I wondered how best to make these in a way that would be as practical as possible. In particular I wanted something that I could place anywhere along my roads to suit the needs of any given scenario. In a moment of inspiration I thought, why not use the idea of bookends for a simple and practical solution?
Essentially the culvert comes in two parts, one for each side of the road and they can be placed at any point along a road. Their construction was very simple.
The walls of the culvert themselves are made from a piece of cork floor tile. This is a strong material that is easy to cut and glue with the added benefit that it has a natural stone texture. Once I had decided the overall size all that was needed was to cut out a shape to represent the culvert tunnel. Lastly, to add some character I then roughed up the edges of the cork with a sharp blade to show some age and wear.
The base was a piece of MDF. I use the sanding tool on my Dremel to chamfer the edges so that they would blend into any terrain cloth. The same tool was used to to create a water channel. The cork was then glued to the base using PVA glue. That was followed by added some texture with sand before painting and flocking. The water effect in the channel was simply a line of PVA glue which dries clear and glossy.
The two sections can then be place at whatever point along the road is appropriate for the scenario. As you can see from the pictures below they were first used in a game for the second scenario in the Gembloux Gap campaign The Culverts at Noirmont.
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteClever! Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteVery smart Mark, I have been thinking how to make one but your design is simple but effective, thanks for sharing
ReplyDeletecheers John
Well done pieces there, practical and aesthetic all in one, an idea to steal unashamedly.
ReplyDeleteNicely done. This is the next game we are due to play in the Gembloux Gap campaign and I had been wondering what to use for culverts - also useful for drainage ditches and so on.
ReplyDeleteNice idea, well executed :)
ReplyDeleteThat's a brilliant idea! Simple and very effective indeed.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing :o)
Cheers
Matt
Simple but effective--genius!
ReplyDeleteVery clever! If you used latex/Acrylic flexible roads you could even put in a thin peice of card or such under it to get a hump in the road.
ReplyDeleteIt might sound as a broken record - but simple and effective. I can see me making a few of these for Afghanistan as well now. Thx for the idea :)
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! A very clever and versatile idea!
ReplyDeleteHeya! Thank you for this guide! By chance, did you also create a guide on creating simple ditches with tufts? I saw it once, but I've now forgotten where I found it and it's driving me crazy. The idea is that you use multiple colors/shades of tufts to imply depth (like the vegetation is much more dense along the ditch). Was that you?
ReplyDeleteAlas that was not me, nice idea though. Could it have been John Bond?
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