Brilliant Robin, maybe you should consider putting some of this together and sending to Admin for publication on the Modelspace articles section. Maybe earn yourself that elusive green medal and perhaps the 100 smackers to go with it.... Your level of research and description is quite remarkable...... Please keep it going....

Regards

Alan

Many thanks indeed for all the complimentary comments above, If I do find any other interesting facts and figures, I'll add them in too! And I'll think about that idea Alan!

Hi Stevie! I think the occasions where the tanks became stuck in craters must have been the monster things created by the really big guns. The other big factor is what was in those craters in the first place. The reason why the MkIVs were so successful at Messines was because Plumer had picked the one spot on the Western Front where the terrain was ideally suited to them. Unlike the earlier smaller scale battles, Messines was literally 'High Ground', a rising slope with pretty good drainage with none of the sticky semi-liquid mud so typical of the Somme etc. (And a slight problem for me as the ground isn't actually 'mud' coloured!)
The Messines ridge forms a barrier from the lowlands to the West and the higher Passchendaele plateau to the North-East. The plateau, being another flat area was unfortunately even more water logged than the Somme and the huge barrages before the battle commenced turned the whole area into a form of quicksand. Entire Battalions of men, as well as tanks advanced into some of those craters and never came out again!

Ok, on with the next part!

Part Twelve: Battlefield Debris No.1: German Roll of Barbed Wire

“When does a soldier grumble? When does he make a fuss?
No one is more contented in all the world than us.
Oh it's a cushy life, boys, really we love it so:
Once a fellow was sent on leave and simply refused to go!”

A verse I’d never heard before from the original “Oh what a Lovely War!”

In this instalment, we begin with the first of the various items which will end up littering the battleground and trenches. Back in Part Seven, I detailed my method for constructing the vicious German barbed wire (which reminds me, I must get back into the mass production process again!), in this episode we see just how the German troops received their wire in its ‘ready to use’ format!
Photo 1 is a repeat of the ebay ‘WW1 German wire for sale’ photo which illustrates exactly what I’m going to be trying to copy in 1/72 scale. This is an authentic roll of unused barbed wire on its ‘disposable’ wooden spool. The idea is that the infantry were responsible for laying (and re-laying after a bombardment) the barbed wire defences to the front of their own section of the front line, to do this they would receive large quantities of wire supplied on these wooden holders. To lay the wire, a bar, either a wooden pole or possibly a length of metal tubing was inserted through the holes in the centre of the frame and then a few soldiers could pick up the roll and once the end of the wire had been secured to a post or similar, the roll was unreeled as they moved along, the wire being tied or stapled to more posts as they went.
This is a very simple item to make, consisting of just four pieces of wood, in this case, a dark hardwood possibly Sapele, once again donated from the Constructo ‘Grimsby’s’ still quite large stock of spare planks! The components are quite small and fiddly as you can see from the photos, Photos 5 and 6 show the entire framework stuck on the tip of a cocktail stick! The four pieces are 1.5mm thick (was 2mm before the sanding) with the end pieces being 7 x 3mm and the side ‘bars’ being 2.5 x 10mm. These were then super glued together to form the ‘cross ended’ frame as seen in Photo 2.
The next stage was to drill out the central holes which was first accomplished with the power drill and a smaller drill bit before working up to the full size hole which was cleaned out with a pin vice drill as seen in Photo 3. With the holes drilled out, (unfortunately, in this first example, NOT exactly in line, which is why there’s no bar through the middle!) it was now time to attach the first layer of wire. I say ‘first layer’ because unlike the full size original, this dinky version is not actually carrying a full roll of barbed wire! The stuff is so time consuming to make, I wasn’t going to waste it in an area that wasn’t going to be visible at the end! Instead, the bulk of the roll of wire is made up of the twin core of the miniature wire without all the effort of adding the barbs! In Photo 4, you can see the first attachment of this wire core to the wooden frame. It is bent at right angles and super glued to one side of the bar. Before continuing, there was one more little job to do. In the first picture you can see that the wooden frame is actually painted with a version of the Imperial German Field Grey, (just like we painted everything in Khaki or War Office Green!), so before beginning to wind the wire around the frame I gave the ends a quick coat of Citadel grey acrylic. I wanted a rough and ready appearance as per the original so I used an old fairly small paintbrush (you know the ones, once my pride and joy detail brush, now its had too many inadequate cleanings!) and the paint was applied in a sort of overly thick dry-brushed technique as can be seen in Photo 5. The twisted twin core was then wound around and around the frame until there was enough of it on there to cover up the wooden frame beneath and then the end of the wire was crimped down and a drop of super glue applied to keep it in place.
All that remained to finish the roll off was to attach a length of the completed barbed wire, again, crimped down with long nosed pliers and glued before the barbed wire was itself wound around the frame (being VERY careful, the ruddy stuff is sharp even in this scale!) The final result is seen in Photo 7. It didn’t turn out too bad for the first example. If I make any changes in the other ones, (I’ll have about three or so full rolls and a few empties I think) I may well add a piece of curved wood to the top and bottom of the side bars to give the core wire a more rounded effect, but we’ll see when the time comes.
So that’s it for this session, I hope it might give you some ideas yourselves if you are also getting bitten by the Great War Bug.

