Andy's Modelmaking Misadventures

[Andy in Germany]

A large piece of baize or heavyweight felt marked out with a street plan and the building silhouettes might be your next project in that case... Then it can simply be rolled up and stored in a cardboard tube at the end of each game.

I've toyed with that or similar. Apparently there's a way to make texture on a felt roll and still be able to roll it up, in fact that was the original plan for the felt under the models.

I'd need to make at least three though: one for "Georgetown", one for "Wideawake airport"; and one for the "industrial area", which I'll try and combine with the Harbour. That would have the advantage that I can include a bit of dirty harbour water for the ship to sit on.

 

[Punkawallah]

Google maps might suggest relative positions of your various attractions?
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-7.9...try=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQxNi4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

 

[Andy in Germany]

Google maps might suggest relative positions of your various attractions?
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-7.9262645,-14.4092991,16.97z/data=!5m2!1e4!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQxNi4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw==

I work a great deal from online maps like Google; eventually I'm going to make my own map of the Island. At some point. Honest...

 

[Andy in Germany]

In the Previous Episode…

The 40 Elephants crime gang are up to their usual tricks, and this time they’ve been commissioned to steal an Ivory Falcon by another mysterious financier. The Royal Navy Air Service Police (RNASP) on Ascension are trying to stop them, and for various reasons, this has resulted in a three car pile up in the centre of Georgetown.

Now Alice Diamond has managed to move stealthily around to the door of the van. She’s close to the shipment inside, and the police don’t seem to have noticed her…

Meanwhile, her accomplices, Shirley and Jim, are trying to open/break down the door to the power station, where they plan to switch off the Georgetown’s power supply. Unknown to them, two officers of the RNASP are already inside…

Fortunately for the RNASP Jim’s heavy-handed approach alerted the two officers, and they beat a hasty retreat with the important lever in hand… Sgt. Williams even has the presence of mind to lock the door behind him.

Shirley and Jim finally gain entry and rush to the control equipment to find it secured. Jim uses several words Shirley pretends not to understand…

Meanwhile, the apparently immobile security guard has at least alerted Captain Bryant to the presence of Alice, and she’s caught trying to quietly pick the lock on the security van. Alice, being Alice, slips on a pair of bejewelled knuckle dusters and swings for the police captain.

The other officers aren’t safe yet. Jim, realising that they can’t be far away, manages to break down the back door to the power station and looks wildly up and down the fetid alleyway for the police officers. With no hope of backup, Officer Williams opts to barricade the back door to the casino. In the main part of the casino, the Sergeant has found the mysterious “Madame”, a well known member of Ascension’s underworld, who is currently offering the Ivory Falcon to the highest bidder…

Williams’s barricade doesn’t hold up past a couple of die rolls, and suddenly Jim kicks the door open and rushes at him. This proves to be a mistake, as Williams dodges the first swing, and lands a blow that knocks Jim back across the room. Satisfied with his handiwork, Williams runs through to support Coulson.

In the Casino he finds Coulson facing “Madame”, who is a holding forth in an impressive manner:

“You do not understand the curse of the Ivory Falcon and the great disaster it has wrought on all those who tried to steal it… Take heed that you do not succumb to its evil power…”

Williams fears the worst, and then Coulson grins. He reaches over and grabs the statue. As he does so, he whispers something in Madame’s ear.

All the colour drains from the woman’s face, and she gives a look that, if it had contained eldritch powers, would have sprayed him all across the wall. Instead, Coulson grins again, nods at Madame, and pockets the Ivory Falcon…

Just as Williams is about to ask what the hell just happened, Jim and Shirley burst into the casino. Jim is now in a foul mood and leaps onto the bar, firing his Tommy Gun into the ceiling. Williams, still trying to understand the situation, absentmindedly shoots Jim in the leg, and the gangster falls backwards into the gin cabinet. Madame recovers enough to shout, “You’re paying for that!” as the police beat a hasty retreat.

Captain Bryant hears the gunshots, and shouts at Lt. Cain to get the car restarted just as the other officers emerge from the Casino.

