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.

Time for a break...well sort of

Taking a week off work, and won't have access to the net. So no updates to the blog until I get back.

It doesn't mean I won't be working on something though. As were only going back to Kim's parents for a week I decided to take my hobby with me.

So what will I be looking at:

* Helping out Craig with his 6mm Austrians for Lasalle
* Winter War Finns - Got the StuG done, but will be concentrating on the troops first
* 28mm Moderns - Just got some touchups to do, and final details to add to them
* Aeronef - My Xmas pressie arrived from Brigade so will be taking this with me as well (Will post more on this upon the return)

So thats me signing off for a week, see you when I get back

Russell

It's a field of white

Well managed to get all of the Finns undercoated on Monday, the army consists of the following:

Platoon HQ (4 figs)
4 Rifle Squads (9 figs per squad)
2 HMG Teams (With extra crew) (6 figs per gun)
1 Mortar Team (with extra crew) (7 figs)
2 Sniper Teams (2 figs per team)

So thats a total of 63 figs ready to go, will look at assembling the Stug IIIG to support them (FAA Model)

Time to start a test figure, will be sure to get some photos on the blog once the fig is done.

Winter War Finns

Well I got side tracked from the Napoleonics, and decided to start the prep work on the Finns. As one of the members at the club is keen to have a game of Rules of Engagement.

So I now have two squads and the HQ undercoated, with 2 more squads ready for an undercoat (If if would just stop raining)

So with two days off, should be able to get the remaining Finns undercoated ready for painting.

Will also do the last few bases with sand for Lasalle.

So the plans for the Finns, one thing that struck me was when I bought them it didn't click that the whole uniform is practically white. A stupid moment there. White is one of those colours I am sure a lot of gamers have problems with.

So I figure that since a lot of gamers struggle I would track my progress here on the blog, and I hope that this helps you.

Also I will be rebasing the Russians, and changing some of the uniform colours as well to match more of a late winter, early spring.

One I have made some progress on the Finns, I will post some photos on the blog.

Projects

So the re-base for Lasalle is going well, managed to get the first 6 battalions based up, artillery battery and skirmishers. I have been looking at the Generals to base next and I will follow up with some cavalry.

Left to do:

Generals
8 bases of Cavalry

Still to paint though is another

8 bases of Cavalry

Once this is done I will be putting the paint to the bases, this way they are consistant. The 8 bases of Cavalry to paint will come later.

On the sideline I have been working on removing the basing material from my 20mm Russians for Rules of Engagement.

I plan to re-work the bases once I have another project underway, speaking of which.

Work has begun on the Winter War Finns I picked up from Eureka Minis last year. They got sidelined until I was happy with painting white.......still working on it...

Got the first two squads and HQ on bases ready for some undercoat. Got a few more to put to bases, as I will be painting all of these at the same time. Once painted then I will base the Russians up with the Finns.

This will also make way for some terrain to suit.

Well that's what I have been up to for the last few days, back to the Generals and Cavalry.