In Part Thirteen I think it’s time to make a start on the ‘stand-alone’ part of the trench system, the self contained German Bunker!

See you soon!

Robin

Many thanks Alan!

In this installment, the first of the permanent 'fixtures' begins with the German concrete bunker on the extreme right of the diorama.

Part Thirteen: The German Bunker Part One

Hush! Here comes a Whizzbang,
Hush! Here comes a Whizzbang,
Now you Soldiermen, get down those stairs,
Down in your Dugouts and say your prayers.
Hush! Here comes a Whizzbang,
And its making straight for you,
And you’ll see all the wonders of No Man’s Land
If a Whizzbang hits You!

The Tommies Whizzbang Song!


The Bunker.

One of the surprises, which turned up during the archaeological excavations was the discovery of a perfectly preserved German concrete bunker, which had never appeared on any of the Messines planning maps. The bunker was approximately twelve feet by six or seven as can be seen in the four photos below. The walls are solid concrete which, judging by the horizontal impressions running along its inner walls was constructed by pouring concrete into a mould formed by large planks of wood which were then removed.
There were no remains of any roof structure which I think would indicate the roof was made from a timber frame, probably with tin sheets, sand bags and soil to provide both protection and camouflage. The fact that it was not represented on any map points to that camouflage being perfectly carried out. As to the ‘type’ and purpose of this bunker, who knows? The height of the concrete walls tends to make me think that it was actually a purely defensive structure (somewhere to hide in!) but for the diorama I have decided to model it with a firing slit just for more interest in what’s going on inside. If I can work out a suitable way to accomplish it I’ll have one of the heavy machine guns set up in there, the problem at the moment being all the MGs in the figure sets are on ‘level ground’ type mountings, but we’ll see!
The bunker was designed for six occupants as a wooden plank was found with six carved out depressions to take the butts of six German rifles in the ‘rack’ The floor of the bunker was covered in wooden floor boards although there does appear to be some sort of square opening in those boards which could be the entrance to one of the German tunnels as found elsewhere in the trench system. The floor of the bunker is also at the same level as the drainage ditch beneath the main trenches so there are two concrete steps coming down from the trench floor into the bunker itself.
I decided to model the bunker on the extreme left side of the German trenches (seen from their side!), this meant I could model it with the end wall cut away for a better view inside on the diorama and what was really handy was that the thickness of the walls was virtually the same as the thickness of the white foam boards so I could literally form the ‘box’ out of the foam, possibly with a thin coat of plaster to simulate the plank lines. The roof section would be made from real wooden beams plus my own scratch build ‘wriggly tin’ sheets with Milliput sandbags topped off with more ground work. Since beginning this diary section some months ago, I’ve had second thoughts about the wriggly tin roof and I may in fact substitute a heavy planked wooden one instead but don’t worry, there will be loads of wriggly to come yet, with its own ‘how to’ to explain the technique to construct it!
The first four photos below show a selection of screen shots from the TV program as the bunker was excavated. These were taken in chronological order from the TV program and you’ll have to excuse the moiré pattern interference in the photos (the curvy lines like ripples), at the moment, the only way I can get screen shots into this diary is to pause the digital recorder and take a photo of the screen!
Photo 1 shows the extent of the bunker after it was first excavated. The remains of some wooden panelling can be seen in the doorway (which will be modelled later) and the wooden floorboards which are in perfect preservation, can be seen too. In Photo 2, a little later on, the floor has been cleaned up and the square cut out in the floor is visible below the right hand archaeologist’s right boot. In another part of the program, a separate vertical shaft was unbolted to allow a submersible camera to explore the shaft (now flooded to the top) exposing the ladder and electric cables all the way to the bottom. These are the entrances to the German counter-mines which stopped the Petite Douve mine from being finished and I’ve decided to model this feature into the bunker to represent it here instead of its actual position some distance away. It means a little extra work of course, but the added interest should be well worth it.
Photos 3 and 4 give a clearer idea of the size of the bunker and also show the concrete steps leading down into the lower floor level. The ‘alleyway’ to the right of the door is the area I’ve put in the smaller communications trench on the model.
