Fishplates

[Dickon]

Nice job, will it keep it clean as well? 

 

Time will tell!

[Dickon]

The PVA/ Pollyfilla mix has slightly warped the polyboard base.  I couldn't have used any thicker material for the base as the top edge of the windmill vanes are right on the 6" height limit.  With hindsight, I should have used a more rigid material like ply, but it's too late now and I'm content to live with it.  Part of the fun of the cake box challenge is taking your modelling outside your comfort zone and applying a technique new to me has been a useful learning experience.  The good news is that the surface is surprisingly tough and has eased out all the sharp edges to give a much more realistic 'landscape'.

The photos show the scene covered only in paint; a thin layer of desert sand and gravel scatter should really bring it all to life.  I'm hoping to model the vehicle wheel tracks with thin strips of masking tape which I will pull away after sanding the area leaving 'ruts' down to the painted surface (note to self: try it on a bit of scrap first!).

 

The third photo is of a wind powered water pump at a desert railway station blown up by Lawrence over 100 years ago.  it was that and the Rolls Royce armoured car that inspired the model.

Lawrence was known to be a fanatical devotee of the marque and once said “A Rolls in the desert was above rubies …. Great was Rolls and great was Royce! They were worth hundreds of men to us in these deserts.” 

 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Dickon

[Dickon]

The water tower now sits on a suitably rustic plinth made from a pieces of a plaster of Paris retaining wall. I've given it a quick squirt of sand coloured paint, but I think I need to pick out a few of the stones in different shades of yellow and brown.

[Dickon]

I spent a lot of this morning working out how to put ruts behind the wheels of both vehicles, particularly the very heavy Rolls which I wanted to have arrived on site in a sweeping curve.  I then realised that a vehicle's front and rear wheels only take different paths in a relatively tight turn, and a tight lock was one thing the armoured Rolls definitely did not have as in the desert they used double wheels on the front axles as well as on the rear. Apparently the drivers were all built like prize fighters as the steering must have been incredibly heavy.

 

I formed the tracks behind both vehicles with strips of masking tape the same width as the tyres and then peeled the tape away after covering the base with a 'desert sand and gravel' scatter.

I've started to remove the plastic bases from people and camels and will glue them, boxes of gelignite and other clutter in place once the sand is good and dry

 

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Dickon
grammar

[Sweet pea]

I like your cakebox layout it looks great with the tyre marks.

[Dickon]

The top of that windmill is right on the allowed 6 inches!

Edited March 27, 2019 by Dickon

[Dickon]

As submitted yesterday by email:

 

I really shouldn't look at eBay late at night.  However, I managed to buy a Scale Link OO gauge wind pump for the price of two beers.  Put the pump, a water tower and a length of metre gauge track on a shallow embankment, add a Rolls Royce armoured car and a mixed group of WW1 British troops, Arabs and camels and we are creating mayhem with T E Lawrence on the Hijaz railway across the Arabian Desert.

 

A couple of men are laying ‘tulip’ charges under the track joints and sleepers to wreck the fishplates and cut and twist the rails so as to cause maximum irreparable damage. Meanwhile their companions are unloading boxes of gelignite and preparing to blow up the water tower and the pump. Later in the war they also took to destroying bridges and locomotives; the German built locos being of limited number and impossible to replace.

 

 Lawrence was one of the earliest practitioners of modern unconventional hit and run warfare using motor transport.  He managed to tie up an untold number of Turkish troops both to guard and repair the railway; the repair crews being barely able to keep up with his depredations.

 

Edited April 1, 2019 by Dickon