Fortunately for the police, the dice decided that their car wasn’t damaged sufficiently to immobilise it, and so Cain is able to manoeuvrer it away from the crash site. There follows a typical Pulp game firefight, where everyone takes it in turns to fire in all directions, except apparently at their opponents.

…until the police leap in and onto their car and drive off, just as Jim and Shirley come charging out of the Casino in pursuit.

Once more the guns blaze, and once more they manage to miss anything critical on the police car. The police exit the scene with the Ivory Falcon.

What is the meaning of the Ivory Falcon, and why is it so important? What did Madame mean about the danger posed by the statue and its evil curse? Why was Cain unconcerned by this, and what did he say to Madame that allowed him to take the statue from her? Find out in the next thrilling episode of “the ivory Falcon”…

…but probably not for a while because certain extra props will be needed for that story…

 

[Gwylan]

In the Previous Episode…

View attachment 770473

The 40 Elephants crime gang are up to their usual tricks, and this time they’ve been commissioned to steal an Ivory Falcon by another mysterious financier. The Royal Navy Air Service Police (RNASP) on Ascension are trying to stop them, and for various reasons, this has resulted in a three car pile up in the centre of Georgetown.

Now Alice Diamond has managed to move stealthily around to the door of the van. She’s close to the shipment inside, and the police don’t seem to have noticed her…

View attachment 770474

Meanwhile, her accomplices, Shirley and Jim, are trying to open/break down the door to the power station, where they plan to switch off the Georgetown’s power supply. Unknown to them, two officers of the RNASP are already inside…

View attachment 770475

Fortunately for the RNASP Jim’s heavy-handed approach alerted the two officers, and they beat a hasty retreat with the important lever in hand… Sgt. Williams even has the presence of mind to lock the door behind him.

View attachment 770476

Shirley and Jim finally gain entry and rush to the control equipment to find it secured. Jim uses several words Shirley pretends not to understand…

View attachment 770477

Meanwhile, the apparently immobile security guard has at least alerted Captain Bryant to the presence of Alice, and she’s caught trying to quietly pick the lock on the security van. Alice, being Alice, slips on a pair of bejewelled knuckle dusters and swings for the police captain.

View attachment 770478

The other officers aren’t safe yet. Jim, realising that they can’t be far away, manages to break down the back door to the power station and looks wildly up and down the fetid alleyway for the police officers. With no hope of backup, Officer Williams opts to barricade the back door to the casino. In the main part of the casino, the Sergeant has found the mysterious “Madame”, a well known member of Ascension’s underworld, who is currently offering the Ivory Falcon to the highest bidder…

View attachment 770479

Williams’s barricade doesn’t hold up past a couple of die rolls, and suddenly Jim kicks the door open and rushes at him. This proves to be a mistake, as Williams dodges the first swing, and lands a blow that knocks Jim back across the room. Satisfied with his handiwork, Williams runs through to support Coulson.

View attachment 770480

In the Casino he finds Coulson facing “Madame”, who is a holding forth in an impressive manner:

“You do not understand the curse of the Ivory Falcon and the great disaster it has wrought on all those who tried to steal it… Take heed that you do not succumb to its evil power…”

Williams fears the worst, and then Coulson grins. He reaches over and grabs the statue. As he does so, he whispers something in Madame’s ear.

All the colour drains from the woman’s face, and she gives a look that, if it had contained eldritch powers, would have sprayed him all across the wall. Instead, Coulson grins again, nods at Madame, and pockets the Ivory Falcon…

View attachment 770481

Just as Williams is about to ask what the hell just happened, Jim and Shirley burst into the casino. Jim is now in a foul mood and leaps onto the bar, firing his Tommy Gun into the ceiling. Williams, still trying to understand the situation, absentmindedly shoots Jim in the leg, and the gangster falls backwards into the gin cabinet. Madame recovers enough to shout, “You’re paying for that!” as the police beat a hasty retreat.

View attachment 770482

Captain Bryant hears the gunshots, and shouts at Lt. Cain to get the car restarted just as the other officers emerge from the Casino.