Picture 5 is another graphic representation of what’s intended to come. As you can see, most of the body of the bunker will be constructed from the thinner white foam boards using some of the offcuts from the main groundwork stage. As luck would have it, (and mentioned previously) the thickness of the white board (10mm) looks just about identical to the scale thickness of the walls in the photos, so no cutting is required as far as the width goes! (the right hand wall is not included for clarity). There will be six main parts to the build, two main walls, two corner sections forming the doorway, a separate double steps insert and the existing base or floor section which was previously cut away from the main base board. The base has now been modified with the addition of the access shaft cut into the extreme outer edge, this will later be encased with a wooden plank lining and the ladder. The actual floor will be composed of a wooden framework to raise the floorboards off the bottom and also to form the upper frame of the shaft. Hopefully the thing will end up looking something like this plan!
In Photo 6, we can see the main component parts cut out of the foam board (before I had the bright idea about the shaft!). The steps in this photo are a first attempt version, when the walls are finally glued to the base the actual gap in the doorway might be slightly different so I might need a new set (also I designed the two steps without allowing for the thickness of the flooring timber below them – shhh!) . The initial fitting of these parts is shown in Photo 7 and as you can see, those steps will have to be higher!
With the main parts cut to shape, the next task is to imitate the horizontal raised lines which run across the walls, these are the result of some leakage of the wet concrete mixture seeping into the slight gap between the planks of timber used to form the removable mould into which the concrete was poured. I was going to use the thinnest of my ship rigging threads here but they just wouldn’t show up on the photos so instead I’ve used a darker cotton thread which you can see in Photo 8. Any thread is probably just as good for this, the colour is immaterial as it will all be painted over later. The face of the wall panel was given a quick coat of PVA glue and whilst still wet, the cotton threads were placed along it’s length and painted over with the glue. After a suitable period (overnight is best), the whole face of the wall with its threads was given a second coat of PVA to bind everything together. Photo 9 shows the wall after the second coat and Photo 10 shows the pieces put back together again (in a dry run) once all the threads had been attached and bonded. I found the best way to trim the excess ends of the cotton was to turn the wall over with the thread side down and use a new blade to cut the ends off.
The first two parts have been glued together in Photo 11 (not including the steps!) Note, as per the original, the concrete mould lines do not meet up in the corner, obviously, they used differing sized timbers to make up the mould. The next step was the initial painting of the internal wall surfaces. The first two coats were of Citadel ‘Celestra Grey’. The pot also says ‘Base’ on it so I suppose this could be a purpose made undercoat (I think I did ask for an undercoat when I bought it for my Victory scratch built crew figures). One coat almost does it, but two gives a better finish. After that I used an almost drybrush technique to apply some ‘getting old and thickening up’ Citadel White running down from the top to give the impression of ‘salt runs’ that seem to occur in many pre-cast concrete structures. This was then toned down a little with a slightly wetter drybrush made up from some equally old Citadel ‘Codex Grey’, this time applied from the bottom up to simulate damp from the ground. When dry the mould lines were given a proper drybrush with the old white and finally, a drop of diluted Citadel ‘Shadow Black’ Ink was applied, again to the lower parts of the wall, I rubbed much of it off again, leaving just a shadow line under the mould lines to accentuate them a little more. The results of this can be seen in Photo 12. The base or floor was also painted with the Codex Grey although the foam wasn’t first PVA’d. Although not seen in Photos 13 to 15, I also later added a bit of mottled wash to the floor with a drop of Citadel ‘Skaven Brown’ Ink, (it’s called brown but it’s almost another black!) In Photo 14 you can also see the new shaft entrance cut into the floor panel as described above. The final Photo 15 shows the Bunker module slid back into the main base. A little slice and trim was required here, as previously, I had only been sliding the white floor panel in and out. The first attempt revealed a slight overhang on the sides of the green foam surrounding the bunker. Anyway, after I had re-glued the wall which snapped off its base, I reinforced the assembly with three cocktail sticks pushed and hammered into the walls from below!
So that’s the situation so far. I’m quite pleased with the way it’s looking, there’s definitely a ‘concretey’ feel to it, and in the next section I’ll be cutting and fitting the wooden floor section and hopefully, coming to some decision as to how the roof will be done. Until then,

