Saturday, September 11, 2010

Barbed Wire, Minefields & Smoke

One of the advantages of fielding a pioneer company is that each platoon of pioneers may optionally purchase a supply truck. This purchase allows them to place either three sections (8" wide by 2" deep) of barbed wire or one section of minefield in their deployment zone. Depending on your opponent, one or both of these may be helpful in defending your victory points. To the left are one section each of minefield (foreground) and barbed wire (behind). These are test pieces for both. I've made two mine fields which are all I'll need, but I still have five more sections of barbed wire to complete.

The barbed wire was made by twisting two solid pieces of wire in my Dremel tool and then wrapping that around a dowel to form the coils. Once glued to the bases I added some stakes and sprayed the entire assembly my normal base green. This was followed up by a coat of black on the wire and posts followed up by a dry-brush of steel on the wire and a coat of brown on the posts. Once dry the entire base was coated with white glue and flocked.  The minefield was a bit easier. I made the mines out of 1/16" thick acrylic on my laser, painted them German helmet green. After coating the bases with glue, I added the mines and then flocked the entire base as usual. Rocks and bushes were added to both types of bases at the end.

Recently Gordon from Adler Hobby asked me if I could use my laser to make some 6" smoke templates for use with Flames of War. This is my first prototype. It's made from 1/8" thick 'Frost' colored acrylic sheet. The legs are held on with small O-rings which allow them to be removed and packed flat when not being used. The legs are 4" long and should allow the smoke template to sit above even the tallest models and even most terrain pieces. I have a few changes I'll be making to these, but the basic form seems serviceable. There's a possibility you may see these for sale later on my Wright Brothers R/C website. Below is a detail photo of the leg attachment. sorry for the dodgy photos. Photographing translucent white acrylic in the waning light of the fall afternoon was a bit tricky.

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