Scratchbuilt Fleets 1. Turrets and surface features. Shotgun pellets are
incredibly useful. Drill out a shallow hole in the ship, add a drop of thick
superglue and drooping a pellet. That's it. One cartridge supplies enough for
a whole fleet.
2. Hulls Shaped styrene is readily available (I use the Evergreen brand) and
is easily shaped and glued. The most useful tools are a razor saw and a mitre
box to ensure neat cuts at 45 or 90 degrees. Sketch out your ideas then go on
a spending spree for the styrene sections. The trick is to get sections that
fit together easily, say
1/4" square, 1/4" by 1/8", 1/8" square and so on. The can then be cut
and glued to together in a selection of useful but rather angular shapes.
Tubes and rods can be added to taste. Short sections of tube can make drive
exhausts and plasticard can be used for fins and almost anything else. Liquid
styrene cement holds everything together though superglue is required for the
pellets and other metal parts. My best creation is based on the old Traveller
Azhanti High Lightning cruiser. With a pair of carriers suspiciously similar
to those from Space, Above and Beyond in support. The carriers are roughly 1 x
4", they dominate my table (which is a pity as I hate fighters almost as much
as I hate missiles). One difficulty is cutting small circles of plasticard,
while a circle cuter is fine for larger circles small ones are virtually
impossible. I am not willing to buy a punch to do the job and a paper punch
makes a mess. Any suggestions?
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On Tuesday, August 12, 1997 10:53 AM, Michael Blair
> [SMTP:amfortas@hotmail.com] wrote:
Lots of useful info snipped
> One difficulty is cutting small circles of plasticard, while a
I
> am not willing to buy a punch to do the job and a paper punch makes a
Try sharpening the end of a brass/steel tube to make a cheap puch
although brass is soft plasticard is softer and you can get a few circles
before it blunts or bends. Won't go through thick card either. You can also
get leather cutting tools from craft
shops that cut holes of varying sizes, don't cost that much (UKP 7++)
In the UK you can't buy shotgun cartridges without a shotgun licence, fishing
weights are a substitute, but are usually split, but that would make a good
half turret.
sincerely
> On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, Tim Jones wrote:
Don't buy entire shells -- the pellets should be available separately
for use in muzzle loaders and reloading. Those shouldn't require a license to
buy, unless brits are considerable sicker than I thought.
Small ball bearings should also be available, but they are made from harder
metals.
> Mikko wrote:
I'm not sure. I do know that a friend of mine had to get a shotgun license
before being able to fire a matchlock musket at civil war
re-enactments. So it's conceivable that even the pellets are only
available to those with a license.
After all what else could you want them for? ;-)
> Michael Blair wrote:
> One difficulty is cutting small circles of plasticard, while a
I
> am not willing to buy a punch to do the job and a paper punch makes a
Find suitable plastic model kits with the right sized bits and use them
instead of making all the parts yourself!
In message <871401133.0621367.0@kryten.acs.bolton.ac.uk> "Steve Pugh" writes:
> Mikko wrote:
Well... thats because a matchlock musket is, like, a *gun*. Goes bang, kills
people, needs to be kept away from the irresponsible. A shotgun in British law
is a smoothbore weapon with <2" bore and barrel greater than 24". Many
reenactment cannons are therefore officially "shotguns".
> So it's conceivable that even the pellets are only
I doubt it. We had a few jars knocking around the physics labs at school.
> After all what else could you want them for? ;-)
Poisoning your environment. Say, are the Americans still allowed
to own lead stuff...? I mean, does their highly-responsible
government trust them not to eat it, or whatever...?
How long before the EU bans it?
> On Tue, Aug 12, 1997 at 03:50:35PM +0300, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
BBs (for air guns) and pellets (ditto) are also nice. I was inspired by the
original message, and stopped on the way home. I picked up 600 BBs that will
serve perfectly as turrets or sensor domes
for scratchbuilt, _and_ 250 "wadcutter" pellets. These pellets are
shaped like a little rocket nozzle, and are going to serve as engines for my
scratchbuilt ships.
> On Tue, Aug 12, 1997 at 08:54:44PM +0000, David Brewer wrote:
The lead pellets I bought today come with a prominent warning that: 1) airguns
are not toys, and 2) do not put lead in mouth or lungs.
For now, they trust us. A few years from now, who knows?