The American Civil War is a study in contrasts and similarities. Historians make a living comparing and contrasting both sides from every angle conceivable. Commanders, battlefields, tactics, and weapons are the usual subjects and this book focuses on the Sharpshooting arena. Published by our friends at Osprey Publishers, Union Sharpshooter VS Confederate Sharpshooters is authored by Gary Yee. Period photos, drawings, and maps convey a study in comparison and contrast in three battles where sharpshooters played an important role. A brief introduction opens the book, followed by chapters that cover the opposing sides, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Battery Wagner, an analysis, and the aftermath. A select bibliography and index complete the narrative. The book is printed on heavy stock paper and tells its story on 80 pages.

John Vojtech, the genius behind UMM-USA, gave us a nice collection of tools at the Chattanooga National Convention this year. I have the privilege of reviewing a handful of them and here’s #1.

If you’ve never used a UMM product (and why not?), they are exquisitely manufactured. This particular tool is an extremely narrow (0.8mm/0.031 inch) chisel mounted in a sturdy, contoured plastic handle. The blade tip is a grooved, wedge shape.

What’s it good for? Removing minute amounts of material in a controlled fashion – ejector pins, molded on detail that’s to be replaced, flash removal, scribing detail into small parts, etc. I have been attempting to do this with an X-Acto knife all along, now that I have this tool I can actually maneuver the cutting surface into the immediate area rather than trying to cut at multiple angles and clean up the resulting carnage <g>.

So, before we get into the specifics of the book. Here is a little about the author and illustrator. Dr Nic fields is the author of this publication and many others so he is not a stranger to the osprey family or to my memory. He’s a veteran of the Royal Marines, biochemist and historian so I guess you could say a jack of all trades. He does a lot of his research writing and editorials freelance.

Peter Dennis is another star contributor of the Osprey book family and is a graduate of the Liverpool art college. He’s has illustrated hundreds of books and I have quite a few examples of them , a sharp eye for accuracy and consistency your not going to find a bigger name than Pete when it comes to the historical art community.

Here we breakdown the contents of the book.

This book illustrates how to liven pre-painted toy-like train kits by painting and adding weathering such as dust, dirt, grime, and other dirt effects. The book also shows how to create worn effects like rust, chipping, worn wood, spilled fuel, and burn damage. Various modeling techniques are illustrated with step-by-step photos of paints and other products to apply weathering and wear effects to train cars.

Example work of five different modelers are included:

• Ovidiu Cupse
• Graziano Ghetti
• Federico Emanuel Martinez
• Déak Róbert
• Mig Jiménez

The book has 14 chapters 8 to 14 pages long, each illustrating a different train car or diorama setting and how various weathering effects are achieved:

I am 57 and as I write this and like many I have mourned and am mourning the demise of hobby paints thanks to Rustoleum. I remember many good paint lines that have come and gone and many due to consolidation under Testors and later Rustoleum, Names like Model Master, Testors, Floquil, Polly S and Pactra to name some. I am more of an Enamel and Lacquer based paint user than acrylic; but have also done my fair of painting with acrylics. There are a lot of other paints available – Gunze Sanyo, Tamiya, AK Interactive, Mig, and Vallejo, but like most modelers I am a creature of habit and change is hard. So, as I have watched a multitude of railroad, naval and now military colors go away, and am faced with change. I jumped at an opportunity to try a new line of paint that has more bite than standard acrylics.