Thursday 9 December 2010

Big Bad Benton....Part 2

It was not a hugely productive night yesterday due to a late arrival home from work but I was able to tackle a little more of the casemate of the USS Benton. This is certainly the largest I have undertaken thus far but my tried and tested construction technique was up to the mark although I was concerned this may be a little too large. The craft sticks I am using are quite tough but care has to be exercised when cutting along the grain that they do not split. Thus far I have managed to avoid this but fairly obviously, the greater the length to be cut the more chance of grain induced split.

I have also begun to give some consideration to the hex based rules I shall want to use to support this project. Initially I shall be looking to use Bob Cordery's 1860 to 1870 variant of Memoir of Battle at Sea. To be sure there will be the inevitable tweaks to bring these into the place I want but as usual with Bob C's rules - the core mechanics are sound enough to support any amount of tinkering!

2 comments:

Chris said...

David,

This is probably old news to you, but in case it isn't, you might want to consider using wooden coffee stir-ers. They are about 1/4" wide, but rather thin. For larger scales I use them as planking.

Best regards,

Chris

David Crook said...

Hi Chris,

I have a small carrier bag full of these! I toyed with the idea of using them for planking (and may well do if I make any large scale models)but they are too big for what I am doing at the moment. They will get a lot of use though for a few other ideas I have on the go....;-)

All the best,

DC