LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - cargo net with barrels WIP

 As I'm not 100% sure about the first crago for the crane I'm still looking to finetune that. But time is also short, so I looked for a easy printable barrel  and tested that. Too small. Gave it another try. Too big. Printed that off at 80% and perfect.

Now to do a test with various gauzes I have in my First Aid practice kits (expired stuff so no worries) to see how many barrels I need to get the look I am after, and then glue the barrels into a blob and paint that, then cover it with the net. What I don't need can go into my spares box for later scenery. 

The file for the barrel can be found here: Rocket Pig Games Barrel

It comes with or without studs, and 1 inch (the big ones) or half inch (the small ones). The small ones will make nice gunpowder barrels, the large ones are just a tad too big for me. 

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - Crane done. Now comes the rest.....

 Calling the crane done. Johann standing as a size reference. Yes, she is a big girl!

My dinner table is a disaster zone, so tomorrow clean up so I can do the next set of drawings and vacume a gazillion small bits of wood from the floor. 

 My estimated time for the crane build was 3 weeks, same for the cargoes. I'm actually 1 week ahead which is nice for a change. 1 week per cargo is doable, and then paint all of them combined so I'm ready ahead of time.....cause I have a lot of other things to do, like take a ton of photo's of all of the 20mm stuff I need to sell. Ugh. 

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - Wheely good now

I managed to add extra support inside so it now turns as it should, without a wobble or magnets. Pressure fitting wood for the win. Used scrap MDF rounds from the scrap box for the rollers, then used lollypop sticks for the guides. 

Keeping parts seperate for now will help with painting.

Tomorrow fine-tuning of the angle of the wheel and adding most of the iron banding.

Extra strength, but these will trimmed back to about 1-2 mm before painting.

Justifying the reason whey I have a MDF scraps box.

Lollypot sticks added, and those got sanded down so it sits flush with the crane beam.

Slowly getting there...

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - Wood gets longer and stronger

 After a long hard day installing another cabinet and prepping my display cases for pick up tomorrow (as I sold them) I fell asleep on the couch till SJors rang the doorbell for hobby night. Oops.

Tonight I used up all of the fireworks wood I had left, so I need to search my attic for the remaining stash to finish this. The balsa I have won't cut it as they are way too thin.

But progress is good.

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - Wood gets nailed

 I've been spending a bit of time every day snipping the heads off of dress pins. This is very taxing on my hands so I do about 20 or so and then call it a day and insert them in the desired places.

Right now I have made a platform and nailed that and got the main beam glued up, as well ad the crane arm laminated but not yet stripped or sanded. Need to do some more eyeballing to see how tall I really want it to be. 

 Recycle kids! The future crane arm, double thickness wood now. 

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - More Wood

 Glued and pinned more wood together to get the basic frame together and started adding the iron bands (aka card and pins) and that will take a bit. Once that is done I'll work on the platform and the top of the crane, and after that tie in the wheel. 

It's a real bodgejob but it works. 

Old Fireworks for the win. And yes, I can't cut a straight edge to save my life....

....but we are getting there. Ignore the wheel. It thought it was Obi Wan and wanted to have the high ground. 

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - Get Wood

 Stripped the last tape from the roll and used my trusty The Chopper to cut swizzle sticks to size. Clad the roll with it, inside and out, and after drying sanded the sides smooth-ish. Made 2 crosses for the axle to go through and glued those on by 1,5 eye. It sorta works, but I never intended this to be a working crane anyway so no problem. 

Making the cross in the most high tech way possible

 

Mega Hamster Death Wheel!

With the side trim added.

Next up is putting pencil to paper to get the measurements for the support frame, and check how I can make it a turntable if I ever want to put it on the top of a building. Ok, I will need to build a building for it, but it is the thought that counts...

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - Let's get it on!

 First thing to build is the wheel. I've looked at scratchbuilding the wheen, 3D printing it and what not. , then took a step back and looked at how others did it. 

The humble beginnings. A roll of pretty useless sticky tape with the right width, a wooden rod for the center and a thicker bit of balsa for the support. I'll use coffee stirrers for the outside and inside planks, glue those in place, sand the sides and then work on the sides of the wheel. 

