Re: Cardboard Armour (Don't tell Jon)

On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Michael Blair wrote:

> I have been exprimenting with building 25mm vehicles out of cardboard.
  
> Draw	it out, score, cut and glue. So far all I  have  is an APC,  the

> shape of which is more complicated than an M113 (but then, so are some

> shoe boxes).

No kidding. I've made a couple of buildings with the draw-cut-&-fold
method, but haven't attempted vehicles yet. I'll have to give it a try.

> It needs tarting up, with bits from the spares box and I 
> have some wire mesh that will make inteesting chertzen, the space
behind 
> which I can fill up with dunnage.

I've used lead foil for tarps/groundcloths/other baggage on most of my
15mm vehicles, just to add individual detailing for each model.
Toothpaste
tubes have usable metal foil (if you figure out how to get the plastic
off, especially - I haven't) or you can buy lead foil in hobby stores.

Medical gauze (clean, please) makes pretty good camo netting. As
follows:
unfold the gauze to a single layer, pin it to something - a piece of
wood
or something - and use fairly thick paint. While the paint is wet,
sprinkle ground foam 'grass' on. Most of the foam will come off, but the
remainder has a fairly effective patchy look, with the net underneath.
Looks pretty good, IMHO. (A really heavy camo job - net, foliage, etc -
would help disguise the relative lack of detail on homegrown vehicles)

> The  skirt (for it is a GEV, because there are no wheels to worry
about 
> and I dislike grav craft) is simply masking tape wrapped around  the 
> base of the hull, it has that textured look.

I use air-drying clay for hoverskirts. It's a bit more work, but looks
good and is totally solid. For cardboard vehicles, it could provide
needed
stiffening, as well as ballasting the vehicle to stop it from drifting
across the gaming table in a breeze...

On the subject of wheeled vehicles, does anyone have any ideas for
making
wheels? I'd like to make a wheeled APC and various other wheeled
vehicles,
but lack of good wheels is getting in the way. Wooden dowelling, maybe?
Cut disks of the right thickness from dowel of the right diameter, then
file tread patterns in and use a drill or something to get a sort of
hub?

> My only fear is  that the whole  thing  will disintergrate when I
paint 
> it.
> 
> If it works I will experiment with using CAD for the plan, then I can 

> print out dozens of them and post it for your amusement.
> 

Very cool. You could also (if you're hand-drawing your vehicles) just
have
the drawn plans scanned & post them as graphic files (.gifs or .jpg...)

If these were posted, it'd be nice to have the information needed to
reduce 25mm vehicles to 15mm scale, or vice versa. Reduce/enlarge by x%
(someone want to take a stab at providing x?)

> Cardboard vehicles would also allow easy conversion and   with 
> stiffening would allow open topped vehicles or burnt out  wrecks with 
> near scale plate thickness.

Hadn't thought of this. Good point - make it easier to have 'families'
of
different vehicles all built on the same chassis, which is standard
military practice...

Also easier & much cheaper to mechanize that Stargrunt infantry company
and support troops...

Brian (burger00@camosun.bc.ca)
- http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9774/games.html -DS2/SG2/misc-