Happy Building to All



Robin

Hi Robin, firstly an apology.... I didn't realise you had posted an update, just noticed it just now.....

Another fabulous piece of work and I found your article on the concrete bunker very very interesting ... Think it's a great idea to try and add this very interesting feature into your dio... think the effort will pay enhanced dividends..... Keep up the great work and of course keep the articles coming.....

Best regards

Alan

Many thanks to Stevie and Alan, the continued encouragement is a great, er, encouragement!
And also to Delboy who posted in whilst I was typing this out!

I've had some good luck on the web which is outlined below and so onto the continuation of the Bunker!


Part Fourteen: The German Bunker Part 2

Since the last instalment I have made some more discoveries about the area I am modelling in this diorama. Firstly, I found some excellent new photographs taken at the excavations which are far clearer and show much more detail which I will be trying to include into the model and secondly, I managed to get in contact with Paul Reed, the Chief Historian involved in the Channel 5 program. He has very kindly given me permission to use any of the photos and also sent me a couple of links to the ‘official’ archive shots of the dig. These photos are even more interesting and detailed, the only downside is that they are on the Flickr website and I can’t find any way to download them to use here. I suspect that you have to become a member of Flickr or something so I’ll have to have a closer look into that. (If any reader has experience of this medium, any advice would be very welcome!).
Anyway, on with the build!
The last episode finished with the completion of the German Bunker walls and so this one begins with the construction of the floor. The lowest section was a frame work of square section wood strip (CMB of course, Victory’s going to kill me for pinching her pre-ordered stock of timber!) In this case I’m using the 2mm square strip to construct the supporting frame for the floorboards as seen in Photo 1. As you can see, as well as supporting the floorboards, the frame also incorporates the surround for the top of the vertical shaft.
The next step was to measure and cut to size the wooden floorboards themselves. At this point, I would like to give my sincere thanks to the local Costa Coffee Shop situated in my nearest Tesco Supermarket for supplying all the wood for not only the bunker floor but for all the trench sides and duckboards to come. All of these wooden sections are being built from a supply of wooden spills (or coffee stirrers if you prefer). Before the Managers of said Costa’s get into trouble I must come clean and admit that they don’t actually realise that they are supplying these things! But half a dozen wooden spills at a time on each weekly shopping trip, you’d be surprised how they mount up after a few months! I wouldn’t like to try and plank a full ship with them (but there’s a thought!) but for simulating the rough and ready timber employed on the front line, they’re darn near perfect! (For any readers without a convenient coffee shop nearby, you can also get them on Ebay!)
In Photo 2, you can see the floorboards laid out and cut to size. In fact with a little sanding they’re not bad looking pieces of wood at all. I deliberately used a couple of differently coloured spills to add some variation to the colour of the planks and this appearance would be fine if it was a brand new wooden structure. What I really wanted to achieve though was a weathered look to the wood, the German positions at Messines had been there for about three years at the time of the assault and the wooden parts of the trench system would have had three years of weathering at least by then. The exterior parts, trench sides, duckboards etc will be very weathered in comparison, but for the bunker, shielded as it was from the UV and weather , I wanted a much more subtle effect. But how to get it?