Well, that is the plan anyway.

LAF BSC 2026 "Wheel" - The Idea

 And we have another competition. Theme is "wheel"

Timelines (all times are midnight Pacific Standard Time of that day stated - yes my timezone means you get an extra 8 hours you lucky European sods)

• Start Time - Feb 1st
• Last Registration Day - March 1st NEW Extended registration limit
• Construction Completed - March 31st
• Painted Photos Due - April 7th
• Voting Begins - April 15th(ish)

Perfectly doable I say. Well, at least if I don't get sicker then I already am that is. But let's be positive :)

After going over my options I think it is time I make something for Mordheim again, it's been a while. As Mordheim is also a port, I think one of these is in order.

That way I can make a nice dent in my Balsa collection as well, and it is easy to plan into sections. The wheel, the frame and the crane part. And now to put that idea to paper. 

BSSCF2025 - Final fotoedit

 

BSSCF2025 - Deadline tomorrow, better get cracking!

 Quite a bit to so, but I needed another teaser pic for the LAF.

BSSCF2025 - The (off) White House

 And that is the last pic of the whole building for now. Hope to get most of it done by the end of the weekend so I can focus on other builds and do the final detailing on my leasure. 

Calling it a bukake house might be the wrong thing for a fertility clinic.....

BSSCF2025 - Sign me up!

 After a nice week with the girls and focussing on family time, the final details for the house.

Magnetised two 15x30mm MDF bases from my bases box so I can make a Afrikan and a Vietnamese sign, added a card square for the streetsign and fixed up the chimney. And that is it, she is ready for priming. 

 

BSSCF2025 - Nest Egg

 Decided to forgo electrical work and add more nests. Bird and eggs are oversized to help with painting, and the Storch nest will get extra foliage once painted. 

 

BSSCF2025 - Broody Birds

 Finished sanding down the walls lastnight and had a discussion about the build with my daughters at breakfast this morning. I suggested I would add some Swallows nests to the house as those tie in with the whole New Life theme.

A mention of the word Swallow must be accompanied by Monthy Python. Sorry, I don't make the rules.

 

The girls, rightfully so, said that a Storch or a Storchs next should be there as well. That presents a bit of a problem as the rules stated the build must fit inside a 4x4x4 inch cube and I'm hitting those limits with not a lot of room to spare. But I'll give it a try, so in comes a chimey. Plugged it in, glued it down and filled it with superglue and cornstarch to make it solid. I'll add a nest at a later date, the same for finishing the connection between the roof and the pipe.

 The Swallows nests (I went with Barn Swallows nests) are basic balls of Brown Stuff (my Green Stuff has gone the way of the Dodo ages ago) pressed into place with a toothpick and left to set. Once those have hardend I'll add a few tiny balls so I can paint up a few little Barn Swallows. Don't expect too much, those balls will be about 1mm in diameter max, with tiny stripes of red, white, black and the occasional yellow stripe. 

 

BSSCF2025 - Slurrpie House

 I could have used another term but you get the gist of it.....

Slurry mix of cheap wall filler, some wood glue and a drop of water, mixed into a fine paste. Use a brush that you have no emotional relationship with to spread it along the wall and let it set. It dries really quick but this is all I'm doing today. It looks rough now but once I've gone over with some fine sandpaper it evens out and will help with painting a weathered look. 

Shout out to the lady who gave away 100 small espresso cups for free on the local Free FB page, these are just perfect for this :)

More tomorrow. 

BSSCF2025 - Window framing

 After a semi decent nights sleep I came to my senses, and reminded myself that someone with reumatoid arthritis must be a complete idiot if he wants to cut out 20 windows by hand :)

That and I bought this printer for a reason, so printer go BRRR. 

Mental note: Do this again when you build the 2nd part of the Fish Factory as you no longer have card windows in your stash.

Putting in the windows in the right locations was very straight forward. So straightforward I only took 1 picture. That got corrupted. Son of a.....

