Posts Tagged ‘Scratch Building’

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I recently bought a few goodies at a local model

railway show and one in particular that caught my

eye was a used tower/mast in a box of spares. I am

not sure of the manufacturer but believe it could be

Marklin ? Anyway,a quick scratch built aerial was

added to the top and a few bits added to the base and

we now have a radio/aerial mast for our Germans to

guard. I also added a few coats of paint and rust in

various place. It can be used as an object marker or

just an extra bit of scenery.

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Must go to more railway shows.

For my Infinity project I have been trying to get

the feel and atmosphere to a certain whaling station

called Leith in the South Atlantic. I have micro zoomed

in on a still standing building called the, ” The Managers

house” in an attempt to carry across some of the feel of the

place. Now its not exact(I am no expert scratch builder by a long

way) and I have used artistic licence but I hope its in the style

of Leith and what I trying to bring out in the terrain ?

The 1st picture below is the original picture of the “Managers

House”. All the pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them .

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It not yet totally finished and I have just placed it on

a bit of empty terrain to check its suitability. Eventually it

will be surrounded by scrap metal. Also all the roof sections

are easily removed so the interior is playable.

One thing I have learnt is that I take my hat off to scratch

builders as the amount of patience needed to build these things

is nearly beyond me lol.

Enjoy .

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I have wanted to make a Berge Panzer for some

time and decided on a Panzer III. Why a Panzer III,

well I had a spare FOW Panzer III that never got

built for Early War so it was ideal. Most 15mm

manufacturers already make a Bergepanzer but I

wanted to scratch build one myself.

Its was actually a straight forward build. All I

had to do was build a plasticard box to sit on the chassis

and a winch frame of some sort. I added a few spare

vehicle bits which any decent vehicle recovery unit

would have. I also used a bit of model ship chain, a

model ship pulley and ship rope for the winching gear. The

three crew are from various places.

Please note if you click on a picture it will enlarge.

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Hope you like it ?

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I`m done until I build some more boards and yes

I hear you all groaning… not more boards !!!!

No my next project will be some Infinity boards so

rest easy.

Anyway back to the Normandy boards. I have added and finished

two new boards to make a total of six for the playing

area(4 x 6). The latest two have a nice river obstacle with

hump back bridge. They also contain a fixed defensive trench

line and artillery battery area. The artillery battery area and trench

line are camouflaged to stop the allied Typhoons rocketing the

hell out of place.

Please note you can click on all pictures to enlarge

and some of the pictures are quite big.

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I have added a full Panzer Lehr Division and the British 11th

Armoured Division to the board so you can see how it all feels

to play with.

Arty preparing to fire.

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Target spotted.

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View from above.

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Look out the boss is watching.

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Life in the trenches.

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Ok whos walked mud into the trench ?

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British forces prepare to enter the bocage.

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Panthers trying to deploy in bocage.

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Panzer Grenadiers moving up to join the action.

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German infantry moving up.

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Panthers stuck in a sunken lane.

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MKIV in ambush position.

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Moaning minnies at home in the thick hedgerows.

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Halftrack traffic jam plus a bit of anti air.

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Anybody bring any hedge cutters ?

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Hold on, hump back bridge.

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Lost Panzer IV.

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JagderPanzer IV`s defending the left flank.

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Thankfully the sun came out and allowed me to take the

photos above.

I will post up a battle report soon to see how bocage fighting

pans out 🙂

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Click on the picky to enlarge.

Sometimes you just have too many things on the go

and I have reached overload, arrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhh.

On the work table as I type:

1. Laser cut 28mm radar built but not painted.
2. 3 Infinty Fusiliers about to be glued.
3. Saito Togan 28mm Infinity built but not painted.
4. 15mm Bergepanzer III, scratch built & half painted by airbrush.
5. 15mm Opel Blitz truck built but not painted.
6. SDkfz 251 built but not painted.
7. Hawker Typhoon 15mm built and 85% painted.
8. 2 large Normandy terrain boards 50% completed & painted.
9. 2 mini diorama boards just started(28mm).
10. 1 mini diorama board just started(15mm).
11. Large Normandy town house 75% completed and painted.
12. 3 Order Sgts Infinity 28mm 80% complete.
13. 5 ornate Scibor minatures bases attempting to paint to
a professional standard(95% complete).
14. 3 Chaos dogs 28mm 90% complete with no master as yet.
15. Large Infinity terrain boards times 6(metre square each) at the
drawing and planning stage.
16. 40k Ultramarine dreadnought.

On top of this like everybody else I have a large box of future

projects as well. Which future that will be is anybody’s guess lol

So I`m going to have a painting\building fest and put a huge dent

in my backlog. February was a lean month by my standards and my

blog as been a bit quiet, but fear not avid readers.

March is going to be crazy, hang on in there as I break the 100

posts mark.

