How to drill through pennies?

[Silent Invader]

Although it appears that the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act of 1981 repealed earlier applicable Acts, in particular the Coinage Offences Act of 1936, without instituting replacement rulings (still, I am under the impression that melting down coins to receive base materials for counterfeit money is still illegal). So technically, he should be on the safe side.

There's an 'official' insight into English/Welsh legal half-truths and myths here

http://lawcommission.justice.gov.uk/docs/Legal_Oddities.pdf

Seems it's not illegal to deface a coin (thus all those machines that squish them into tokens?) but it is illegal to destroy it.  It's not clear though if destroy includes the drilling of a few small holes.  Just don't go handling any salmon in a suspicious manner ! 

[Gary Peach]

Use plastic rod for the tree trunks, Evergreen does different sizes etc.  Glues perfectly to plastic bases.  It can be easily curved too with putting in to hot water.  They do tube that sizes to fit rod into too, so the trees could be socket-ed in.

Ive used 20mm MDF bases for palm trees and they are stable. 25mm even more so...  I posted pictures of some far east buildings a while back that show what I mean.

[Svennn]

If you must go this route you are welcome to use the pillar drill in my workshop

[Dewbakuk]

Cheers Svennn.

Maybe I'm being paranoid about the stability. I'll try plastic and wood. I'll also try bending the wire and running it along the base, that never occurred to me
Some of the bamboo isn't wire cored but that is shorter and lighter than the others so a plastic/wood base should be fine.

Cheers all.

[WuZhuiQiu]

Uncrimped eyelets might also work - you could glue the disc end down, leaving the tube sticking up, and insert any stems or trunks into that.

[Silent Invader]

Regarding crimps, have you seen the sort used by makers of beaded jewellery.

You can get them with a centre hole of about 1mm dia and a thickness of about  0.5mm, so glue those to your pennies, insert bamboo then sand to make flush?

Alternatively replace the crimps with snips of plasticard tube?

[Vonkluge]

I have done similar things before and "my" best solution was to have a round plastic (styrene) base with a washer or penny glued to the bottom for WEIGHT then just drill int the top soft plastic. Insert tree wire your good to go. Its really less work in the long run and much easier.

I also use magnetic basing for the same purpose adds enough weight, easy to cut, and then I use a container with a thin sheet of metal in the bottom to store the delicate bamboo terrain pieces. Keeps them upright and nice!

Bill W

[Dewbakuk]

More good suggestions, thanks guys.

[Dewbakuk]

Well, tried a Renedra base earlier. Didn't work so well unfortunately, too top heavy and unstable. Bending the wire to base them works but seems a bit wasteful on glue/accelerant. Gluing a 2p to the bottom of the base makes it more stable but does double the base thickness. I'll have a try with an MDF base in a bit. I suspect I'll have to increase the base size if I go that route though to try and add stability.

I shall continue trying the suggestions and let you know how it goes

[Mr. Peabody]

A few years back I made a ton of penny-based saplings (tiny trees) to better fill in heavy jungle and woods. They do the job quite well, but are fiddly to make and to use... Based on that experience, I can't imagine putting anything taller than an average mini on a penny.

I would be very tempted to go for 40mm bases at minimum or better yet, some random shapes cut from plastic card. Definitely add some weight in the form of washers and build up the base with some putty to better hold the bamboo bits in place & make the whole effect more organic and irregular.

[Dewbakuk]

Yeah, irregular/larger bases may be better in the long run. I did a big batch of long grass a while back on 2p pieces and they work really well at covering area and blending other terrain pieces. They are denser than the bamboo though and nowhere near as tall. A rethink may be in order for this.

The reason I like the 2/1p method is it allows you to move it around easily when figures walk through it as they are based the same way.

[Mr. Peabody]

The reason I like the 2/1p method is it allows you to move it around easily when figures walk through it as they are based the same way.

Totally agree.

That approach worked very well with my 'mini-trees'... But I suspect with the bamboo, that way lies madness. 2p coins and greenstuff should do the job, no?

Wish we had sensible, useful, economical 2p coins in Canada. 

[Vermis]

I wonder if some soft, cuttable metal like pewter or lead sheet would be useful...

... and looking at it, pewter sheet is pretty expensive. (£8 for a 10cm² piece on ebay, £70 for 1' x 2' on Tiranti's website.   ) There's a whole world of lead flashing and sheets I wasn't entirely aware of, though. And there's a couple of feet of offcut been put up on ebay recently.

Also, how would you feel about something like skirmish trays to slot the bamboo bases into?

[Silent Invader]

How tall is the bamboo

[Dewbakuk]

How tall is the bamboo

From 3" to 6" approximately.