Uchida Marvy

Most modelers know, by now, that there are a lot of products, useful to our hobbies that are found outside the realm of hobby shops. In a recent issue of Fine Scale Modeler magazine, a reader sent in a inclusion to their monthly Hints and Tips section. It was for a paper punch he found at a craft store that punches out leaves. He said that this was a great tool to make your own leaves for dioramas.

After reading this, I went to my local Michaels store and found the punch that he was talking about. It was in the section that sold materials for doing stamping and scrap-booking. Actually, there were two sizes of these punches. I opted for the smaller of the two.

This punch will knock out maple leaves that are a ½” long and 3/8” wide. Suitable for larger scale dioramas. Several manufacturers are putting out armor kits in 1/16th scale and I have several kits that are in 1/9th scale by Esci, like their Kubelwagen and Kettenkraftrad. Making leaves for either camouflage cover or ground cover with this punch is easy as pie. You just insert paper, in leaf color shades, into the slot…press the button and there you have your leaf. It was suggested, by the fellow in Fine Scale Modeler that you could even use a real leaf to punch these smaller leaves out of.

I just thought, that if you don’t regularly read Fine Scale, fellow armor modelers should know about this inexpensive little gem.