"Shell craters" Topic

Does anyone know of a cheap source for these? or, even better, a cheap, EASY way to make them? I need a bunch for a Normandy scenario (various sizes, etc.)

Thanks in advance!

Carved insulation foam mounted on CDs or other bases, as done on Terragenesis (terragenesis.co.uk).

Heck, just use wall spackle on CDs.

If you're using foam terrain, and want subsurface craters, try hitting the foam (in a WELL VENTILATED area) with a brief shot of spray paint ... carves a very nice shell hole. A drop or two of CA glue will also create nice effects.

Doug

TSS (UK) were doing a resin mound with about 7 shellholes, they were already painted and were something cheap like £1.50 a pair - they look right for 6 - 10mm, though i use them for 15's in a representative sort of way.

you could use aluminum foil to make moulds for plaster of paris craters. When dry, glue to a CD or other base.

we did an entire moon surface with the spraypaint on the pink foam board. Very Smelly, made me dizzy.

Then Noel's dog ate the damn thing, along with a few bottles of paint, some brushes and minis.

The dog's still alive but board did not survive the experiences.

Anyway, the board looked really cool. The roughness of the interior craters depends on how much and how far away from teh foam board you are, the closer, the deeper and smaller, the farther away you are, the shallower and rougher the terrain. Neat way to build terrain and cause brain damage simulataneously.

jim

yes, the dreaded simulataneous cube has struck again

Frontline miniatures in the UK do reasonablly priced shell holes, the price I think is £1.50 for 10.

You used to be able to get a sheet of them from Bellona.

Failing that, vacuum forming them over clay masters should be a nice way to make loads cheaply.

If you want to be industrious and artistic, sculpt some from something like Sculpey, get the mold making rubber from the arts and crafts store (or the 2-part kneadable stuff from Micro-Mark), make molds and castcastcast the darn things :-) Resin, plaster, Rockite, Hydrocal, whatever. If its something crumbly like plaster/hydrocal, then the suggestion to glue them to old CDs is spot on. If you make some small craters you can get several on a single cd to show a bombarded area.

Ooops, left out, when you sculpt the masters, do the basic form out of sculpey, then glue fine dirt/sand/rocks on it for texture. After that has dried, make your mold with it. Any sand/dirt/rocks stuck in the mold will come out after 1-2 castings and you wont see it after the pieces are painted anyway.

Go to an Art supply store and buy a package of air -drying clay'. You can make alot of various sized craters alittle practce is needed to get what you need. The stuff is great for sand bags just press a panty hose piece on them and you get realistic looking bags.

Here is a link from an older thread.

TMP link

covers the same thing

I'm telling you, you'll have a hard time beating a CD and wall spakle for cost and ease. Free AOL CD, $2 USD tub of spackle, let it dry overnight, and you're done. You'll need to plug the CD hole with something else, the spackle will pull through. You can see something similar here:

link

slight alteration of subject, but for 20 mm, what are the generally accepted diameters of shell holes ? Figure small mortars, heavy mortars, 88 mm and the heavy stuff dropped from the air. Any ideas on roughly how wide these should be in 20 mm scale ?

I bought some vacuum formed craters from a hobby store a few years ago. Dirt cheap as I recall. They came in a sheet about 8.5x11 inches, covered with different sizes of craters. I used a big brush and slathered green paint on them, then dark brown in the craters themselves, flocked the ground, glued some scattered railroad ballast in the craters and I was done. Even I, who am terribly lazy when it comes to making terrain, was able to complete this project in only a few hours.

I suspect they were for the diorama modeling crowd, but they work very nicely for all sorts of wargaming applications, in a variety of scales! I can't remember who manufactured them I'm afraid.

Super Sculpty also works. Itsa Polymer clay that you can shape and then bake. I use it for a number of products. its easy to work with and bakes up nice and tough.

From Lloyd Nikolas's site ( link ) he uses accrylic mastic ( caulking ) for shell holes and other things as well. It's a great technique I adopted for nice looking roads. The shell hole link is link

I've made them from various size aluminum pie pans. You can also use the thin aluminum tins that "pot pies" come in. Just "crunch" in the center of the tin and then add your favorite ground material (i.e. spackle, Durham's water putty, etc.) Paint to taste and your done.