There is a really good commercial product called “Weather-it” which is made by the same US company, (A-West) that makes the excellent “Blacken-it” for brass and copper. It’s very good, but at nearly £8 for a 4oz bottle it’s not cheap either! I spent a long time trawling through the internet trying to discover what the ingredients of Weather-it might be with no success, in fact I can only get the product itself to come up on Ebay and a couple of US Model Shop sites. However, by a lucky accident I found another site (again in the US) describing how to weather wood for modellers and dolls houses. If the ingredients in Weather-it are the same as those I’ll describe below, you can make the same amount of the stuff yourself for about 20p!
Basically, the weathering liquid is an acidic solution containing a proportion of iron oxide and making up such a solution is really easy! If you haven’t got these two ingredients already, simply nip down to your local supermarket and buy a bottle of Distilled White Vinegar (the clear one, not the dark brown Malt Vinegar), and a pack of steel wool. When I read this on the internet, I’d only just bought a bottle of that vinegar, not for this, but to clean my brass wires before blackening! The steel wool I already had (as will most others too I expect!) Simply measure out a quantity of the White Vinegar into a suitable bottle as in Photo 4 (the amount doesn’t matter, but make a note of it), tear off a small quantity of the steel wool and drop it in. In this instance, the bottle is actually an empty (and washed) meat paste bottle, (I must try and find the bottle tops too!) All you have to do is leave the steel wool in there, preferably for 24 hours but at least overnight. As you can see in Photo 5, the mixture has gone a ‘Golden Syrup’ colour but that didn’t happen for a few days and when I began applying the solution it was still perfectly clear. I will do up a fuller account of this procedure for the Modelling Tips section with a fresh batch at some time but I couldn’t resist adding it in here! The fact that it is iron oxide in the mixture makes me think that perhaps a couple of rusty nails could replace the steel wool but for the first try I followed the instructions on the web site to the letter. After the 24 hours is up, remove the steel wool, (as I said, at this point my solution was still clear). If you paint this straight on to the wood it will turn light wood completely grey and dark wood, mahogany etc, completely black so the next stage is to dilute the solution with clean water equal to the amount of white vinegar (a 50% solution) that’s why you need to make a note of how much you poured in the bottle! From here on it’s simply a matter of experimenting, try it on a scrap of wood, if too grey or black dilute it further and try again until its just right for the effect you want. The solution I used to obtain the required amount of weathering can be seen in Photo 6 and was, I think, a third dilution, somewhere between 15 – 20% strength. As you can see in Photo 3 comparing it to Photo 2, it’s a nice subtle weathering effect, as I mentioned, the exterior wood will be done with a stronger solution when the time comes giving a greyer appearance. One thing you do need to do with this solution however, is to give it a coat of clear varnish if it is going to be enclosed inside the model, especially if there is any shiny brass or copper anywhere near. I haven’t got anything like that, but I do intend to have a clear Perspex cover over the model at the end so all the weathered wood will be gone over with a coat of Humbrol Matt Acrylic just in case. The reason is just that the mixture is acid based (the vinegar) and can give off a very weak acidic odour which, over years could blacken any metal components. A simple light varnish will seal the wood and prevent this. I don’t know if the Weather-it has the same requirement or not, it would be interesting to find out!
Now that the weathering process had turned out to be so successful it was time to begin modelling the wooden contents of the bunker itself. The first item was going to be the rifle rack mentioned earlier. In actual fact, the real rifle rack was found a few feet outside the bunker in the side of the trench leading to it but since I haven’t modelled that particular bit of the trench I’ve decided to place it inside instead. Also, the top part of the rack is pure conjecture on my part as only the base was actually still in the trench. Logically speaking though, if you’ve got a base for six rifles you must have a top piece too for the rifles to rest in and the ‘book case’ design I’ve used is the simplest one to make (and both Tommy and Fritz usually went for ‘simple’ if they