"How Small is Your Wood?" Topic

I've just started trying to work with hobby wood. I want to use a B&M source for it, until I get a better understanding of what I can adequately represent with inexpensive, beginner-friendly, readily-available materials.

To that end, I took a look at the Revell display at Michael's tonight. The smallest size I saw in either sheet stock or dimensional lumber (sticks) that they stock at this store was 1/16", which is right in my price range (cheap) and about as thin a material as I would want to work with, at least initially.

I finally did the math, knowing what sticks and sheets I could get cheap, and get .0625" (six hundred twenty-five thousandths of an inch) for 1 inch divided by 16. So what is a near dimension in, say 1/100 scale? Six divided by one hundred gives .06 (six one-hundredths). Therefore a hobby wood sheet or stick a sixteenth of an inch thick represents around six scale inches.

So, really, the smallest thing I will be modeling with such material would be "six-by" lumber, or about the thickness of an exterior wall, including the framing and void.

I think scale 3/4" plywood would be using the 1/64" hobby wood sheet.

So, I ask you, how small have you gone in 1/100 scale material, what were you modeling, was the effort worth the trouble, what is the smallest hobby wood you generally work with, and what are you usually using it to represent?

Thanks. I know these are always fun discussions to have with beginning scratch-builders. ;)

You have to consider scale thickness Vs durability Vs practicality. Frequent handling tends to do nasty things to delicate 'truescale' details, which is why guns etc are often larger than scale thickness. So you might want to build using slightly more robust material than for a true 1/100 building.

That's a pretty personal question to be asking on TMP! Oh, you meant that wood…

If you take a piece of fence wood as approx one inch, then to be in scale you would use card stock similar to what you use for business cards. This is fin for a museum piece, but wouldn't last two minutes on a wargames table. Most wood is done with matchsticks and coffee stirrers. Anything less and you lose strength.

x2 what ETranger said…
It really is a balance of being practical. Stuff really looks great when done to true scale, but that same stuff does tend to be very fragile.

I just recently had the same struggle with WW1 wire. I recently moved from 28mm skirmish to more of a 15mm ptn level like in FoW basing for my WW1…. I changed the wire thickness, but the poles are still basically "match sticks/toothpick" in thickness.

They look good still, but I kept the same size "thickness" when moving to 15mm as I used in 28mm because of durability.

I would say go with what works for you always, they are, after all, your toys, but I am sure no one here wants to see you put hours of labor into stuff only to have it destroyed quickly through use.

GOOD LUCK!

Totally depends on how thick it is….

Not really all that sma …Oh I see,

Can't agree more on the durability vs scale issue as stated above. I have gotten used to the fact that I'm not doing dioramas, I am building war game terrain. I used to do model railroading before discovering that I could still play with my toy soldiers, and a lot of that attention to detail carried over. I quickly found that what works for scale models does not necessarily work as well for gaming. The time investment alone is a strong deterrent. I'd rather paint lead than build highly detailed buildings. Anymore I go for structures that look good from 3 feet, use inexpensive or free materials, are quick & easy to build, and are above all durable!

One recommendation, if you don't already know, is to go with basswood instead of balsa for most things. Also, craft sticks can be used for many things. They are cheap, come in many sizes, and are very durable.

Good luck with your project!

That's why I prefer to use plastic over actual wood.

Because I can get plastic in 0.005" thicknesses (half-inch in 1/100), I can get much closer to scale.

Lets see…. Nominally 1.5 meter is 5/8ths of an inch, thus 1/8th of an inch is nominally 1 foot in scale (Hint 1.5 meters is functionally equivalent to 5 feet)

I Mostly use evergreen plastics as they give both metric and SAE measurements on the packages, and it gives a much faster bond with liquid solvent type cement.

You're being much too picky. The wrists ankles, noses, necks and hands of 15mm figures are way out of scale or they would be uncastable and too delicate to play with. I dare say we have come so accustomed to the cartoonish style of sculpting that true scale figures now look freakishly thin.

Grommet, besides the asides, you've gotten some sage advice above. But to address your basic question, take a look at Evergreen and their website conversion table: link

That will provide you as comprehensive an answer as you are going to get to your question without getting into obscene detail.

I've come to wish that the larger 15s would settle on 1/96th as the scale point. That would make scratch building so much easier than the 1/100th target. Even true 15s at 1/120th is easier to convert.

Thanks for the advice, all.

Needed to get some experienced perspective on the matter.

That conversion chart is especially helpful.

Cheers.

Depends on the paintjob of the female medic.

Dear Grommet 37

I've been doing modeling and scratch building in war games from before I joined in 1962. I was in model railroading before.

