Wednesday 1 December 2010

Reinforcements Arrive!

Well, following suggestions from both my wife and son, I've started to include pictures of the inside of the building to show progress.
All of the pictures are taken from the front left hand corner as you look at the building from previous posts. The room is 30' 3" long and 24' 6" wide. As you look at the far end you can see 3 double glazed windows, the centre window being able to full open its whole size.
Immediately to the left in the picture are MDF sheets leaning against the wall. These are 8' x 4' and will be used for the narrow side tables that will be 24' long and about 2' wide. The white sheets further down against the wall are melamine coated 10' x 4' MDF sheets. These will be used as shelving under the main tables. They are ready to go and require no additional work except to cut and then pin/glue edge tapes to finish the job.
In the centre of the piccy are more MDF sheets. The top 2 are melamine coated but underneath are the main MDF sheets for the centre tables which will be 24' x 6'.  They are 25mm and weigh a ton, took 5 guys to get them in! You can also see the lighting, just. There are a total of 8 x 5' twin natural light fittings with reflectors. They are positioned to be over the centre of the main centre tables so that there is no shadowing.
The whole room is painted brilliant white and is insulated. The concrete floor will the last job finished. I will leave it until Easter before finally completely painting it and carpeting it.
The above piccy is by panning to the right from the first piccy. What you see is a trestle with the main steel (yes steel) support beams. There are 8 of them, 2 for each table section and each is roughly 24' 6" long and 60mm x 40mm x 3mm thick. Just underneath you can see a MIG welding machine. We are welding lugs onto the steel to take the main timbers. I've used steel to cut down on timber leg supports. All the tables will have leg supports on 6' centres. It also means that as the main table is only in 2 pieces, alignment should be easier.

Panning further to the right gives a feel for the lengths of steel. A de-humidifier sits in the background. Believe it or not, the concrete should be given 200 days to let it dry out. This is based on the fact that it is lined underneath and allowing a day per mm of concrete for drying. The de-humidifier helps speed this process.

And lastly, but not least and what this is all for, the first troops are based. Apart from awaiting their eagles, you are looking at 2 regts of infantry, 6 btns, the 3rd Ligne in the foreground and the 18th Ligne in the background. Each base has a computer generated identification label as does their position in the storage tray. There are 684 figures in the piccy, 114 per btn (nearly squeezed them all into the frame!). This time next year I hope to have nearer 160 btns!

4 comments:

  1. Looking good. How robust do you think the figures will be to wargames handling?

    Chris

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  2. I think the same issues surround the large figures. The artillery and cavalry have sufficient space around the bases to be able to lift/move them by the base as opposed to the figure.
    For the infantry, I purposely left space at the front and rear of the bases so the fingers can get there, rather than pick a base up by the end figures (like a tweezer).
    As always, the skill will be persuading/educating the gamers to handle the kit by the base, or chuck them out!
    I'm hopeful because they are also lightweight, which seems to make lifting thrm by the base more comfortable/obvious/natural.
    Chief tester of course will be Herbert. If it passes this test then all is well?!

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  3. Don't know Herbert, but I am with you on the education front -- I am rather anal about figure care. I paint all my own stuff and 12,000 figures later I am rather picky about seeing the million hours of modeling time being destroyed in a second of mishandling!

    Any news on the WWII rules front? Sorry, I had to ask...

    I live in Canada, but come over to the UK fairly regularly (every few years) and will come to your Situation Room when you open for business.

    Happy Christmas.

    Cheers,
    Chris

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  4. Happy Christmas from Canada.
    Cheers,
    Chris

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