An Archimedes Drill - a barn find

Last week Sue and I went out for a meal in a little village called Alcester, on the way back we visited a large National Trust Dovecote and a small antiques centre. The antiques store has some old aircraft and aviation books but what caught me eye was a box of old tools. This Archimedes Drill was one of those tools.

When I picked it up it was rusted solid and would not move, but by the time I had got it to the till and enquired of the price I had some movement. The drill cost me just £1.00 and as Sue paid, well even better!

When I got home, I used a wire brush and some wire wool to remove the rust. and wiped the whole drill with some three-in-one oil. I can now report that the drill works perfectly.

When cleaning it up I found that it was branded Hobbies - a very old name in the model boat building industry. In fact I'm sure my Father had a similar drill when he built model boats in bottles.

Even after cleaning and oiling, the drill has a fantastic patina.

The drill works by moving the metal collet up and down, this transfers the action to the drill bit which moves first clockwise and then anti-clockwise and bores the hole. It is a very precise drill as the action is slow and less intense than an electric or modern twist bit drill.

I get a great thrill from finding such tools and bringing them back to life. Even better if I know they can be useful to me when model making.

Tony

Slaughterloo Monument - part four

After I had varnished the model, I added some scatter material over uPVA glue. I have also superglued a couple of pieces of ground foam and static grass tufts to add decoration.

In the first image, you can see that I have added some bills to the side of the monument. These are either small rectangles of paper or wine labels cut from the Waitrose Wines and Spirits guide (I use this free booklet as my paint palette but as you see it has 'other' uses). These are applied with uPVA glue and then Matt varnished.

The final image shows the monument alongside a 28mm Flintloque RifleOrc.

The 200th Anniversary Monument from Alternative Armies is a great piece of themed terrain, I think my larger base adds something to the model and painting it in lighter colours makes it stand out.

Tony

Slaughterloo Monument - part three

I painted the flag in the same colours as the original front piece from the Flintloque box set illustration, black background with red crosses with a deep yellow border. The Ferach Eagle was painted Gold with a dark Brown staff.

When painting the flag, the design was pencilled-in, the first colour was a Deep Crimson highlighted Blood Red applied with a Rosemary & Co no.3 brush. This was outlined by a colour called Vomit from GW and then further highlighted with Yellow from Rachhams Paints. The Black. which is actually a Chaos Black and Charred Brown mix was next. Highlights were added later, particularly to the torn edges of the flag.

Tony

Slaughterloo Monument - part two

As you can see I choose to paint my Alternative Armies Monument Light Grey, mimicking marble. This I achieved by painting a basecoat of Stonewall Grey and highlighting individual blocks in Blue, Pink and Brown before drybrushing with a lighter Grey.

I have also used watered-down White and Light Grey to add veining to some of the blocks, then more drybrushing and 'washes'.

Finally for this part, I have highlighted cracks, joins and odd stone edges in pure Skull White. I call this extreme highlighting - which is very effective if applied with a fine brush and only to the very edges.

The groundwork or base was painted in my usual colours, however I am running very low on Snakebite Leather and this particular Brown was mixed from a number of Vallejo bottles.

As with all of my images, you can click on the photo and enlarge it.

Tony

Slaughterloo Monument from Alternative Armies

Image taken from the official AA site

Alternative Armies have produced this resin terrain piece to commemorate the actual World Events of June 18th 1815, it depicts a bullet scarred monument of stone blocks topped with a draped Greate BitOrc Flag (the one featured on the old Flintloque Box set) and a broken Ferach Eagle. For full details of the limited edition casting go to this post.

Image Two - The actual resin model needed some sanding of the base to get it to sit level. This was done with some 3M's Sanding sheets mounted on to a glass cutting board.

Image Three - I wanted my monument to be unique and decided to mount it on to a stone/cobble base. The cobbles are wallpaper picked up from B&Q, while the retaining stones are 3mm thick plastic card. The larger base is another piece of 3mm plastic card.

The groundwork has been finished in my usual way - DAS modelling clay with sieved sand and small stones over uPVA glue.

Image Four - My Monument glued in place. Any gaps were either filled with DAS modelling clay or Reeves acrylic filler.

This is a lovely piece of themed terrain and I'm looking forward to painting it.

Tony

54mm Highlander from Thunderbolt Mountain

The Miniatures Page has finally gotten around to featuring this Workbench article - Thunderbolt Mountain Highlander. The model and article were finished and sent off back in August 2009, yes 2009!

Since then I have featured the model on this Blog, see this link, this link and this link for further details.

However should you wish to read the full article you really should go to the official TMP link here.

The model is currently on guard duty - protecting a display of olde Whisky's in Bangkok, Thailand.

Tony

A Scratch-Built Vendee Windmill - as featured in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy issue 79

For the first post of July, I have included this staged image of a scratch-built 28mm Vendee Windmill which I build for a themed article and modelling tutorial in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy issue 79 (July/August 2015).

The model was built following a direct request from Guy (Editor) and the construction and painting is covered in great detail, allowing a competent modeller to build a similar structure.

For full details see Wargames Soldiers and Strategy issue 79 - due in shops now. You can also find details of the official WS & S website here.

The article Building a Vendee Moulin - Tilting at Windmills was great fun to work on, allowing me the opportunity to build one of these unusual straight sided windmills with the distinctive pointed roof. It also features a new technique, one that has not been seen in either Building Wargame Terrain or More Wargame Terrain, - namely the use of cork to simulate stone.

Regular readers and followers will know that this is not the first Windmill I have modelled. I have a couple of scratch built models in my personal collection as well as having built 'master models' for Grand Manner. This particular model is for sale and has been featured on The Miniatures Page market - for full details of how you can own this piece of terrain go to this e-bay link.

Tony