had to make something up!). The first two components are shown in Photo 7, a pre-routered base with the six ‘slots’ and the beginning of the top rack. The slots were carved out with a diamond dust tool on the rotary, the same one in fact that I’m using to cut the grooves into Victory’s channels. The grooves were cut down into a wider piece of wood to ensure they were all in a straight line and then the strip was cut back to the right width afterwards. It’s a lot easier to grind down into the thick piece than it is to centralise the row in a thin bit! The same procedure with the top rack as well, the positions of the notches were marked on the edge of the wood using the bottom piece as a marker and then the notches were formed with a diamond dust wheel, again with the rotary. Once they were OK, the wood was trimmed to size. The weathering effect can also be seen in the following Photo 8 where all four parts including the two side bars have been painted with the solution. Once dry the four pieces were PVA’d together and later glued down in position just inside the bunker doorway. You can just make out the rack at the back of the picture in Photo 9. Note also that the version 2 concrete steps are also now glued in place. This is unfortunate as I have now discovered they aren’t quite correct! With the access to the better, clearer photos from the dig archives, I’ve now seen that the steps actually still had their front edges faced with the wooden moulds secured with wooden pegs. Unfortunately, my foam cut steps are too wide to retro-fit the wood panels so plain concrete steps it is! Also in Photo 9 you can see the first plank of the shaft hatch laying in position (just above the ‘b’). All the planks for the hatch were cut and laid down just to make sure they were all the right size. I’ll come back to the a, b and c in a moment.
In Photo 10 you can see the component sections of the hatch, six separate planks and the thin strip which will make up the inner frame. These have all been pre-weathered of course, a necessary move as the solution won’t work over any form of glue contamination so any weathered components have to be treated first and then put together (unless you can easily sand them smooth afterwards that is).
Photo 11 brings us to the extra addition to the diorama, the vertical mine shaft. These are the eighteen planks which will make up the three sided shaft. The ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ refers back to the same letters in Photo 9, and simply represents where in the shaft these planks fit, the ‘b’ planks are slightly longer than the ‘a’s and ‘c’s. The next step is to shape the ends of the planks as seen in Photos 12 and 13. Photo 13 is one of the better ones from the archive and as you can see the planks have a simple notch or lug at each end. The German tunnels, whether horizontal or vertical were all lined with these timbers, about 6” thick and all mass produced well away from the front lines and shipped in as required. As the tunnel was excavated, a notched timber was held against the roof, two ‘lugged’ timbers were placed each side to support it and finally the notched floor timber was hammered in, locking all four tightly together. The vertical shaft would have been dug out in a very similar fashion, hammering in the planks as the shaft progressed down. Getting the lugs and notches all exactly the same is incredibly difficult and so I began constructing them one at a time just making sure that the interlocking joints fitted correctly for each one. The first can be seen at the bottom of Photo 12. Below, in Photo 14, you can see a little helpful tool in action, its just a simple rectangle of plasticard cut to size which ensures that each frame section is square when it is glued together. The PVA has to be very sparingly applied so that it doesn’t ‘splurge’ out to the front face. In this case I want to weather the whole shaft in one go after it’s all glued together.
In Photo 15 the construction is halfway through, three sections down, three to go!
And finally, in the Insert Photo 16, the hatch cover is finished, given a coat of matt varnish and a little Citadel Skaven Brown ink wash around the inner frame before it is finally glued to the floor and wall inside the bunker beside the rifle rack as seen in Photo 17. (With a pencil thrown in for good measure!)

