Nice work! How do you 'anchor' the supports on the base. The thing the perspex rod slots into?
All is revealed...The flight-stand base is made with a Warbases 70mm Hex, various fender washers, Milliput, K&S brand 5/32" brass tube, 1/4" acrylic rod and Golden Acrylic High Solids Matte Gel (any matte acrylic gel will do but the Golden HSM shrinks almost not at all).
Texturing and decoration are from my box of basing stuff and includes Woodland Scenics rock-moulds, some HO scale tree trunks from e-Bay, grass-tufts and found materials.
The idea is straight forward; stack a significant amount of weight on a goodly sized base, add a bit of brass-tube and then disguise it all. I'm doing this for 1/72 scale models, but this same format has worked well for all-metal 15mm kits. If you increase the base size a wee bit, and the weight, you should be good for 1/48 or 1/56 gaming kit, too.
1. The base is from
Warbases: 70mm Hex reference H4.
2. Epoxy the washers onto the base and to each other. I have three 'big' washers and one tiny one.
3. Milliput is worked into the empty space to create a support for a piece of the 5/32" brass tube. Be sure to first file out any burrs left from cutting the brass tube, so the 1/4" acrylic rod fits nicely. The acrylic rod will support your aircraft.
- The brass tube needs to sit plumb and you need a good join with the milliput. But if the join is weak, you can always fix it with epoxy or even some CA glue.
- You need to rig-up a matching piece of brass tube for your aircraft, too. For the Sturmovik, I needed to 'cap' the brass tube with a bit of the acrylic rod and some epoxy so that there was no risk of the flight-stand pushing right through the canopy.
4. Texture the base as you would for a mini or any other bit of whichever army you are building up: mix up some 'base-texture stuff' (I like Woodland Scenics 'fine turf' mixed with matte acrylic gel and cheap acrylic paint) and slather this goo on to cover up the pyramid of washers. Add decoration and different types of flocking.
5. Cut a piece of acrylic rod to support your aircraft. If the fit between the rod and the brass tube in the flight stand base is loose, you can crimp the tube
gently while the acrylic rod
is in the tube. Be careful at this point. What you want is a snug fit that will let you lift the base by the rod, but still not so loose that you can't pull the two apart again.
As usual, describing it all makes it sound way more complicated than it is. What is a bit of a pain is collecting all the different bits to pull this off, so feel free to substitute materials where appropriate. That said, I love the combo of the K&S 5/32" brass tube and 1/4" acrylic rod for this job!
30 July 2007, 07:38:49 PM