Blog-Con November 9th-10th

The clock is ticking down to the first Blog-Con. I shall be there for both days and will be taking the Cowboy collection along. Currently working on devising a few scenarios.

James is doing a Battletech set

Panzerkaput is going to put on a Very British Civil War scenario

Ian - is i believe looking at various board games and maybe a 6mm Napoleonic

rumours of a large X wing game too.

not bad for first attempt. All washed down with great company in a fine venue , and a chance to meet up with your favourite bloggers (well ok maybe not Ray....). Looking forward to meeting up.


So what else have I been up to? Well borrowing from a post by Phyllion can you guess whats in the box?

Yep the next order from the supplier of all manner of wargame goodies -  Andy at Ainsty Castings - has turned up , complete with some rather fine new pieces (not even sure they are on the website listing yet)  - this box load will complete the first 4 of the A3 sized boards for the mine.

 I love the handcart.... came over all "Blazing Saddles"

 New ore cart as well, complete with buffers.. i will post some more bits as they come out of the box!

Secondly the electronics have turned up - just to prove it works some lights! I used DCC supplies and Microminiatures, both very helpful and quick delivery.

 The rest of the bits - optical fibre, pre-wired LED's , heat shrink , switches.  Good old schoolboy electronics. - more later!

Next up is my new "toy" .. i have upgraded the camera to nice new mid range DSLR . Having great fun getting back into proper photography

Still on with the great Demolish It Yourself project -as well so no time for painting at the mo!

Anchors Away..

Well sort of. Following on from Mr Awdry's recent visit to Portsmouth Historic dockyard, I though I would see if I could find some old photographs from what feels like only a few short years ago. Scarily it was 30 years ago!

Back in the spring and summer of 1983 at the start of my apprenticeship as a draughtsman I worked with the other trade apprentices on the the restoration of parts for HMS Warrior. Namely the great anchors. I completed engineering drawings for these from some copies of the original plans. A bit of proper engineering making things!

 How do you get an anchor on low loader? --- you just leave that to the apprentices to work out and turn up after..

HMS Warrior on the way to Hartlepool for restoration work - just a bit of work to do

 The end of that year getting my "top apprentice" prize from Jack Charlton- lots of new practical skills learnt, many still in regular use today.

Jack was presented a trout made by the sheet metal work apprentices.

As you can tell - nothing much doing on painting at moment, as too heavily involved in a "Demolish It Yourself" project that will lead to my games room.... and waiting for extra supplies from Ainsty.  Also just booked up for weekend down in Portsmouth - to see the Mary Rose and the Warrior - well time to go and see the anchor.

The bad twin...

That kind gentleman Michael Awdry (28mm Victorian Warfare)offered me the chance to have a few figures painted.

Well I thought I must get him to do some cowboys. I am working on a scenario with a good and bad twin, so I asked Michael to do the "bad" version of the US Marshal. This is the set by Crusader that comes with a mounted and foot figure.

I really love the the pinstripe on his trousers, great job.











Michael even made up a rather fine terrain piece for them, that will be used on the edge of town. Cheers Michael