"Making shell splash markers" Topic

Since I am a real cheapskate, I make my shell splash markers by the following technique.

[1] Get 50 or so small (< 1") washers or American penny coins and paint one side blue.

[2] get some white wool roving or some fabric shop facing and tease it out to proper sized (1-2" long), cone-shaped pieces. You can buy small (a couple of ounces) amounts of either wool fleece or roving (used by handspinners) from evil-Bay for a few dollars. You might also buy black and grey roving/fleece for smokescreen/burning ships, or the like. Also look for bright orange and red shades for putting a spot of fire at the base of such)

[3] Make a mixture of about equal amounts of white latex (Elmer's) glue (or wood glue) //// white acrylic paint /// and water. Mash this sticky stuff into the wool cones that you have made and set them out to dry on something hard like a piece of aluminum foil. When dry the splash should be stiff and not very bendable.

[4] Take some scissors and cut off the base of the wool cone to make a flat base for it.

[5] Get a nice pool or your glue, dip the base of the shell splash into it and stick it onto the blue penny to dry.

You are done. You can pick up these things by the wool and fling them around the wargame table. They land right side up and stay in place. You might want to take some round colored stickers, write the name of a warship on it and paste it to the bottom of the penny. Then you can clearly specify which ship is shooting where. Buy a box of bon-bons for the missus that has a plastic insert for holding the candies. (This is a step that also gains you 3 additional orders of new warships). When they are done, the box makes an excellent storage container for carrying the splash markers to your wargame.

Another type of marker can be made by using the orange/red wool toppped with grey/black to mark ongoing ships-on-fire or shell hits.

example of fleece and roving on ebay
auction

A picture of the shell splash markers in use
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We use to use white golf tees turned upside-down. Yours give a nicer look.

Matthew

I've seen a similar thing done with white toilet tissue. Looked really good and was dirt cheap.

Just make sure the toilet tissue is unused first.

Use Golf Tees, modify and paint as needed…Cheap.

Los

I used two different sizes of wood screws glued to extra board game counters for my 1:2400 RJW fleets. My eventual plan is to add polyfil (i.e., pillow/quilt stuffing material) to them as well as dull down the tips (Ouch!).

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Jim

Los456

Cheaper.

base= 1 cent

blue paint for base $1.29 USD for 2 oz, does 500 bases= $0.00 USDper

Elmer's glue $2.49 USD/4oz. does 10 loads, 20each= $0.01 USD per
white acrylic paint 50 loads/ $0.01 USD per

Roving ~ $2 USD/oz ~ 200 shell splashes= $0.01 USD per

Total cost ~4 cents apiece (with recoverable penny)
Golf tees at golfsmith 7 cents apiece

You can use a very small washer for this washer/cotton technique. A friend of mine did something similar using tiny #6 or #8 washers, and they hide pretty well under the cotton/poly fill.

I wish I'd discovered this technique before I invested heavily in Litko. These are easy to make and the markers look great. Each marker has a little of its own personality, which you can see in the pictures above.

- Ix

I am time priority driven (not lazy, oh no,) more than cheap. So I use Litko markers for many uses.

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Nice idea and execution. Litko ones look a bit too cookie cutter for my tastes.

I use short galvanised nails (a couple of pounds for 200 from Boyes), painted white and blue.

They're not brilliant, and one day I'll get round to making something nicer, but they're cheap and pass the '3 foot rule' (i.e. they look okay from 3' away).

Jonesey

Love the Litko ones, and comes in various sizes too.

I've tried a new method for making splash markers. Taking filter tips, the kind sold for roll-your-own cigarettes, I used a pair of scissors and snipped them into a sort of cone. I teased this out with my fingernails to make them less regular and stuck them to drawing pins which I'd painted blue.

Here's what they look like in use: Hallmark 1:6000 HMS Hood under heavy fire.

Nick

Bozkashi Jones: very nice, especially the "low splash" wave/ring that is normally ignored.
Just one thing: is "drawing pin" = the 'Merican "thumb tack"?

Cap'n – yup: thumb tacks. Glad you like them