Russian Village Buildings (game report and new hut, 13 April)

[WuZhuiQiu]

Yes, I have an old stash of skewers that were made of some softwood - they are ideal for this purpose, but I have not seen any for sale for more than a decade.

Bamboo, however, is fairly hard, and tends to split, as I rediscovered while modelling the Shevardino redoubt the other day.

Softwood dowels may be the most practical option.

[odd duck]

Good  looking building WL! If you're looking for dowls i found some at Dollar giant that were 1/8 inch in diameter and you could look for lolipop sticks at Michaels

[Mark Plant]

In NZ I would look for battered sausage sticks. That would be corn dog sticks for the Yanks. What do Poms eat on sticks?

These aren't cheap, but you get 1000: http://cromers.com/shop/supplies/hot-dog-supplies/corn-dog-sticks-1000

Certainly bamboo is tough to work.

[Wirelizard]

Yeah, having thought about it a bit more, bamboo skewers wouldn't be suitable, both too thin and too blasted hard to cut & shape.

The dollar and craft stores sometimes have big bags of "craft dowels" available, I should look into those, or just head to one of the local lumberyard and get a length of dowel I can hack up.

Thanks for the interest and suggestions, I'm away from home until next week, as I mentioned in my last update, so no progress until next year, but some things to think about and plans to make during my vacation!

[carlos marighela]

Disposable wooden chopsticks aren't bad size wise, they're the right shape and aren't too difficult to work.

[Jim French]

Nice work.  I too think there should be eaves for the roof.  I am a Pegasus quick build man myself.  Except for the Orthodox church.  Can't get Larry to make one.  We assemble a village of maybe 16 Pegasus houses for the Eastern Front games we run.

[Wirelizard]

Nice work.  I too think there should be eaves for the roof. 

I rebuilt the roof of that first building before Christmas, so it has eves now.

Except for the Orthodox church. 

Nothing says, "Welcome to Russia" quite like an onion-domed church, does it?

Along that line, some pages from my notebook done last week, while I was away from computer & painting bench but had time to sketch, look inspiration up on the web, and think...

[Cory]

Wirelizard, while they are still on clearance grab some onion shaped christmas ornaments from Target or Wallyworld. It saves a lot of work later on.

[cuprum]

There is an error. The head of the church (in the form of onion shaped) shall be based on a diameter smaller than the dome.

[Wirelizard]

There is an error. The head of the church (in the form of onion shaped) shall be based on a diameter smaller than the dome.

Good point, cuprum. I'll amend my church design accordingly! There actually was going to be a small neck around the base of the onion dome, but I'll make it a bit taller.

This photo is one I pulled off the internet last week and didn't keep the source page information, so I have no idea where the church is, but it's a good basic design that should be easy to make a wargame-friendly building from.



I'm going to make the roofs and domes simpler, but keep the basic two-part plan and proportions.

[Wirelizard]

Second of the small farm buildings finished earlier this evening:


That's a pair of Brigade Games 28mm White Russian officers between the two buildings, and the steel ruler in the foreground is six inches long, just for scale.

I took the roofs off (all of my buildings to date have accessible interiors) and put them upside down so you can see how ad-hoc the interior structures can be and still produce a perfectly serviceable thatched roof! The roof supports are all mattboard (high quality cardboard, usually used for framing artwork) and light card, and there's been no warping or damage despite soaking the towel on top with diluted white glue during construction.



I'd do some in-progress shots of the roof construction, but you really do get white glue everywhere and I don't really want to handle a camera with glue-covered hands...

[Remington]

Thank you for the new pictures! Looking very good! I could imagine that some warping of the roof might even contribute to a more rural look, so I wouldn't have worried much.

[Wirelizard]

Progress on the church. Main structure largely complete except for trim around the windows & doors, the framework of both roofs is complete, just need the skin then shingles. Domes above that obviously not even started yet.

The front section is a 2" cube, the rear is 3"x3"x2.5". The whole thing including domes is going to be about 6-7" high once complete.

[carlos marighela]

Now that's nice !!!

[Schogun]

How are planning on making the domes?