There are a few laws.

1.DON'T TRY AND RE-INVENT THE WHEEL Go to the hobby store and pick up some good books on model scenery making. It will give you all sorts of tips and pointers. Even better, subscribe ot "Railroad Model Craftsman" which is one of the two model railroading magazines in the country and excellent for this sort othing, especially if you are working in a period railroads were in. However, you can use the techniques in any period.

2. NOW TAKE VERYTHING FROM ONE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. The techniques and methods and materials are great, but you have to remember one cardinal thing. Model Railroad terrain is EXGTREMELY FRAGILE. I is made to look good, IN SCALE! But that means no handling, and the normal handling of even a restrained game will reduce most of it to powder in a single game. We are very rough and tumble in our games, and you might have to make sterner stuff. For example, you might like to craft fine scale fences for your 15mm. It will look wonderful and as soon as you put a stand on it, or touch it it will break. I have this problem in 25mm-30mm and what I now use for fences is common electrical BX cable in copper or aluminum. Strip the rubber insulation off a few yards of #12 or #14 wire and cut the lengths to what you want. I drill holes in the wood base for the upright and put them in with epoxy glue. Then I tie on the cross pieces (more wire) with thread and then swab epoxy glue over the joints to lock it. When painted it looks great and is particularly indestructible. Trees are an even bigger problem.

3.SCALE IS YOUR ENEMY! You simply can't model things to scale. It will always come out too small, too big, too fragile or too cumbersome. Most of the stuff from Miniature Building Authority is beautiful and wonderful, but to me perfectly useless in anything larger than an outhouse because it IS to scale and even the houthouse dominates the battlefield. Put on something like a city hall and you can play the game INSIDE the city hall. Other times it's too small, and always takes up too much space. I use for my 28th century set up Lithuanian candle houses which LOOK great, and are in a variety of scales, absolutely none of which anyone ever notices because the houses LOOK great! You don't even see that house A is for 30mm and house B right next to it would be more compatable with 10mm. The look is the thing and no one studies it that long. If you're using 6mm or so monopoly game houses are fine.

4.STUDY THEATRICAL SET DESIGN. The big thing on the game is you are NOT making a diorama! You are making stuff for a game that will be used which means you have to do more with less. The best way to see how this is done is to study theatrical set design for the stage or the opera. They do with a few pieces of oonstruction a whole temple of Dagon or the whole darn Rhine River with a few bits and props. The point is that being a GAME your mind will fill in the details on the most barebones set, and a screen a few chairs, a table and some bric-a-brac will become Valhalla, Versailles, Tunis, an Island in the South Seas, or whatever because your mind fills in the details from the bits and pieces you put out.

5. IN THE LAND OF THE 200 FT GENERAL THE ROOF IS KING. If you're going to lavish detail on anything, lavish it on the roof. It's what most gamers will see in a structure. I remember once making an Ancient city and making a "marketplace" called "The Ninevah Mart." It had all sorts of whacky comical burlesques of the ancient world like billgoard signs for "Gil Gemesh and N. Kidu, attorneys at Hammurabic law-- not your ordinary chariot chasers" and "Graven Image Security Service- Temple Guards and Security services to cults for millennia- Don't let the Iconoclasts bust your Baal's." and about a dozen more. One guy came up to me and noted that I had constructed the billboards completely realistically and in accordance with modern building codes and complimented me for it. He completely missed the contents of the signs. The roof looked good though.

6. THERE ARE LIMITATIONS- Wood at 1/16 is extremely fragile So are plastic stripping in styrene available from Evergreen or Plastruct. Card stock andpaper will work just as well provided you can hide out of scale support members. Also remember that model railroading places carry a huge selection of paving and siding papers and card that can be cut fit and simply glued in. YOU can also try printing them on your own. Any decent artwork probram will allow you to do this and give almost three dimensional effects to a two dimensional surface.

Otto

I want to use a B&M source for it,

I don't know what that meaans, Grommet :)

John T

OSchmidt has it!

I also do model railroading and the technique and materials used are very different. I sincerely hope you are not trying to stick-build a house or something similar for war gaming.

Gaming terrain needs to be built rugged with survivability in mind. I don't care how gentle you think you are while playing, the real damage occurs getting it in and out of storage. Build it to be handled roughly and often and it will last you a lifetime.

Dear Dameon

Right you are! Take your figures to one convention and you will be amazed how much repair you have to do with the miniatures AND the terrain is worse! This is why I solder all my soldiers arms into their hands and reinforce the joint with epoxy. Whenever I can in construction I use metal or oak, and I've learned if I make a delicate picturesque bridge I put four tall pine trees over it with the trunks made from Chinese restaurant chopsticks.