View attachment 770483

Fortunately for the police, the dice decided that their car wasn’t damaged sufficiently to immobilise it, and so Cain is able to manoeuvrer it away from the crash site. There follows a typical Pulp game firefight, where everyone takes it in turns to fire in all directions, except apparently at their opponents.

View attachment 770484

…until the police leap in and onto their car and drive off, just as Jim and Shirley come charging out of the Casino in pursuit.

Once more the guns blaze, and once more they manage to miss anything critical on the police car. The police exit the scene with the Ivory Falcon.

View attachment 770485

What is the meaning of the Ivory Falcon, and why is it so important? What did Madame mean about the danger posed by the statue and its evil curse? Why was Cain unconcerned by this, and what did he say to Madame that allowed him to take the statue from her? Find out in the next thrilling episode of “the ivory Falcon”…

…but probably not for a while because certain extra props will be needed for that story…

Sorry, I enjoy your posts generally. But all this really not in my space.
There are no bikes to be seen.

 

[Reynard]

Now why am I suddenly thinking of the statuette Mariel gave to Londo in "Soul Mates"

 

[Punkawallah]

Sorry, I enjoy your posts generally. But all this really not in my space.
There are no bikes to be seen.

Wot? ‘As someone nicked it? Call for the Royal Naval Air Service Police!

 

[Andy in Germany]

Sorry, I enjoy your posts generally. But all this really not in my space.
There are no bikes to be seen.

Just for you @Gwylan, I'll hide a bicycle in the next game: see if you can find it...

 

[Andy in Germany]

This ship is similar to Ascension Island, in that anyone on board will want to escape at some point, and probably sooner rather than later. It will probably experience a variety of incidents, from fisticuffs up to pirates and explosions; the sort of thing that sensible people would prefer to avoid.

Plus, of course, it’s made of cardboard.

It turns out that after the loss of the Titanic in 1914, the first “Safety of Life At Sea” treaty stipulated the need for lifeboats on ships, so of course this one had to have enough to at least look law-abiding.

I chickened out of making the lifeboat hulls on the basis I’d end up with two boats that would look almost but not quite the same. Instead, I used a commercial model, and limited myself to making a card former then giving it a “tarpaulin” of loo roll soaked in wood glue. After this dried a bit, I sliced the excess off and superglued the remaining material to the boat, then painted a few coats of Shellac on the lot.

In the likely event of an emergency, the idea is apparently that some poor chap goes up to control the davits, the small crane like objects that swing the boats out and down to the deck level where everyone else jumps on and floats away to safety, while the aforementioned poor chap presumably either jumps into the water or goes down with the ship: there’s a reason this design is not used any more.

This discovery led to a certain amount of faffing while I considered different ways to make these rather distinctive items, before realising that in working in a bicycle workshop means I have access to a potentially unlimited number of discarded spokes. A bit of digging later I had a handful which I bent to shape on a piece of pipe, cut to size and added some rudimentary detail with bits from old ballpoint pens and paper straws.

Finally, because I felt like every available surface would be used on a boat like this, I made a water tank out of a till roll, and strapped it down with some old guitar strings.

 

[Punkawallah]

Very nice. But wait! No steam whistle? :-)

And the dimensions would be?

 

[Andy in Germany]

One of the reasons why water transport has historically been popular, is that moving big heavy things over water is a lot easier than say, dragging it over fields or rock outcrops. This is because water moves around and supports your load, meaning it can be moved with comparatively little effort.

Unfortunately this comes back to bite you at the end of the day when you go to park your ship: instead of staying where you put it, it can drift off whichever way the wind or the water happens to be going with results that can be embarrassing at best and quite catastrophic at worst.

Of course, when you are next to land this is fairly easy to resolve: you tie your boat to something immobile and preferably inanimate, and retire for the night.

Out at sea though, you need an anchor, which essentially is a very heavy hook shaped object on the end of an equally heavy chain. When you want to stop for the night you chuck this overboard, it sinks, hooks the bottom, and there you are, or rather there you stay.