 Basically I use The Chopper to cut a lolly pop stick into a large and a small section. Large section goes lengthway along the floor, short section goes upright againt the corner. Add glue, add window, push inward a bit and remove the sticks. Repeat.

 Added 2 roofing nails to the front for the signage.

And that is all I had time for tonight, now to let everything dry and tomorrow or wednesday spackle the walls.

BSSCF2025 - The core build

 Right, basics are done. 

 I put some thoughts to paper and grabbed what I needed.

Used my Proxxon to cut a 9x9  and 6cm tall block and cut out a overhang on the front. Recycled a old unused rooftest and cut that to size, and flattend off the top. Glued and pinned it all down. 

 

Grabbed some thin card (thick paper?) and made a nice 4 layerd front door for a bit of 3D . Fresh scalpel blade and my trusty punches, nothing else. No fancy Circut here (mostly cause I can't afford that).

And glued that into place, with a bit of scrap MDF as a step up. Easy peasy.

And the same for the back door, but a bit lower, nothing fancy here.

 Cut a high end sateh stick into 4 pieces and used those as support columns, trimmed the tops of the floors with swizzle sticks. A bit rough, but will be cut and sanded on the ends....it's just easier that way to do once it is all dry.

 My usual method of tinned sheet roof in progress. Some painters tape keeps it from lifting off....I could pin it down but this works fine and saves metal (for the War effort, you see?). 

And thus endeth my lazy Sunday afternoon...well, evening now. Roof in place, everything drying.

Next up is cut 20 windows (after replacing my scalpel blade, amazing how quick they blunt) and glue them on, strengthen the roof with prodigious amounts of superglue, sand the wood, do things I forgot and then plaster the whole thing up. Then let it all set for a few days so it is rock solid and then go to town with whites, greys and browns. I'm talking about paint btw....

Build Something Small Competition Fall 2025 - Fertility/Maternity Clinic for AK-47

 There is a new build over at the LAF, and I'm shortening it to BSSC - F2025

The Theme is "New Life/New Beginnings"

Naturally, I will join. I looked at adding something for Verrotwood, but that game is pretty much the Antitheses for Life, so no. So, AK-47 it is. Nothing like blaming yet another fire on the Rebels ey, think of all the headlines in the worlds newspapers and the support Wadiya would get :)

As with prior Building Something Small, the maximum size is 4 freedom units (inches) cubed. Or 101.6mm cubed for those in the rest of the world.

I grabbed one of my precut tree bases, selected a 10cm square and cut off the offending bits. With that sorted I grabbed the foamcutter and cut out a 9x9 block out of one of my 6cm thick not-Styrodur sheets and grabbed a old roof from the bits box that turned out too small for one of my 28mm builds. Cut out the middle so I had a nice pointy roof, but that would have been too tall, so flattend it. Glued it to the base and pinned on the roof and let the lot dry.

This building will be spackled, so I can add the windows, doors etc with card on top of the foam core. I'll add magnets to the front so I can change the sign. I might make one in Vietnamese as well, for reasons.

White exterior, nice on the front, bit weathered on the sides, seen better days in the back (keeping up appearances). Weathered tin roof. 

And that is it really. Make up a name etc I can do in the coming week.

Timelines (all times are midnight Pacific Standard Time of that day stated - yes my timezone means you get an extra 8 hours you lucky European sods)

• Start Time - Oct 1st
• Last Registration Day - Oct 8th
• Construction Completed - Nov 7th
• Painted Photos Due - Nov 10th
• Voting Begins - Nov15th(ish)

 Deadlines popped up in the Calendar, I have the time this month, just not sure about the energy as I'm getting plenty of frequent flyer miles back and forthing from my place to all of my check ups, blood tests and new meds to test. Plenty of pain , now with inflamed and open skin for extra oomph. Ain't Eczema great.

LAF BSC 2025 - Backwater Ferry - Framing the Ferry

 Just a progress shot. Sanded, connected and glued the framing together made from discarded fireworks, then sanded both sides a as flat as possible. Now I can start adding the plastic card decking, the extensions, the cabin, engines and the workings for the front ramp.

 

3 weeks for this and the paintjob, and I have 2 other projects running simultaniously. Better get cracking.