The Bell (Die Glocke)

The Bell (Die Glocke) is the supposed anti-gravity Nazi war machine. It has been written about for a few years now and has appeared many times in pop culture - everything from Doctor Who novels to Computer games and movies.

It has been mentioned in a few documentaries concerning Nazi UFO's but the validity of its existence is still very much in doubt. Some clips of these documentaries can be found here on YouTube.

The Bell is believed by some to be a superweapon, an anti gravity machine, a new source of power, a time machine and some sort of Occult object.

It was supposedly built in an underground research laboratory near the Wenceslaus mine which is also near a structure called The Henge where The Bell was tested.

If you do a Image Search of Die Glocke you will find that it has been depicted many times in various forms like an otherworldly Sci Fi pod or a simple plain streamlined object. For my version I decided to read the description that was written by the Polish author Igor Witkowski and focused on making it look like a real 1940's machine. As well as adding panels, air intakes and exhausts I also added elements derived from V1 and V2 rockets as well as aircraft to help give it a 'real world' feel.

The Bell kits have been on sale for a while now on my Yeoman Models ebay page, but they are now on Shapeways at 1:144, 1:100 (suitable for Flames of War) and 28mm/32mm scales.

The ones on sale on eBay are resin garage kits and are in two parts. The lower ring and the upper bell shaped hull. The Shapeways model is a little different. It's the full Bell but the grill on the bottom has to be separated from a sprue and glued inside the hole in the base.

A few months back I was commissioned to paint a 1:100 and a 28mm/32mm Glocke. The 1:100 in a copper colour and the larger 28mm/32mm one is steel. Below are two GIFs sowing the 360 rotation of the final pieces.

I added some rust to the steel one with the use of some textured paint and a dry rust pigment. Plenty of verdigris was added to the copper one by use of the verdigris paint from Games Workshop. Dark Dry pigment were also added to the three exhausts. Some of my Horten Ho 229 decals were added to the model for extra detail.

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