Monday 8 August 2011

Terrain is everything - a solution to an age old problem part 2

More work on my man-made hill. The original plan was to make this as simple as possible but you know these things are fluid, always in flux. It's at times like these where new ideas and directions become apparent and so the end result can be dramatically different than the initial concept. So they end up being less simple but more functional in the process. Here's the 'basic' hill.


The downside to this is the STC production. I could deliver about half a dozen new .pdfs of my STCs to 'my followers' and the community as a whole now [if they wanted] but the kinks may not have been worked out and I've not constructed them enough to show step-by-steps or put any instructions on the pages so it's a little clearer what goes where. However I've tried to stay on top of the template with this construction so who knows, this may leap-frog some older STCs and be in your hands before you know it! Here's a Dread for scale.


You can't tell but I messed up on the cutting for the bottom step, it's 5mm longer than the other ones but I kind of like it, the STC will be fixed to accommodate this error and there should be a cool little construction technique where interlocking bits of foam core should make that bottom step reall solid. As this hill will not have a board base it'll need to take the strain at this join. It also needed a bit of extra card under the front step, apparently my vertical measuring was out by about 1.5 mm so your average cereal box is too thin, and mounting card too thick, however the sort of card used to back A4 writing pads was just right!


Next up is mounting card edges on the top of the hill and steps with Granny Grating mesh on the top. That's right I come up with an idea for a simple hill in case you can't get hold of foam and use another material that not everyone can get their hands on! Of course you could do without or just use card squares with a tile pattern... Oh and the hills going modular [in a way]!

2 comments:

  1. Granny grating...what´s that??
    Cheers
    Paul

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  2. Hey Paul's Bods, Granny grating - is the 'technical term' for the plastic grid material used in tapestry/large scale cross-stitch making. The brand I get is from a US company called Darice but it's available in the UK presumably at many craft or even needlework shops. I get mine from http://www.fredaldous.co.uk/ you can shop online but the shop in Manchester is like an Aladdin's cave. It's about £1 for an A3 sheet so it's really good value and you can get circular sheets too.

    It features heavily in my home-made fences - http://40kaddict.blogspot.com/2011/06/terrain-is-everything-mo-mo-mo-fences.html

    Hope that helps

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