I'd be using poured concrete or quick crete if it wouln't make the tearrin as heavy as a cinder block.

This is why also I've given up on individual figures and multi-stand units. All my 18th century figures for an infantry regiment (1 colonel, 1 unzerofficier, 2 sergeants, 2 colors, 1 fifer one drummer and 36 privates are on one big 4.5 by 8" stamd om three ranks. They look great, and the end three figures are reinforced with a hard steel rod that goes up into the figure at the crotch and down through the stand into the base and makes a right angle to secure in a notch under the base. This makes them almost impervious to the "claw" most gamers use to use your figures. On each cavalry figured I regularly do the same as the figures are big beautiful "Suren" horese.

Otto

Dear Dameon

Right you are! Take your figures to one convention and you will be amazed how much repair you have to do with the miniatures AND the terrain is worse! This is why I solder all my soldiers arms into their hands and reinforce the joint with epoxy. Whenever I can in construction I use metal or oak, and I've learned if I make a delicate picturesque bridge I put four tall pine trees over it with the trunks made from Chinese restaurant chopsticks.

I'd be using poured concrete or quick crete if it wouln't make the tearrin as heavy as a cinder block.

This is why also I've given up on individual figures and multi-stand units. All my 18th century figures for an infantry regiment (1 colonel, 1 unzerofficier, 2 sergeants, 2 colors, 1 fifer one drummer and 36 privates are on one big 4.5 by 8" stamd om three ranks. They look great, and the end three figures are reinforced with a hard steel rod that goes up into the figure at the crotch and down through the stand into the base and makes a right angle to secure in a notch under the base. This makes them almost impervious to the "claw" most gamers use to use your figures. On each cavalry figured I regularly do the same as the figures are big beautiful "Suren" horese.

Oh yeah Corporalpat is right. Use basswood whenever you can. But that can't be cut like butter with an X-acto knive you're going to have to use a dremel tool with a cut off wheel or a modeling saw.

Otto

I said:

I want to use a B&M source for it,

To which John T said:

I don't know what that meaans, Grommet :)

Sorry, guess I've spent too much time in the marketing zone. ;)

Brick & Mortar, my friend. An actual storefront, where I can see, touch and hold the stuff in my very own hand. At least until I get a sense of it, so I can add it to the Hobbylinc order. 8)

OSchmidt wrote (with edits & my replies):

Dear Grommet 37

I've been doing modeling and scratch building in war games from before I joined in 1962. I was in model railroading before.

There are a few laws.

1.DON'T TRY AND RE-INVENT THE WHEEL

Copy.

2. NOW TAKE VERYTHING FROM ONE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.

OK. I'll keep that in mind.

3.SCALE IS YOUR ENEMY!

Ah. Interesting. It has to look as cartoony as the figures.

4.STUDY THEATRICAL SET DESIGN.

This I have done. Journeyman stagehand. Automation operator. Took my apprenticeship at a Broadway scene shop, worked and trained at the ballet & opera, ran automated sets for a musical for three years. Built sets, scenics and displays for years. One of the many trades I've had in the 35 years I've been in "show biz".

5. IN THE LAND OF THE 200 FT GENERAL THE ROOF IS KING.

OK. I see. Three-foot rule, bird's-eye view.

Hilarious signs, btw. You, sir, are a clever wordsmith.

6. THERE ARE LIMITATIONS-

A-ha. Material knowledge & tip/tricks/hints are very useful.

Otto

Thank you for taking the time to instruct a novice. I know how to build fake stuff, just not really small fake stuff. I know how to build a stage "wall" with 1" X 4" pine and 1/4" plywood, that is, because I know what a stage set can withstand and how long it should be made to last for (about 3 weeks, usually) and I know how to force perspective and light it in such a way to make it look like much more. I'm very familiar with faking people out and letting their minds fill in the details.

Just wasn't sure how far to go with the realism in tiny buildings to accompany dice rolling. I'll start unpacking the inventory soon (including some MBA buildings), so that'll give me a better idea of what is acceptable with the figures and vehicles I bought. I plan on keeping some of the locales discreet as far as structure source, so at least the buildings in one "map" (sorry FPS player) generally look the same, or are scale-skewed by a similar amount.

Cheers, and thanks again to you and the many other kind souls who have given me the benefit of their knowledge.

When I finally get to this project, I'll be back with pics and yet more questions.

Edit: Basswood vs. balsa, duly noted, hobby saw already purchased. 8)