Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Cheval De Frise in 54mm

Anyone who knows me, even a little, will tell you that I'm a huge fan of formidable breast-works.  And call me a product of the fifties - I like 'em pointy!


These are Confederate Cheval De Frise (French for "pointy sticks that poke horses") outside of Petersburg in 1865.  At six feet in height they provided a serious obstacle to attacking Yankees.

I decided to get my shop - Victory Wood Working - on a production footing and make up a bunch of these in 54mm.


The main beam is cut from pine, poplar, or whatever strikes my fancy, I've even made them from mahogany. 


The main beam bored at my drill press.  Each beam accommodates 20 pickets.


Square corners are removed on my Grizzly Industries belt sander.



I also used my sander to put points on each of the pickets.



Pickets slip snugly through the holes and a small brushpoint of glue will keep the pickets snug in the beam.



Lined up ready to paint and deploy outside the Rebel works.



Indoors they look daunting.


(oh do click on this image!)

Outdoors, nearly insurmountable.

Looking forward to a summer of backyard campaigning, and woodworking.

Soldier on!
Mannie


4 comments:

  1. Really "neat" as we used to say. My old CW group built a full scale one and it wasn't easy. I used to pose my MARX "Frisian Horses" like the picture on the old Civil War collectible bubble gum cards with troops pushing them onto unlucky enemies. Your small scale wooden ones look great!

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  2. That looks very nice; thanks for sharing how you made them.

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