The Trench - or 'fun with matchsticks'

[Captain Blood]

Made this week with my 14 year old son for his school project.

Basically matchstick pathways laid onto PVA, pink foam offcuts to create the blocks of earth, matchstick revetments (you glue these onto paper instrips then cut up to make the walls). Then a dab of Tetrion over the top of the groundwork and finished with the usual sand / grit / PVA / paint gloop mix. Then titivated a bit!

The sandbags are from Milliput.
The corrugated iron is erm... a bit of dissected cardboard box, PVA'd and painted.  
I had to pay £2 GBP for a big bag of matchsticks, and an outrageous £1.35 GBP for 24 yards of 28 gauge jewellery beading wire ( :wink: ) to make some barbed wire etc. (although the barbed wire isn't actually barbed, but good enough for these purposes)
Few twigs and bits of balsa. That's about it.
Everything else from my modelling store cupboard, including an offcut of MDF to mount it on... Total real cost, I reckon about £5.00 GBP  :mrgreen:

But several evenings of making, and a lot of today spent painting.

I drew inspiration from the Great War minis site, and based the layout on a page found in a Times Atlas of warfare. Not very detailed research I'm afraid, but think we got most of the important features...

I don't have any WW1 figures, so have included a couple of WW2 chaps for scale purposes...

I hope his history teacher likes it!
Junior did most of the donkey work. I did some of the more artistic bits  :wink:














Complete with lift off lid for the company command post dugout...  :wink:

[Oswald_Thierstein]

Hi,
Fantastic  
It's very nice.
For me, it's 20/20 or A+

oswald

[revford]

Great stuff, the little details like the road signs really make it.

Once the school have inspected it, do you get to have a game on it?  

[Col.Stone]

:love:  :love:
most impressive, i'll go back to this when i get around to building my own trenches!!!

[Rufus]

Wow ... that looks really great. What kind of school project did you have to make it for?

[Lowtardog]

Awesome stuff Captain :love:

[Hammers]

Quite the shit!

[Grimm]

you are a genius !!! I will game with that !!!!  :love:

I must ake also a Trench !!

Grimm

[dominic]

Man!  That is so beautiful!!  :love:  :love:

I spent the whole weekend watching ANZACs and My Boy Jack!  That is exactly what I want to do as well!!  Of course, I'd have to do a whole board - 2 opposing trench lines, no mans land and plan a trench raid scenario!!

[Jules]

A*

[archangel1]

Excellent! It's amazing what you can do without spending a fortune on prefab pieces, when you really put your mind to it.

[Operator5]

Excellent work. It really is the little touches that really make the piece.

[Captain Blood]

Thanks chaps  

Alas, I doubt I'll get it back from the school to game on - if they've got any sense, they'll hang onto it to show future generations  :wink:

It was just a half term history project. Write a story about the trenches, draw a picture or make a model. We chose to make a model naturally!

Dominic - you should go ahead and make a couple of full boards. I don't want to sound smug, but the construction method of the trenches is surprisingly easy. With your modelling prowess, you'll have a whole opposing front done in no time! Check out the Great War Miniatures site - they have a whole trench system board.

[pbeccas]

Excellent work.

[Plynkes]

Oustanding. We never got to do cool things like that at school. Never learned about the Great War, let alone got to do cool projects on it.

I once did a project on Princess Di and Prince Charles' wedding, and one about winter sports. I won a prize for both, but I'd rather have done the Somme.