Building the Docks part 6 - Nearly finished

Hi Folks

Real life keeps getting in the way of the hobby, the work  (and more travelling) add in a heady mix of World Cup Rugby , a daughter learning to drive, and visiting universities for same said daughter and my project for BLAM has been seriously curtailed.

Enough of my complaining. Actually quite a lot has been completed since I last updated the blog on this project so here goes a short pictorial summary.

If you have been following this Blog you will know that once a year I meet with a group of like minded gamers from the Lead Adventure Forum for a weekend (3 days of beer and games). This year 30 souls descend on my local pub !!

My project this year was to build a 1930's Port - I plan to use this in my VBCW and Pulp games. I started back in June ( gosh that surprised me only 12 weeks ago !), and with the numbers turning up we are constrained to use tables no bigger than 4ft x 6ft.

I actually need to create 5 of these tables all painted blue for a big pirate game on the Sunday...more on this in another post

a 4ft x 6ft playing area

Onto this table I placed the dock boards I had created (se previous post) and these were rested on slabs of pink foam

The dockside walls were built using precut 9 mm MDF and topped with a ridge of thin wood stripping. These were painted black then dry brushed up greys and browns. The mooring posts are some old bits of timber and jenga pieces. They are quite weighty so will not move around too much.

I am quite pleased with the way these have turned out. The advantage is of course that I can reconfigure the shape of the dock in many ways.

The thin gap between the wharfs is supposed to represent a canal

So onto the buildings...one side of the docks is going to be an industrial refinery and factory

The storage tanks are £1 money boxes from Poundland sprayed green - these will be dirtied up. The pipework, valves etc are just 15mm plumbing stuff sourced from B&Q.  This all needs finishing. But you can see the work in progress.

The Bridge crossing the canal is a Warbases box girder bridge bought at Colours  - for £14 I was really pleased and wanted another. Alas it is no longer on their website so I have ordered a different one from Sarissa. There will be two bridges crossing the canal to aid playability.

You can see the finished factory and factory buildings from Sarissa behind the refinery. These are more or less finished.

The Canal separates the industrial zone from the warehouse area. I bought the barges ages ago off ebay - they are cheap tourist gifts.

The crane on the left is my impression of an old steam crane (its actually ripped off an old Hornby loco)

The warehouse area needs the most work - doors still need to be fitted to the buildings. Goods still have to be painted and other paraphernalia added.

The ship in the foreground is a trawler model bought on ebay - it came as a waterline model and is perfect for 28mm

The above photo gives a better shot of the refinery - the grey tank building came from Table Scape games (£18) - as did all those Oil Drums

The black crane (still to be painted) was originally a Thomas The Tank Cranky the Crane toy with a new arm added.

This particular photo was taken from the lighthouse into the port...

Yes the lighthouse is finished

As I progress I'll upload more photos...

Damn just realised I need to finish this for next Monday - dress rehearsal for the Blam game and the fifth part of the Scales of Anubis campaign...maybe...

Until next time