Fire base Buddha

Progress on Fire Base Buddha, I sketched out the outline of the base on a piece of white card. With the sleeping Buddha positioned in the middle, I've done minimal research into Fire bases, just a quick search on google images and a look at the cover of the Osprey book on Special Forces camps, and what I remember of watching the Green Berets, in-fact thinking about the title of this post, it should be Camp Buddha really, ho hum.

I've done the cheap purchase, getting the Buddha for 99p. The next purchase come in a bit more expensive, £270 for some really bad ass polystyrene, it did however come rapped around a new Bosch dish washer.

But back to the polystyrene, it is very very dense and can be carved with a sharp blade. Great stuff for building terrain with, some of the polystyrene was just the right shape to use as the walls and the was lots left over for the bunkers and the central rock outcrop which the buddha will sit on.

Right off to get some free coffee sticks from the local coffee shops.

TTFN

Airhead

NW Europe in 10mm scale

More output on the 10mm card building front, the  above buildings from the Wordsworth modelrailway site The buildings on the base in the front left foreground of the 2 pictures above are finished the other buildings in the pictures are just in the basic state with no additional detailing or painting. The boiler house above will become part of the colliery when completed. The smaller building will be very useful for filling out the villages and towns, and make them that much more realistic. Next up back yards and washing lines to go with the terraced houses.

TTFN

Airhead

99p Buddha

Another trip to the high end of the retail delights of Birmingham (99p shop in the arcade above New street station) and I found this Buddha for the princely sum of 99p. Its intended as a garden decoration. At this price it was to good to miss, and as I have my 15mm scale special forces camp for Vietnam on the to do list for this year. I thought it would make a great centre piece for the camp. As for the rest of the camp I've not really thought that much about it yet.

Once I got it home and examined it closer it was apparent it was cast from plaster. My idea was that the statue would be at an angle after subsidence had undermined it. I cut some lines into the figure with a hacksaw blade to represent the blocks of stone which make up the figure. The middle picture above shows the figure after the lower right section was cut away, with 3 Peter Pig US Vietnam infantry passing in front to give an idea of its size.

The first picture above shows the figure after its  been covered in PVA glue and sand and stuck to a small circular MDF base from War bases.

So next I better start to think about the layout of the SF camp, nothing to big, about 12" across at the most. On other fronts more progress on the 10mm card buildings and also a bit of a change of course from my usual areas of interests, but this project will remain under wraps till later in the year. 

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