list of the models in this series, in English.
#1 Tank
#2 Battleship
#3 Zeppelin
#4 Trimotor
#5 Armored Car
#6 Ambulance
#7 Half-Track Truck
#8 Radio Station
#9 Fighter
#10 Submarine
#11 Airport
#12 Coastal Gun

Time to go build some more vintage models.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog
Attached Thumbnails
Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-039.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-040.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-017.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-019.jpg   Paper Models as Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War-group-costales-1-013-copy-2-.jpg  

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  #20  
Old 02-19-2016, 03:57 PM
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Vermin_King Vermin_King is offline
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Very nice collection. Who says you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
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models, paper, war, model, civil, spanish, simple, series, flags, thread, number, red, propaganda, flag, galvez, show, shown, granada, built, 2-dimentional, nationalists, drawing, pattern, wars, symbols

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