Painting Bridges

Finished bridges in green livery, for some bits of bright blue plastic that were destined for a landfill site they haven't turned out to badly. I've left the road surfaces black for the present, once I embark on my road building program I'll probable re-paint the surfaces to match up with road surface I settle on.

TTFN

Airhead

Building bridges

Always on the lookout for useful items which I can utilize for my terrain projects. I spotted two garish blue plastic bridges on a child's railway set which we where throwing out. They reminded me of pictures I had seen of bridges from the low countries in WW1 & WW2 and the size looked close to 10mm scale which I'm using for my early WW1 forces and WW2 blitz period forces.

The bridge was much to wide, so I cut out the central section and re-glued the left & right parts back under the central section. I also removed the molded on hinges. The bottom picture shows a WW1 British trooper in 10mm scale to show the size.

TTFN

Airhead

We have lift off

Two pictures showing the islands with most of their Sand and grit applied, the bottom image shows some of the string I used for creepers. The top of each island was covered in Mod Rock to give the look of over hanging turf with the rock eroded from underneath it. If you have never come across ModRock you should check it out for terrain modeling. Its basically gauze bandage impregnated with plaster of paris, great for creating soft contours. The top picture shows the islands drying out.

TTFN

Airhead

Free buildings for 10mm NW Europe

While looking for card buildings to use with my 10mm terrain for NW Europe in WW1&2 I came across this great site.  00/HO scale card buildings for railway modelling. British buildings, but used in combination with the GHQ models micro terrain buildings for the low countries will give a good cross section of buildings.  All you need to do is scale up the GHQ stuff and scale down the Wordsworth kits.

The top picture shows a small yard created from some of the Wordsworth track side buildings. As a work yard to be part of my Colliery. The buildings were mounted onto a sheet of cobbles and then mounted onto art board. The picture below shows the buildings as they were down loaded. One tip, its a good idea to study the picture of the building on the down load button as the is no picture on the down loaded sheet. All sheets down load as RAR compressed files.

More to follow on this subject soon.

TTFN

Airhead

Finished slag heaps

I've finished painting and flocking the 3 slag heaps and the coal bunkers. The slag heaps have a grey finish to them, and the coal in the bunkers is a darker grey to black. Not very obvious from the rubbish pictures I'm afraid. So this part of my WW1 terrain is finished, as with all my terrain I try to make it multi period friendly. The coal bunkers will work well in my 15mm scale north/east African port, as coal bunkers for shipping.

The next stage will be to build some suitable buildings for the colliery, I've already earmarked a couple of 25mm scale waggon wheels that will work well for the winding house. Also found some more great free card building. But more on this next time.

TTFN

Airhead

Slag heaps part 2

Progress on the slag heaps and coal stores. After finishing sculpting the polystyrene heaps, I stuck them to old CD's to give them a firm base, (not to self) Don't use UHU glue, the bottoms started to melt. Got away with it this time, then give them a coat of PVA glue, and scatter on sand and some small bits of grit and wood scraps.

The coal heaps were then stuck to art board bases and had retaining walls built from coffee sticks. They were then covered with some sharp grit. I think this grit was originally bought for the daughters cactus fascination. It gives a good impression of coal at 10mm scale. The 10mm BEF cavalry trooper gives an idea of the size of the heaps.

TTFN

Airhead

Slag heaps

I've made a start on some slag heaps in 10mm scale to use with my early WW1 set up, in particular for the fighting around Mons in Belgium. The have been a number of articles in resent issues of Wargames Illustrated 303 - 304, Some great work by the "Like a stone wall" group of gamers in 28mm. I'll be borrowing some of their ideas for the great vignettes they have created, but in 10mm scale.

One very useful purchase I made to help in the construction of the heaps was a set of snap off blade craft knifes from the fine emporium of quality merchandise, Pound Land. 8 knifes for a £1, the quality might be not the best but for 12.5p each what do you expect.

I have found the secret to success for me when shaping polystyrene is the use a sawing motion when cutting with the knife blade extended to full length. The three pictures above show the heaps with some 10mm scal card buildings to give an idea of how big they are. The four smaller heaps will be for the coal heaps.

Back with more latter in the week, TTFN.

Airhead