Construction Ogress was David's original landship. She is 5.5" (140mm) long by 2.5" (70mm) wide. Her deck is almost 2" (51mm) off the ground. Her hull is made from a printer's plate of unknown metal sheet around foamcore decks and. bracing. The treads are made from scored thin cardboard around formers of foamcore with turned toy wheels (from the wooden shapes dept. of the crafts superstore) for bogie wheels. Rung steps and grabirons are staples and wire. The signaling semaphore is balsa and cardboard. The spar torpedo is made from brass rod and wire, with a 15mm artillery wheel; it can be lowered and raised. Stacks are fired .45 caliber cartridge cases. Rung steps and grabirons are staples and wire. The hatch grating was made from plastic screen with a frame of balsa. The intake funnel is a piece of plastic sprue, filed and drilled (though metal ones are available commercially from ship-model dealers). The rivets were made with a tracing wheel, a $1 tool from the sewing shop. Three of the five gunports are open and a piece of black foamcore is set back inside. The guns are brass tubing glued to short ball-headed pins. They can be pulled out and reinserted in any open port, simply jabbing the pin into the foamcore within. Ogress was painted with light grey primer . The weathering was done with craft acrylic paints. The letters are stick-on vinyl letters, and are a mistake - their thickness is apparent. It would have been better to use them as reverse stencils before spraying the grey and removed to leave a white under-surface. |
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HMLS Ogress' design was inspired by the Albemarle-class ironclads
of the Confederacy. She has a rather crooked bunker for coal and a tank
for water just behind the stacks. The coal in the bunker is simply foam
from a miniatures pack, torn into an irregular shape and painted black.
Signaling semaphores were actually used by some of the early British WWI
tanks. The open-topped pilothouse has a ship's wheel which was a plastic
bracelet-charm bought from "Through the Keyhole" a wonderful store
in Dallas which carries dollhouse supplies, miniature toys and just about
anything teeny-tiny .
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