Trench Sections in 1:32 scale

[Andy Belsey]

Thanks guys for your encouraging words and its great to still have your company. I am following your builds, making the occasional comment, but life is very distracted with the home rebuild.
I have a few minutes and have taken some snaps of the display boxes for the sections which are getting there.
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These boxes are made of black MDF and I've lacquered the front frames. They are held in place by the rims that kept the cases in place. Each model has a differing picture behind it. I Googled 'No Man's Land'. They all have LED strips in the top (The photo of the Frenchman shows it lit.) and I will be able to link them to one transformer. You'll notice an empty 10th box. I've started another section showing tunnelling/mines which will fit in there. I'm also planning to make a 1.76 scale context model of each section, which shows what goes on either side of the sections. This way I can show how French trench plans were different to British or how the shell hole was one of a group that were linked together, etc. I have acrylic fronts at the moment to keep out dust, but will replace it with picture glass in the future.
Andy

[Guest]

Really interesting models, and novel. Up to museum standard.

My wife and I were also flooded, three times between 2000 and 2006, up to nearly the waist. A really awful disruptive experience.

[Andy Belsey]

Really interesting models, and novel. Up to museum standard.

My wife and I were also flooded, three times between 2000 and 2006, up to nearly the waist. A really awful disruptive experience.

Steve -sympathies! Once is awful!!

[JR]

Andy.
Love the idea, and those backdrops are just the thing. They look like very good watercolors, the sky certainly adds to the drama of life in the trench.
Hope all goes well in the refurbishment, and Mrs B is managing. All very trying .
John .

[Andy Belsey]

Sorry for my absence of late. Life is still busy, but getting quieter. (The house is turning into a home again - it has ceilings and everything's being prepared for paint.)
What time I have had is being spent building a website.
Getting photos on here is complicated - like most of my present life! I take photos at work, can only load and reduce them at home and then only have time during breaks at work to put them online. I will blog, when time permits! I'll also let you (my online family) know when the website goes live. It should be soon now. (Yes, the website has tutorials.)

And Mike Butler has started work on my shaving figure. He's having to do all sorts of preparation work which I am too impatient for! He's an absolute perfectionist - and it shows in the quality of his work!
Andy

[Andy Belsey]

I posted something here earlier that I shouldn’t have. Sorry!
Andy

[Peter Gillson]

Andy

Glad to hear that the house repairs are well underway - having ceilings must make it more of a home and less of a building site. Fingers' crossed that it does not take too long.

[Andy Belsey]

I have made a small bit of progress on the latest section which shows two parts of trench mines. When I have time, I'll post some photos, which I have at home - I have to post them from home, but never seem to have time to post! I 've just had a very welcome break from flood damage in Andorra.
Watch this space!
Andy

[Andy Belsey]

Here are the promise progress shots of the little work I've done in recent months. I have to reduce them at home but never have time to post there these days, so I copied them to a memory stick and doing this during my lunch break at work. (I'm back home but have no end of tasks to do there!)

This is my 10th section model, which consists of two parts. The first shows tunnelers 'clay kicking' the soil as quietly as possible. The second, lower half, will show the tunnelers 'tamping' or blocking the mine charge with sandbags to force the explosion up rather than back through the tunnel.

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After creating boxes of acrylic, I clad the tunnels with strips of balsa. The roof timbers have a rebate to fix the upright to the walls.

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Where the explosive charge was I laid the timbers closer together. I've been following illustrations from a book by Peter Barton called Beneath Flanders Fields.

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I made a 'crucifix' chair from balsa with a central rebate made by a mixture of cutting and filing.

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There will be some spare timbers waiting to be put in place once the next area has been clay kicked.
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I had hoped to join the WW1 Group Build, but will not make much of a contribution, as time is still very scarce. Also I will have absolutely no chance of finishing on time as Mike Butler caught wind of what I was doing and has asked if he can paint the figures as Anzacs. I haven't even converted the figures yet. We have two other projects in the pipeline before he'll paint these, so it will be ages before this one is complete!! I'll try to get as much done as I can for Euro Expo in September.
Andy

[Peter Gillson]

Andy - no doubt that your attention to details will ensure these are two more excellent trench sections.

[JR]

Andy .
All looking very smart and well researched. I particularly liked the timber of course and the halving joint is neat indeed. Good to see you back even if not that often.
John .

[Guest]

Hi Andy do you mean Euro Miniaures Expo 2018. 22nd & 23rd September at Leas Cliff Hall, Folkstone, CT20 2DZ.

If so do you know which day or days you will be there, I'm going so I might bump into you so find a good place to hide or the teas are on you :smiling3::smiling3::smiling3:

Nice to see you back at the bench, another masterpiece coming up by the look of it :thumb2:

Pete.

[Andy Belsey]

Hi Andy do you mean Euro Miniaures Expo 2018. 22nd & 23rd September at Leas Cliff Hall, Folkstone, CT20 2DZ.

If so do you know which day or days you will be there, I'm going so I might bump into you so find a good place to hide or the teas are on you :smiling3::smiling3::smiling3:

Nice to see you back at the bench, another masterpiece coming up by the look of it :thumb2:

Pete.

Yes Pete, That's the place. I'm trying to get permission from SWMBO to go both days, but will be there on Saturday. I will probably be based with Darren on the Tommy's War stand, so you should be able to track me down there. There are plans afoot to have my sections and diorama on display somewhere, but that's not finalised yet.
Andy

[Andy Belsey]

Thanks for the welcome back guys. I'll try to post some more photos later.
Andy

[Andy Belsey]

I'm using one of Tommy's War's gun crew for my clay kicker. I'll convert his leg so that both are bent equally to accommodate his spade (which I've not yet made.) When I've sanded his bottom a little, he won't be bashing his head on the ceiling.

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I'll show you a series of photos showing how I created the end wall using curing car body filler.

This photo shows the area before I added any filler.

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The first layer was added wet to get the basic shape of the wall.

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I then added smaller area of filler to fill in the gap at the back corner.

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I then added small areas of curing filler. It goes crumbly as it cures and the catalyst starts to act. You only have a minute or two, so have to do it in small bits. (I've got a fuller explanation on my website).

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Notice how the latest area is darker pink because I added more catalyst.

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Lastly I put in some pieces of filler that I dug out of the front wall. I wanted to create an area where the spade had been working, so I stuck in a small chisel and gouged out an area while the filler was still soft. It gets harder after and hour or so. The pieces that were gouged out were then stuck on the floor with PVA as chunks of soil. I'll have a second guy lying on the floor collecting this loose soil.

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The crucifix chair sits between the support timbers, top and bottom. You'll see I've added the seat part.

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Here's how the figure sits on it.

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Andy B