Airstrip Complete

The last major piece for this table is done, the Sarissa Precision Airfield Hangar. The kit as a whole is very nice: the trusses look good; the laminated beams and posts go together dead simple and also look good. The weak spot is the card roofing. MDF can be a lot of things but detail like corrugated sheeting is a bit of stretch. Not a problem for me though as whenever I visit a hobby store I always look to see what they have by way of Evergreen and Plastruct styrene products. As a result I happened to have some Plastruct corrugated roofing on hand, purchased some years ago. The picture below shows the original card roofing, followed by my Plastruct solution.

I could have used more 1.5mm x 3.2mm strip for batten but I was all out and the local hobby store has slim pickins' when it comes to styrene supplies.

As my impression of the original hangar was that the trusses where steel I went with that. Painted a faded light blue I then went a little nuts with the rust...

The corrugated roofing was basecoated/primered light grey and then some discolouration was added with Golden's  High Flow Acrylic Titanium Buff and a Ceramacoat Rain grey thinned with a combination of Golden Glaze Medium and Flow Enhancer. Then, of course, more rust; stippled Ceramacoat Burnt Umber   followed by some Burnt Sienna thinned with Flow Enhancer and painted in streaks:

As this is the last major piece to be added to this table it seems the right time for some family photos (who knows when we all be together again like this?):

So... on to the next project...

An ol' pick-up truck

Last week I received two packages in the post: one from Warlord and one from Sarissa: WG's resin Flying Standard 10' Tilly  and SP's Henderson Field Hangar.

I painted up the Tilly first. I was a little suprised at how small it is when I picked it out of the box. It is only 7.5cm long, 3.6 cm tall and 3.2cm wide. I am sure Warlord 's measurements are accurate for 28mm miniatures; it is easy to forget that the common vehicles of the 20's, 30's and 40's were quite small- nothing like the full size pick-up trucks we see from  Dodge, Ford or GM today.

As this vehicle is left exposed to the elements, possibly abandoned,  I painted it as such. I forgot that it was a resin kit when I ordered it so my plans to have a door open and the tarpaulin box cover ripped and shredded in spots were - like this pick-up- abandoned.

This past weekend I got started assembling the field hangar.

The posts and support beams are glued and primed and the truss support beams are glued and the trusses them selves are ready for primer:

The card pieces at the top of the previous photo are the roof sections. I am not sure what the roofing of the actual hangar is. The best pictures I could find are below but the first gives no clue to the type of roofing.

The following picture is of a collapsed field hangar on the same island; it shows the roofing in big sheets but it is hard to tell what it is made of:

A couple of other pictures from the underside show that the trusses are obviously (to me anyway...) steel. I have some corrugated siding from Plastruct that I think I will glue onto the card- I think it would improve the roofing provided.

Scatter Terrain

This week I got a few pieces of scatter terrain painted. Two of them are more pieces of Warlord Games' resin Warehouse Set 1.  One is a set of Plastruct O Scale trusses cut up and glued together in a pile; another is simply a pile of wooden beams made from 1/4 square balsa wood.

The Warehouse set is very nice. The sculpting and casting are very good. There is a little bit of resin flash in the recesses and the twine is lost in a couple of places but still very nice once painted.

I really like the Plastuct (and Evergreen too) products. O scale is listed as 1/48  on their website so a little over-sized for 28mm figures. However, in cases like this where it is just scatter terrain it isn't that noticable. Had I slightly smaller trusses I would have chosen them over these. As they got left behind and have suffered through a couple of rainy seasons, the rust has set right in.

The lumber was dead simple: cut 1/4 balsa; scribe grain with sculpting tool; glue together; prime and paint. 

I still have two more pieces coming in the post; once on they are on the table it may be crowded enough  and there will be no need for more shrubs.

Not so much progress this past week however the runway itself is painted. Really, this should have been done before I textured and flocked the rest of the table but oh well- I got carried away. Although I am happy enough with the end result, I am not entirely satisfied. The pavement is not 'warm' enough to my liking and the cracks in it are not quite realistic enough; something about the pattern I didn't quite get right.

I used a sculpting tool to scribe the edges and the cracks and a stiff plastic brush to add faint lines to the foam surface:

After a base coat of light grey primer, I sponged on some Americana Shale Green and some Mississippi Mud, followed by a wash of black and then a light grey dry brush.

To finish off I added some 10mm Heki Autumn grass along the edges (as well as more shrubs) and poking through in a few spots in the concrete.

 A model's eye view:

A few more items to be added. I am going to go through my collection of odds and sods and see if there is anything I can use for some scatter terrain: old barrels, pieces of scrap steel, lumber that sort of thing. I also have another structure in the post from Sarissa Precision and resin pick-up from Warlord that will get turned into a derelict vehicle. A few 60mm bases with taller shrubs/small tress might also find their way onto this table.

Airstrip nearly Done

 The best part of my spare time over the last two weekends has the table surface nearly complete; all that remains to be done is the pavements for the landing strip. What follows is a series of step-by-step photos of the progress.

I decided I wanted some slight variations in the ground; to achieve this I glued down torn pieces of cork mat, approximately 3mm thick:

I etched out the edge of the runway, effectively creating a small ditch around the edge. In retrospect I should have raised the runway to create the delineation between it and the surrounding grass land instead. I think the end result would have been more realistic.

I mixed a full tube (300ml) of sanded grout caulking with approximately 200ml of tile adhesive and covered everything except the runway with it to blend in the cork pieces and create texture. While this was still wet I pushed Woodland Scenics Coarse Talus into the mixture and generously sprinkled coarse sand mixed with finer talus over top:

After 24 hours I then coated the sand and gravel with two different coloured water/paint/glue mixtures: Desert Sand and Burnt Umber. I wanted some of the different colours of the stones to come through so the coating was mostly glue and water with just enough paint to "stain" the surface:

Next up I went over the  table with some 2mm Light Green static grass, leaving some patches bald:

Next stage was the fun one: placing bushes and scrub. I concentrated them around the rocks and edges of the table and the runway. They are a combination of Woodland Scenics medium green Clump Foliage, Light green Clump Foliage and Light Green Lichen (as some of it is more grey than green, it is great for representing dead wood):

 I made good use of my collection of tufts for this stage. Leadbears Desert Tufts, Gamers Grass Brown, and Army Painter Jungle tufts.

 The final stage was one more layer of static grass: Heki 6mm Autumn (one of my favourites).

I am happy with the end result; I was going for knee high grass and brush. I plan a few scatter bases with slightly taller shrubs on them to add to the variation.

Over the next week I will 'pave' the runway and start on a few pieces of scatter terrain.