That’s it for this session! In the next instalment I’ll move on to constructing the raised firing step (which didn't exist in the actual bunker,the new photos show the remains of corrugated iron sheets around the sides so I think I was probably right in assuming it was actually a buried bomb shelter and not a strongpoint as I'm modelling it as) and, completing the shaft, with a start made on the roof structure. (I hope).
Until then, Happy Building to All!

Robin

Brilliant work and beautifully described Robin. The bunker is going to be an excellent addition to the dio, it really does look fab.... Also found your item on you home made weather-it solution and the way it turns light wood grey. Am thinking it may be useful for applying to deck planking to give a washed down effect... food for thought.... .. Keep em coming, loving this dio construction.....

Regards

Alan

On we go again!

Part Fifteen: The German Bunker Part 3

The complexities of the bunker interior have been proving a little more complex than I’d anticipated! So apologies to bunker roof lovers, that part will hopefully be coming next week and this instalment will be confined to the mine shaft walls and firing step!
In Photo 1 you can see the test fit of the shaft wall made up from the wooden planks constructed last week. This trial fit proved two things when I tried it in the main foam board base. Firstly, with a little extra trimming back of the multi layered foam inside the shaft, it did indeed fit very well. Secondly, it proved I’m a plank short! (Ok! Get it over with! I know! People have been telling me that for years!) In this case however it was quite literal. I haven’t got a clue how I missed it out when I measured it all up and checked more than once, but I was missing a layer of planks at the bottom. You can just make out in that first photo the bottom of the two re-enforcing beams glued at the back of the inner wall face. That should have reached to the pine board on which the foam base sits – but like I said, one plank short! Oh well, it didn’t take long to make up another section and you can see it freshly glued to the bottom of the stack in Photo 2, (the stack is upside down to better show the difference between the un-weathered wood and the treated section beneath it).
With the wooden shaft walls now the correct height, it was time to think about the ladder for the miners/soldiers to get in and out. Now in the planning stage diagram I put in a nice wooden ladder (so much easier to make up!) but after watching the Channel 5 program yet again, I discovered that the ladder in the flooded shaft (I think it’s the only one still in existence on the Front as well!) was actually not a wooden one but a welded steel or iron version, so a metal ladder it would have to be. The ladder would be a soldered up affair using both brass and copper. The sides of the frame were made from my larger 1mm brass rod and the individual steps or rungs would be cut from the new roll of 0.5mm copper wire which I bought a few weeks ago to add to the edges of Victory’s Mizzen Channels. The first thing was to measure up the width of the ladder to fit the shaft and then it’s length, in this case just a little longer than actually required. With these two measurements obtained, two lengths of the 1mm rod were cut to length and the ends bent at right angles, only one end of which would be kept however, the other would later be snipped off, it was only required now to allow the ladder to be formed and soldered. In Photo 3 you can see the sides in place on a plain block of wood, four 1mm holes were drilled down and the brass rods gently hammered down in position ensuring that they were both level with each other.
Before beginning to add the copper rungs I first dabbed some flux resin along the two rods and then applied a little solder, running it up and down the brass until the rods were coated in a thin layer of solder. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, it makes soldering the rungs a little easier having solder already on the brass but secondly, and more importantly for the finished effect, it gave the smooth brass a slightly ‘lumpy’ finish which was going to help the final ‘rusty old iron’ appearance later on. The finished seven rungs can be seen in Photo 4.
Now came the weathering effects! Unlike the wood, I don’t have a single brush on rusty steel solution. (Actually there IS such a product on the market, I can’t remember the proper name of it but it will produce real rust on virtually any material from plastic to glass, it’s also really expensive as you can imagine, but I’d love to find out what those ingredients are!!) Anyway, it would have to be the good old fashioned method for now. First of all, the ladder (the outward facing side of it anyway) was given a coat of Citadel Bolt Gun Metal followed, when completely dry, with a wash of Citadel Shadow Black Ink. This was then left overnight and the following evening a further thinned wash of the enamel based Humbrol Rust Wash. The result can be seen in Photo 5 alongside a length of the original 1mm brass rod for comparison. What can’t be seen very well in this photo however is the fact that I deliberately left the centre part of the rungs free of the rust effect. The middle of the rungs would have been subjected to the rubbing of the miners hands and feet as they climbed up and down the ladder and any rust would be ‘polished’ off. This effect is much clearer in Photo 10 which we’ll come to later.