Of course, the important part of that last paragraph is “heavy”, meaning that the next day you are going to need a way of getting it back up again. Enter the anchor windlass. This provides the power to pull up the chain, and dumps it in the “chain locker” which is essentially a hole under the windlass where the chain it will sit out of the way until it is needed again.

So I needed a windlass, and this of course is where any sensitive engineers should look away. I’ve been hanging around a lot of tabletop gamers, and have been enjoying their adventures making things out of old bits of junk. I’d been looking for a chance to try this out in my own strange world, and this seemed the perfect moment to use some parts from a broken printer at work. Before someone makes comment, yes it was certainly broken. I know it was broken: anything would be broken after falling that far.

Anyway, some of the cogs lurking in the now exposed printer’s inner workings were just asking to be part of a piece of industrial machinery, so I put those in the centre and added bits and pieces until it looked right.

By the way, having wandered far too far down a rabbit hole marked “types of anchor” I can tell you these are Stockless anchors, which are apparently designed with a hinge to dig into the seabed and hold the ship. As an added advantage, they can be folded against the outside of the ship in the way shown, thus neatly saving storage space. These are also bought in: I could have made them from card, but I’d already inhaled far too much superglue for this project.

 

[Punkawallah]

Two chains, so two anchors?

 

[Andy in Germany]

Yes, apparently that's a requirement, although you are only supposed to use one at a time.

 

[Andy in Germany]

With all this work on the tramp steamer it’s worth pointing out that the point of a cargo ship, when you get down to it, essentially, is to, well, carry stuff.

You’re welcome. This is the sort of high level technical analysis that draws people to this thread.

Any cargo also needs to be kept safe from seawater or rain, and in the case of expeditions to capture tentacled creatures from the dungeon dimensions, stop them escaping. It’s also considered good practice not to allow crew members to fall in the hold every time the ship moves unpredictably, so as well as a hold, the ship needs a good solid hold cover.

You’d think this would be a quick and easy project, but no. Read on to find what happens when you don’t plan ahead, the limits of the internet for historical research, and why measuring carefully is only really useful when you are actually concentrating…

Having established the need for a hold cover, I had to confront another problem I’d been ignoring until this point. All these characters run about on a perspex base about 25mm (1″) in diameter, and I’d gone and made the walkway on each side of the hole a mere 20mm wide, or “a bit too small” in imperial measurements.

So, I came up with a cunning plan: firstly, I made a frame to go over the hole and make it about four millimetres smaller on each side. This gave me a bit of wiggle room, and I added slits in the bottom of the vertical part of the frame, so the bases can slip through…

After three drafts, this still description still doesn’t make sense. Just look at the pictures below:

The overhang also helps to hide the walls of the “hold” so it looks a bit more cavernous, which means I can pretend this wasn’t an improvised fix for my lack of planning, but instead was a carefully thought through optical illusion.

Finally, I was able to move on to the covers themselves. You may be surprised to hear that for once, I didn’t fall down the internet research rabbit hole; this is because there aren’t that many pictures of 1920’s cargo steamer cargo hold hatches for some reason.

Try to contain your disappointment.

Left to my own devices I decided to look at what other model makers were doing, and well, make stuff up. I found a lovely model of a steamer with a metal frame design, filled with wooden panelling and made a variation on the design on the basis it makes sense: wood is cheap, lightweight and durable; small hatches could be removed for inspections or access, and in the case of tentacled creatures, air holes. Of course, tentacled dungeon dimension creatures may not need air, but good Cryptozoologists always come prepared.

Finally, every project has at least one “learning experience”, and in this case I learned that there’s not much point measuring if you aren’t really concentrating. I’d been feeling very smug because both the large and small cover on the ship had the same size wooden hatches, until I placed the half finished cover on the small hold access…

And realised that it wouldn’t fit.

After some swearing, I made a smaller version. I’ll now try to build the original cover into another model in the future without anyone noticing. Watch this space…

 

[Punkawallah]

C’est magnifique!