I seem to have slowed down as Christmas is crept up

and concentrated on the small bits of detail needed to

bring the battlefield to life.

More walls(you can never have enough walls), a water trough

and pump by Hovels, a well from Hovels, a barn from a cannot

honestly remember(I buy things and they sit in boxes for ages

and then I remember them but for the love of.. I cant think

where I bought them from !) and some crafty animal water troughs/

feeders which have come from a new spring of battlefield goodies

I discovered recently. The spring of goodies is the world of miniature

dolls houses and farm equipment and its huge and full of 15mm/20mm size

objects 🙂

Anyway I bought a couple of cow looking troughs and stuck them to

side of the building and a wall and filled them with Scenic realistic

water(I tried E-Z water 1st but was not happy with the result). Add on

some foliage and Bobs your uncle. I also scratch built a tap on the side

of the barn to feed the trough.

None of its actually finished yet but nearly there.

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Finally just got to say to everybody, “Have a wonderful

Christams and I hope Santa brings everything you want“. Failing

that do what I do every year,put your own presents under the

tree lol

Been skip diving again and found a left over metallic

tile(I think that’s what it is ?). To be exact I pulled

out a tile and half.

Anyway as soon as I saw it going spare my mind just

shouted 40k modelling possibilities. So initially I

thought Space Hulk anything as the tiles are almost

perfect size for a 28mm figure. Cargo bay as one whole

tile ? Cut it up into corridor sections? Use it as sci-fi

walling or just individual figure bases ?

Anybody got any other cunning plans of what to use it for ?

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The metal is very thin so each bit is very flexible,

which is great for kit bashing 🙂

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First time I have done a tutorial so go easy on

me 🙂 This is an simple tutorial on how to

assemble the Najewitz Modellbau Normandy

farmstead,add a few extras and paint it all up.

Just got to mention before I start that my

inspiration for this was a thread by somebody

called “raphaeloudsen” on DakkaDakka

who for reasons unknown is un-contactable and thus

I was never able to ask him how he did his masterful

work which was a lot better than mine.

For 45 euros you get a house, a barn , a sort of a hay

loft, an out building , a large gate with roof and a

large section of walls. You basically get a bag of bits

that look like this.

Click on a picture to enlarge it.

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Step 1: As with all resin kits it has small amounts of

flash on it that will need to be removed either with a

sharp craft knife or small file. Once its all removed I

washed all the bits in warm water to ensure it was clean

for assembly.

Step 2 : Before gluing I cut out floors(made from balsa)

to go inside the buildings. This way you can have two

floors for figures inside the buildings.

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Step 3 : I now glued the buildings together using small

G type clamps. When the glue was dry I glued in supports

for balsa wood floors. I used a mixture of balsa and

plasticard(its hidden so nobody will see). Once dry

glue in your floors(leave top floor un-glued). Fill

any gaps in the buildings with green stuff.

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Step 4 : I wanted the farm not to be fixed to my

terrain board for storage and so that it could be

moved around. To solve this I decided to fix the

entire farm to a plasticard sheet. The idea was to

fix the walls and gates permanently but leave the

buildings free. I used a standard 29.5cm x 20.5 cm

white plasticard sheet and about 3cm depth. Before

any painting I marked out where my buildings were

going to go on the plasticard and especially

important how the walls would all connect. One

small problem I noticed was that the gate is too

small for a tank so I left an opening in the wall

system for tank access. At this point you should

have glued all your walls together(they come in two

parts) and cut them to size to fit the base.

Step 5 : Painting. I used a mixture of GW , Vallejo and

P3 paints but anything will do. The colours of Normandy

buildings vary so don’t get the idea that my colour scheme

is the only one you can do.

The list below is just for walls, not the roof, windows

and doors. I tried not dry brush over the same areas thus

giving different colours across the brick work.

1. I base coated all the buildings and walls GW Chaos black.
2. I dry brushed everything Vallejo Flat Earth.
3. I dry brushed everything GW Dawnstone.
4. I dry brushed everything Vallejo Stone Grey 884.
5. I dry brushed everything P3 Troll blood in wavy lines.
6. I dry brushed everything GW Steel Legion in wavy lines.
7. The next painting stage consists of picking out bricks. Basically
paint a couple of bricks here and there is a random method. So first
up I used Vallejo Red Leather.
8. GW Tallarn Sand brick picking.
9. GW Mechanicus Standard Grey brick picking.
10. GW Gothor Brown brick picking.
11. GW Agrax Earthshade wash over all the brickwork.

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Doors: Wooden doors and shutters were painted GW Loren Forest.
Window Frames : GW Bleached Bone.
Window and Doors Sills : GW Baneblade Brown.
Drain Pipes : P3 Traitor Green.
Other Doors : Vallejo Flat Brown.
Doors, shutters & sills GW Agrax wash.

