Coffee stirrers

[FramFramson]

This board is right fucking kid friendly, indeed.

 

Well, sometimes it is. But not always!

[fastolfrus]

....or, go buy a coffee, grab a handful of free stirrers. Go to another coffee place, buy another coffee, grab another handful of coffee stirrers. Enlist friends and family to do same....

With the price of high street coffee it would be cheaper to buy the stirrers.
Of course you could try the really blatant approach: walk in, grab a handful of stirrers, walk out.

[Mitch K]

i'm trying to build a barn to go with 28mm figs. The stirrers just seem a bit too broad to represent planks of wood when put beside the figs.

I'm in two minds about this - they do indeed look very wide, but in days of old, you could get very wide planks out of old-growth trees. A 12" plank (not massive in those terms) is about 5.4mm per scale. Lots of coffee stirrers are less than this. I've used them on timber-frame houses and they scale out well enough against the one's I've measured and scaled from in York.

[Sardoo]

I'm in two minds about this - they do indeed look very wide, but in days of old, you could get very wide planks out of old-growth trees. A 12" plank (not massive in those terms) is about 5.4mm per scale. Lots of coffee stirrers are less than this. I've used them on timber-frame houses and they scale out well enough against the one's I've measured and scaled from in York.

I know what you mean. They can look too big next to a 28mm fig but I guess there were all kinds of breadths back in "the olden days".

[Glitzer]

Just a stupid question: how wide are your stirers? Mine are about 5mm which looks great next to 35mm (or heroic 28 as they are called) minis.

modern planks are less wide, but modern sawbills also have more advanced techniques to produce smaller planks (Side rant at timber industry: they don't even take tree stems as big as they once did, because modern saws cannot handle them anymore, now that is what I call progress, right?).

[FramFramson]

Sometimes I would split my coffee stirrers in half lengthwise, if I wanted narrower boards.

[maxxon]

i'm trying to build a barn to go with 28mm figs. The stirrers just seem a bit too broad to represent planks of wood when put beside the figs.

How about just building out of sheet material and engraving the planking or covering the structure with planking-embossed plasticard?

Actually building stuff from scale planking seems... a bit much.

[Hammers]

How about just building out of sheet material and engraving the planking or covering the structure with planking-embossed plasticard?

Actually building stuff from scale planking seems... a bit much.

A bit much? Sir, you are not much familiar with the gentlepeople of this forum...

[Doomsdave]

A bit much? Sir, you are not much familiar with the gentlepeople of this forum...

Indeed...A short search for Gamer Mac or Akula should disabuse one of the notion that we encourage mediocrity....or sanity.

[zemjw]

You could always cheat and just buy the Renedra barn

[Braz]

If the stirrers are wide enough you could just scribe them using a ball point pen or with a few passes of a hobby saw (not cutting through) to give the illusion of several planks. I've used both methods. Otherwise I cut them down with a steel rule and several passes a box cutter. The cut is with the grain of the wood and is quite easy.

[snitcythedog]

i'm trying to build a barn to go with 28mm figs. The stirrers just seem a bit too broad to represent planks of wood when put beside the figs.

Are they the round end or flat end stirrers?  The flat end stirrers tend to be thinner both in thickness and width.  I picked up 10,000 of them for about $30.00 from a restaurant supply shop.  The flat end stirrers do look appropriate for 28mm. 
Snitchy sends.

[Mitch K]

I know what you mean. They can look too big next to a 28mm fig but I guess there were all kinds of breadths back in "the olden days".

As an inveterate fan of Norm Abram I remember watching a New Yankee Workshop show where Norm was making a replica of a Shaker blanket chest. He had to glue up three boards to make the top, but on the antique original (C19th), the top was a single board nearly two feet wide

[Sardoo]

If the stirrers are wide enough you could just scribe them using a ball point pen or with a few passes of a hobby saw (not cutting through) to give the illusion of several planks. I've used both methods. Otherwise I cut them down with a steel rule and several passes a box cutter. The cut is with the grain of the wood and is quite easy.

I think that suggestion may be the 'Eureka!' moment!

[Sardoo]

How about just building out of sheet material and engraving the planking or covering the structure with planking-embossed plasticard?

Actually building stuff from scale planking seems... a bit much.

On any other forum than this that may have seemed a reasonable conclusion. On here.....not so much!