Coastal Battery stage 4

Progress on the coastal battery, the bottom picture shows the first of the three types of paint I use on my ground work (cheep match pots from home base), the top picture shows the fortifications with camouflage applied to the concrete superstructure of the bunker. Just needs some more dry brushing and some flock on the ground and it will be ready to throw back the enemy from the shores of the motherland. Next on the list will be some smaller supporting HMG bunkers and mortar pits to support the big guns. TTFN

Ship shape

First I must apologies for the rubbish pictures, taken in a rush on Friday morning before work. Found this ship in Poundland for yes just £1. I have plans for building a 15mm scale landing force with landing craft, storm boats and supporting motor torpedo type boats, with some sort of tramp steamer type civilian transport ship. The idea is that the ships will be generic and will be usable for Allied or Axis forces by just changing flags and funnels on the ships. Top picture shows the graphics on the pack, the are several different types of ships, the next one shows all the items striped from the ship. The bottom picture shows the ship hull next to an Airfix pontoon from their Bailey bridge set which will be used to create a landing barge. The is also a 15mm Peter Pig figure on the hull to show scale. So for just one pound I have got a ready to go hull.

Coastal Battery stage 3

Steady progress on the coastal gun battery, pictures showing the battery with the roof on and also the application of the filler to build up the ground level. I've used a water bottle cap for the observation post on the roof of the battery. Got lots of these in my stock pile of bits and bobs and have been planing to use them for this type of project for ages. So nice to final get one into a live project. Other shots show the pva and sand after application. TTFN

Coastal Battery stage 2

I've started to fit the bits together for the coastal battery. The pictures show the construction of the gun turret and how the guns can be traversed from left to right, and also illustrates how the two cardboard tubes work inside each other. Two stones from the back garden are used on both side of the bunker and in filled with filler. More updates to follow.

3mm fall of shot markers

A post on my experimentation in the smaller end of the scale world, I'm looking at creating some fall of shot markers for my intended forces in 3/2mm scale. In a £1.99 packet of pipe cleaners, you get about 75 per pack, I found them in a traditional old tobacconist shop in Birmingham, I have seen some in Hobby craft but they did not look to me like the old traditional pip cleaners I remember my Grandfather using. More like mini toilet brushes. the ones I found have the nice uneven texture, they do come in a number of colours, some off white other more pure white. The top picture has a selection of some of my reference picture grouped together, the bottom 2 show a test explosion, no base work or painting just the bare pipe cleaners, using about 4-5 to create this effect, will experiment further with painting and glue combinations. double click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Coastal gun battery

So here we have all the bits of the gun battery put together, nothing stuck together yet, so things may change a bit in the final version. The top two pictures show the bunker with the roof of, exposing the workings of the turret, the key thing is to find 2 cardboard tubes that slip into each other, quite close fitting is the best. This will allow the guns to traverse left to right once the roof is glued into position securing the outer tube and leaving the inner one with the guns glued in position free to rotate.

WIP "Can you guess what it is yet"

First photo of my next project, most of the main elements are here. The two big tubes are a bit of a red herring, only about 40mm in length will be used in the final construction. Just to give you all a bit of a hand, should you need it, check out the link. Some great photos there.

Till next time.