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Roof: GW Aldorf Blue dry brush.
Roof: GW Agrax Earth shade wash.

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Step 6 : I now glued the finished walls to the plasticard

base in the carefully marked out locations. I also glued the

gate in place.
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Once dry I used light household filler to

build up the ground to the walls and normal base scatter/grit

for the farm yard floor. The farm floor was drybrushed Flat Brown,

then Baneblade brown and finally Dawnstone.

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The wooden fence at

the rear was scratch built from balsa. The hay is made from

door mat bristles.

Nearly forgot I used green stuff to fill in any gaps in the

walls and then painted as described earlier.

Step 7 : Foliage. I now added foliage as desired . Most of

the foliage is from Treemendus and is stuck on with PVA glue.

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Step 8: The fascia boards(roof edging) were made from

Plasticard right angle and painted Loren Forest. Simply stick

on with glue. I also played with the idea on using artist

foil on the top of the roof but never got round to it. It

looks just like lead when painted up.

Step 9 : The telegraph poles are from Foreground(concrete

style) and were stuck down with filler and blended in with

foliage. They were painted black and then dry brushed Dawn

stone. The telephone wire is Oasis galvanised hobby wire

(30G x 7) and is cunningly attached. There is a scratch

built joint on the side of the farm house and the wire is

not glued to the telegraph pole but has enough tension to

easily be clipped to the pole. In the picture below the

wire is glued to the house wall(right red arrow) and goes

through the joint and then rests on the telegraph

pole(left red arrow) looking for all intense

purposes to be joined.

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I used the same method at

each end of the plasticard base so you can lift the

plasticard base up and you don’t rip the poles out.

In the picture below the red arrows are where the wire

joins. Its not glued in place but just resting. Its glued

at the poles left and right of the arrows so the plasticard

can be easily lifted up.

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The wire

basically has enough spring and tension to hold itself up.

Where the wire is attached I used good old super glue.

I`m sure there are a few bits left out so feel free to

ask any questions and I hope it helps 🙂

Slow progress on the boards but progress is

being made.

Ok so next thing I did was mark up with a big

red felt tip pen a general outline of where I

wanted everything to go.

Click on a picture to enlarge:

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As you can see I had some help from a passing

Panther tank.

Then I started scraping out the styrene road

route using a screwdriver and sharp knife. I

also put down a tile size layer of styrene to

help build up the scenery.

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The tile layer is built up using more tile

where required and is stuck down again with PVA glue.

The cocktail sticks are used to temporarily hold things

in place while the glue sticks.

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The next part of the plan is the foundation for

the bocage hedges. As far as I`m concerned bocage

has just as much tree in it as hedge. So I`m using

twigs as trees and sticking them with glue into the

hedge lines. They will help the horsehair bocage stay

in place.

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Some of you have probably noticed that my boards

have a permanent look about them. The plan is to make

the terrain 50/50(half fixed/half moveable).

Anyway that’s it so far.

I have been making small bits of terrain for some time and recently

a lot of Western front WW2 type stuff. Unfortunately I have an

Eastern front type terrain board which has been disguised , very

badly as of late to look like Normandy 😦

So without a further thought of what I`m letting myself in for

and inspired by Arkiegamer ,its off to the shed and out with

power tools 🙂

Now I started this project a couple of months back and to be honest

I have been up to other things but in an attempt to get myself moving

its time to post up my progress and get on with it.

Stage one was to build the standard boards which I already use. By

keeping to the same sizes they will fit perfectly in my terrain storage

tower(sounds impressive but wait for the picture).

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My terrain boards are 610 x 610 in size, which fit nicely on most tables

and are not to bulky to move around as a permanent set up board is out

of the question.

I basically cut out four battens of strip wood(2cm x 2cm) and sand off any rough

edges.
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These are then glued down onto a 6mm MDF board using industrial PVA

glue.
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Once dry a couple of small screws are screwed through the MDF from underneath

the board into the battens to add to rigidity.

Next up I use styrene boards which just happen to be the exact height of

the battens. Cut out the desired shape with a saw(best tool for cutting large

bits of styrene neatly) and glue down again

with industrial PVA, use plenty. Please note by industrial PVA glue I mean the

stuff builders use for sticking just about anything . You can also use wood glue for

sticking down the wood if you choose.

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Now we have the basic battle board all ready for whatever you plan to do.

For my project I made four of these basic boards.

Just as a note in case any body is interested, this is what the basic costs

are but a large amount of the stuff I already had in stock. The prices quoted

make at least four boards.

1. 6mm sheets of MDF x 2 £10.
2. 2×2 lengths of strip wood x 2 £12.
3. PVA glue big pot £8.
4. Styrene in packs of 5 £14.
5. Small screw pack £3.

So £47 so far or $80 dollars for you guys over the pond 🙂

Compared to GW boards x 6 at £170 or $289 and I will have lots

of kit left over for more boards.