I started thinking about the Wings At War flight stands again this afternoon. If the Litko acrylic flight stands were too expensive how could I produce my own bases at a fraction of the cost using stuff I already had lying around?
I'd spotted some nails in Homebase the other day that could be used for flight stands for the club participation game. With this in mind I had a look in the garage to see if I could find some finer gauge nails to use with 1/600th scale planes. I had a pack a 40mm panel pins that looked like they might work so cut the tip off one and stuck into into a 30mm square mdf base that I pre-drilled in the centre. A bit of superglue to fix it in place and the job's done.
As the panel pins are steel I only need one magnet to attach to the plane, in this case a MiG29, so the cost per flight stand is even lower. There's also no trouble with polarity to deal with. I reckon the stand costs about 5p including the base, panel pin and superglue. It looks a bit basic but with some texturing and painting I'm sure it would be well up to scratch.
The only problem is that I don't think I'll be able to find pins that are longer than 40mm, although I'm going to have a look tomorrow to see what's available. I think the best bet would be lost head nails which are usually available in longer lengths.
Did you consider using Lego? Sounds weird i know, but i saw this idea originally on TMP and its worth considering. You need clear lego single "peg" cylinders and clear "parabolic relectors". In a number of the cylinders you can mount 3mm magnets which are a very snug fit, but can also be glued using Canopy glue 9to avoid "crazing" the plastic. The advantage of the lego bricks is that they can easily be adjusted for height, especially in a WoW games which use only 4 altitude bands.
ReplyDeleteThey are easily broken down for storage, and as an added bonus i use the "reflectors" as grav stands for my 6mm sci fi armour. I have even used them for space gaming (althoughthe larger ships were a bit unsteady!)