With the ladder itself done, the next stage was to make up the fixing brackets which were screwed into the wooden sides to support the ladder in the shaft. These were made up with the same Decra Led self adhesive lead strip as I’ve been using on various parts of Victory. First of all two tiny little strips were cut from the roll, approximately 4mm by 1.5mm in size. Using the tip of a round rat tail file I then pressed two raised bolt heads from the back of the strips before drilling a 1mm hole down through the centre of the strip in between the two bolt heads as can be seen in Photo 6. The strips were then treated with the same paint and ink routine as the ladder; Citadel Bolt Gun Metal, Shadow Black Ink and the Humbrol Rust Wash, the final appearance being as in Photo 7. Note the cocktail stick used to pick up one of the brackets, this method was ideal for the next stage of the construction as you’ll see. Two 1mm holes had already been drilled in the top plank of the shaft to match up with the rounded upper ends of the ladder, and before anything else, two rusty stains were painted in, leading from the holes down the planks. This was achieved after the shaft had been varnished with the matt acrylic (the enamel wash goes down the wood surface easier over the varnish, than it does over the bare weathered wood). Using the cocktail stick point, the bracket was picked up and a single drop of super glue applied to the back surface either side of the central hole. Then, carefully sticking the cocktail stick into the hole in the wood it was pushed down until the bracket was pushed up against the plank. A minute for the super glue to hold and then the stick was gently twisted free and removed. This not only applied the bracket just where it was needed, but also centralised the hole in the bracket with the hole in the plank, allowing the ladder to be later easily, (well, moderately easily!) pushed through the two holes giving the illusion of being held on the wood by the brackets. (Photos 8 and 9). The two ends of the ladder protruding through the plank were left in place and secured with super glue around the back. I did think of snipping them off but found once the shaft was pushed into position in the foam channel the prongs acted as extra locating pins! With the ladder securely glued in place I simply snipped off the lower rounded ends level with the bottom plank of the shaft. Photo 10 illustrates the finished shaft simply pushed in place up against the bunker floor. Note the rust free centres of the rungs as mentioned earlier and also the basic frame work of the firing step lying on the floor of the bunker. You might have noticed in some of the earlier photos that the frame of the shaft top has a couple of grooves set into one side. If you check back to the hatch leaning against the wall you’ll also see a channel cut out of its top edge. This matches up with the grooves, which are there for the electrical wiring going to the electric lamps in the tunnel, to pass up through! So many little extras crop up during construction! Theoretically, there would also be some drainage pipes from the pumps, but they’re coming up somewhere else ‘off site’ (so there!) .
So all that remains for the shaft now is to add the wires and their insulators (little white ceramic things judging by the TV program footage, but I’ll leave placing them in until the bunker module is finally put in for good. Talking of wires, I’m going to have a go at making a tiny field telephone set dangling ‘off the hook’ with all the various wires and cables running off up the communications trench (sometime off yet though!)
The final photo for this instalment Photo 11, shows the completed firing step. The basic frame seen earlier has been fitted up with six little legs (the most fiddly part yet, damn things! ), once they were finally fixed (and straight!) a single diagonal support was added using the same square wood strip cut in half lengthways and finally topped off with the same coffee-stirring-stick planks. Note, at this stage when the photo was taken the planks had only had a light weathering, I’ve added a couple more coats to deepen the effect since then which tones down the nail marks (sharp pencil lead).
So that’s that for this part. In the next instalment I’ll try and finish the upper framework for the roof (finish? I haven’t actually started it yet! ) and fit in the slightly complicated door jambs into the bunker.

Happy building till then!

Robin

A masterclass in the art of modelling Robin..... I salute you for the skills shown and as usual, the very descriptive diary..... Drooling in anticipation of the next instalment...

Regards

Alan

Hi Robin,

Superb is the only word to use.

You`ll need to do one of those micro video walk round things when this is finished, cos I don`t think pics will do it the justice this deserves.

Loving this build as always.

Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)