Photos

Well getting there, just been working on painting the edges of the bases. Once this is done I will be going through and applying the highlights to the sand ect.

Then on with the assembly. As promised here are a few photos of me getting there:

With the cutter set to 15mm (This is just about how wide it can go)

Start slicing the wood

After a few cuts I ended up with this:

Measuring along I made several light slices at 150mm

And the resulting pile of bases:

Then applying the PVA, this is where I had to be careful as too much and I would have a bannana on my hand.

Once the sand was applied the one thing that I hoped would not happen did, the wood started to warp. A bit of quick thinking and I grabbed a couple of pots and stacked them ontop. This saved the project from going down the drain:

After leaving them for a couple of hours to be sure, I went about putting an ink through the bases. Here is what was used:

And the end result:

Well thats this round of updates for photos, stay tuned for more once more progress is made.

1 Cut down 2999 to go

Well that was last night, and I have now managed to cut all of the stained rails up. It gave me approx 3000 rails at approx 22mm (update, decided to go 2mm longer)

So onto the next part, which is painting the bases. Once they have had the colours into them and edged, then the fun will begin of assembly.

Will update in the next day or so with photos ect.

Once the fences are done then I will be working on the 6mm troops.

Fence Progress #2

Managed to get the rails stained today, this took me about an hour and a half. Also bases have been cut and sanded as well as inked.

I have started with 12' of bases, plus 4 corners.

To be on the safe side I decided to leave the rails to dry for the rest of the day and over night.

A couple of things to note though, Balsa, sand and PVA = small warping. As soon as I saw this i grabed a couple of heavy pots (Hand cream and bacterial cream) and placed them on top until the PVA had a chance to cure.

Sorted that almost disaster out.

Also leaving the bases to dry overnight.

So where does that put the project:

Rails all stained but still need cutting down to 20mm lengths
Bases cut, sanded and inked ready for paint

Next to do will be cutting all of those rails, will probably take the better part of tomorrow night. Once they have been done will work on painting the bases.

Then comes the most time consuming bit, assembling them.

Will update with some photos tomorrow night.

Total time spent on project to date: 9 Hours

Fence Progress

Before I start I would like put a small warning, this can be a little bit fiddly but patience does pay off.

So as a teaser (Apologies for the quality on the photo, shot at night and away from workstation)

The following is the prototype (don't worry the fence is straight and level)

It did take a bit of playing around with the cut sizes but after a couple attempts, I have settled on 1mm.

The sheet of balsa wood that was used:

930mm (L) x 100mm (W) x 1.5mm

Setting the cutter to 1mm and placing it at the start of the sheet. Hold the sheet gentle but firmly (If you did what I did I snapped a section of the sheet with too much pressure and it hanging on my cutting board)

Anyway using your free hand holding the cutter, run this down the length of the board.

Paying special attention to when you start the cut and when you finish the cut. The reason for this is because I found the cutter to deviate and can take a small nic out of those points. This will affect how your strips turn out.

This will take a bit of time, the most important thing is to take your time and not rush. Here is the cut.

One thing you will notice is that after you have cut all of the pieces, you are left with a rectangle piece. I wanted square pieces for the fence rails.

This part need a lot of care and patience, as if you rush it you will end up snapping heaps of the pieces. Now I did snap a few pieces and some did not slice properly.

So turning the newly cut pieces on the opposite edge I set up the cutter at the end of the board, make sure the blade is set deep enough or you won't cut right through. This is important and you wont be able to remove this fine strip afterwards.

I slowly slid the cutter along until the rail poked out the other side of the cutter, then gently grabbing the end while holding the cutter in place and with my thumb holding the rail square against the fore edge pulled it through:

After a bit of effort the pile looked a little like this:

And the mess:

You will probably notice that not all of my pieces turned out into one length. I managed to get 64 complete length's of balsa with a pile of smaller pieces. Some of these will be used for posts and spare rails.

I decided to base most of the fence, I will start out with straights and the work cross sections and corner pieces into the mix.

I went with balsa as the base.

Onto the size, each piece will be 150mm long x 15mm wide x 2.5mm thick.

Each full length rail should make a section. So with 64 pieces that works out into about 32'. More than enough for my needs.

When I build some cornfields ect I will attach these to the base.

Well that's it for tonight, tomorrow will see me stain all of those rails and cut them. Each section of rail with be cut to 20mm.

I will also start preparing the bases for the rail sections. A sheet of balsa (930x75x2.5) should give me approximately 30 bases

Stay tuned for the next update

Time for a little change

Well painting has stalled a little on the Finns, this is for a couple of reasons. First painting all that white does your head in, starting to see white..

The other is related to another project, well been talking to one of my fellow wargamers and sparked my interest back into my 6mm ACW. One thing that was really common in the ACW period was all of those snake rail fences, and one of the most disappointing things is trying to find some nice ones in 6mm

Don't get me wrong, there are fences out there but I am a fussy bugger when it comes to models and now I have started to look at buying terrain. I have looked at two Snake fences and they just don't scream buy me.

So I figure I would give it a crack to make some of my own, now a few things that spring to mind is the railings. Every material that I have looked at is just too large for the application. After chatting to my hobby supplier he showed me:

For those who are not sure what this is. It's a Master Airscrew MA4000 Balsa Stripper

Interesting I thought, and well I bought it. After understanding how it worked I went to testing it on some balsa wood. Setting the width of the cut to 1mm, I sliced a strip off a 1.5mm thick sheet. Looking at it I then sliced it on the opposite side (flipped it on its side) and repeated.

This has been the best buy for a long time, took me 20 minutes to cut the base, cut the strips to 25mm and then assembled. (Will post some photos tomorrow) Really impressed with this tool.

I have decided to reduce the size of the pieces to 20mm and sharpen the angles to get a better zigzag look to the fence.

The plan is to cut up all of the bases and apply a light coat of sand, paint them all up including grass ect then build the fence on top. The reason for this is that the fence is 3 rails high and applying sand once the wood was attached covered the first rail. Also I will be painting all of the strips before cutting them into the 20mm section and touching up the ends.

So prep time will be a bit, but once all of the prep has been done, assembly should be fast. I will be logging the progress on the blog.

So how much fence, well this I am not sure on. Enough to cover a 6'x4' table.

As with all wargamers, got more than one project on the run and its always nice to take a break from one when you are finding the task tedious.

Well onto the prep work

Little longer than expected

Well back off leave, its been a mad first week back at work. Just managed to get a chance to sit down tonight.

So what did I get done, well managed to paint up two squads of Finns, and currently working on a third squad at the moment this also includes a HMG and Mortar team in support.

Just finished the skin on them, so moving onto the next part, rifles ect. Should have these done by the end of the week, well that's the plan at least. I have purposely left the white for last.

The reason for this is I have to make sure that the wash is done right, which will lead to minimal re-highlighting of the coat. I want the look to be consistant and done in one go. After the above, that leaves me with a 4th squad, two sniper teams and a Stug.

I will be taking photos of the 4th squad as I paint them up. The reason for no photos till now I am trying to the core done before next month. '

Well that's all I had time for while I was away on leave, kept busy most of the time. Still a lot to do including:

Finishing the 3&4th Squads
2 HMG teams
1 Mortar Team
2 Sniper Teams
1 Stug

Rebase Russians to suit the Finns
Repaint a few of the Russians to suit more of a spring look
Base the Finns

So still a long journey on the WWII to go.