RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

There are some very sophisticated buildings on this forum. Let no-one be under any illusion, this won't be one of them. Following on from my success (?) viewtopic.php?f=81&t=21099with my burning building, having got loads of board left over, I thought I would have a go at a larger construction.

This is the basic construction, cut out of 5mm foam board. The board had two advantages, apart form being relatively cheap, as it is very light and very easy to cut. Please excuse the hand - the end wall is not fixed yet. Stuck together with PVA. The next stage has been to give the outside a coat of matt black paint, mainly to stop light leaking through the board if its decided too put some "fires" inside. Following this will be a coat of grey primer, to represent the mortar for when I add the stone finish.

I have been requested to ruin the building, so now have to decide precisely how, and whether to do the walls or ruin it first.

It is roughly to scale, being 12" (scale 16 feet) to the top if the front and back walls and 18" wide. The window openings are to fit the windows supplied by Welsh Dragon Models.

How to ruin it

I know, give it to a couple of kids & ask them to look after it !!

Very nice shack mate, the light effect will set it off for sure.

This is going to be epic when it's done !!

Top work

John

It's ridiculous really. Anyone would think I was attacking a £500 tank, but it was with considerable trepidation that I took a knife to my new house. Anyway, this is how it looks now. What it's supposed to represent is an AP round has punched straight through the house, whilst some HE has taken out one corner.

The next step is to give the inside a coat of paint, then suitable ruin and otherwise distress the windows, frames and shutters. All the windows come with "glass" fitted, so I'm going to have to break a few windows! Then comes the tricky part - casting the stone blocks onto the walls. Hopefully I can make a better job of it than last time. Slow and steady should be the watch words.

I like the way this is turning out. Are your plans to make others?

It rather depends on the rest of the Bristol Armoured Division. We only have so much room for scenery. I have to say I quite enjoy it. Making scenery seems to come more naturally than working on the inside of tanks! Fortunately, people seem to have liked what I have done so far.

Awesome Richard.

Couple of questions..is foam board very fragile?..and where can you buy it from??
Cheers

I got mine from Hobbycraft - it was on offer at the time. It is certainly not a strong as styrene sheet. Basically, it's 5 mm of fine polystyrene foam, with a very thin sheet of clay coated paper, back and front. This is the Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foamcore.

The part about its use says:
"Foamcore is commonly used to produce architectural models, prototype small objects and to produce patterns for casting. Scenery for scale model displays, dioramas, and computer games are often produced by hobbyists from foamcore".

By the time I've finished, if the small house is anything to go by, it is reasonably tough, but a lot of that comes from the box shape, I think. On its own, I don't think it would stand up to much abuse. Also, you have to be careful of the glue, as a lot will just dissolve the foam. Apparently, the water in some glues can cause the paper fibres to warp. I have not experienced any problems using PVA, but then I've only been gluing edges.

There is a different product called closed-cell PVC foamboard which sounds structurally strong in its own right. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-cell_PVC_foamboard

Thanks for the info...I'm planning to do the same sort of thing as you for a display, so I'll be popping down to hobbycraft...