Wednesday 16 March 2011

Scratch Built MG Nest

I've started preparing the Forged in Battle tanks I ordered on eBay, but while I was waiting for them to arrive I was working on several terrain projects. One of these was inspired by the excellent article on building an MG Nest featured on Model Dad's. Even if I do say so myself I think the finished result looks pretty good. I'm certainly very happy with this model and I'll probably make a couple more in due course.

My first attempt at building an MG Nest went spectacularly wrong. To use the terminology of D&D it was an Epic Fail. The reason for this lack of success had nothing to do with the guide mentioned above and more to do with my lack of preparedness and being in the wrong frame of mind when I started. After half an hour of cursing loudly all I had successfully managed to stick together were my fingers. At this point I had to retire to the bathroom to apply liberal quantities of acetone based nail varnish remover to my fingers to unstick myself.

My second attempt couldn't have been more different. I cleared my work area before starting, gathered all the tools and materials I needed and only then did I start. I cut cocktail sticks with a pair of clippers and trimmed the edges with a modeling knife to tidy them up a little. I used superglue for speed but placed the 'logs' using tweezers rather than my big chubby fingers. Then I carved the earthen banks from some polystyrene packaging and glued them onto the base using a simple contact adhesive. The log roof was similarly fixed into position using the same glue and the allowed to dry.

I then built up the earthen bank using a special mix of quick drying plaster. I use this material to cover infantry bases and it dries quite strong and resilient. I mixed in a little gravel for texture and some dark brown paint (if the dried plaster chips it'll still be brown all the  way through). What I ended up with was a mixture that had the colour and consistency of dog poo but was sticky enough to be easily applied to the model and then shaped and sculpted as desired.

I allowed this to dry for 24 hrs before painting and applied a generous coat of base black to make the surface more resilient. Similarly when painted I applied several coats gloss varnish to strengthen the surface before covering with Dull Coat varnish. The last stage was to apply the grass.

23 comments:

  1. OK it took some time and you almost lost your fingers and your wife will probably not be happy that you spoiled all her nail varnish remover but the result is super.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I want to drink Alice's shrinking potion and step inside this lovely creation :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now that I know what to do (and more importantly, what not to do) I reckon I could churn these out pretty quickly. The core technique is really easy making this one of the most satisfying self-builds I have ever completed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lovely piece of work, what you did in the beginning as you know was bodging (angry scratchbuilding) and unlike you I would have continued in that vain and wrecked the entire area where as you went away and came back and did it properly.Very nice sir.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That came out great. Beautiful job on the vegetation.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Very nicely done. I too have learned that glueing ones finger together is a sure sign that the "modeling muse" is not with me and it's time to step away for a bit.

    I think I'll try a few of these machine gun nests when I get back to adding some terrain

    Miles

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey, that looks great! Their tutorial was really good, I look forward to trying it out myself soon!

    ReplyDelete
  8. 10 out of 10 mate. There are so many variations that you can create like this, I'm thinking of ancient burial mounds, mine shafts there is quite a list.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What a great looking terrain piece! Once I get some models off my workbench, I'd love to put a few of these together. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very nicely done I'll have to try this out for my figures in 1/72 scale. What did you use to paint the wooden portions?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Look great Big Lee. Makes me want to duck when standing near it lol

    ReplyDelete
  12. Glad you found the tutorial useful, fantastic outcomr. If it's ok with you I'll link back on the blog so folk can see how you've been able to apply harvey's tutorial.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Justin - Thankyou. Very kind.
    Dan - I used GW Black spray over the whole model as a base coat. I then painted using Vallejo acrylics. Then I applied two coats of GW Purity Seal satin varnish before giving it a covering of Testors DullCoat. With hindsight I should have given it another spray of Tastors as I think the ground is a bit 'shiny'. But thats a lesson for next time.
    DJK Oooo good idea...never thought of that... hmmm...
    Everyone else... Thanks for the feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Very nice. Is the lid...sorry roof removeable?
    Cheers
    Paul

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nicely done! I'll give this a shot myself.

    ReplyDelete
  16. PaulThe roof is fixed but you'd only get a single prone figure inside, not a whole team/squad. I guess bigger dugouts could be made with removable roofs though.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great work Lee, you've done a bloody good job on that!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Lovely work! The grass, etc set it off very nicely too. The best bit is those techniques you've mastered now are good for trenches and all sorts of similar stuff.

    Cheers,
    Millsy

    ReplyDelete
  19. It´s given me a couple of ideas....cheers for that.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks for sharing this Lee. It came out excellent :-D.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Just to let you know I've included your bunker in our Bunker gallery @

    http://www.modeldads.co.uk/Gaming/Gallery.html

    Chris from Model Dads

    ReplyDelete
  22. Do have a question. Do these nests just have the one entrance/firing point or is there another bit I am not seeing in the photos?

    If there is only the one opening then it makes it a bit of a death trap.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving a comment. I always try to reply as soon as I can, so why not pop back later and continue the conversation. In the meantime, keep rolling high!