Billboard
Chris Gosling built this piece for our LED competition and as such provides a perfect illustration of how an already splendid terrain piece can be enhanced by a little illumination. Chris tells us how the piece went together:
I owe words of thanks to Caleb for the original joke:
Q: What do the Tau drink?
A: Tauerade
and to Eazy-O for the incredible job of creating the artwork that made this project possible ('cause no-one wants to see a stick Tau with a deformed bottle in his 'hand'). Thank you both.
Construction was pretty straight forward. I began by creating and printing a plan for the three frames which were then built using 1/8" wooden dowel. The cross braces were then cut to length and glued in place, providing a strong structure to which the picture could be attached.
The concrete footings are plaster casts of an ice cube tray that I picked up in a dollar store. All of this is mounted on a base made from 1/8" hardboard with chamfered edges.
The picture was mounted to a piece of cereal box cardboard, then scored at one inch intervals. Some edges were folded over and the scored lines were tinted with dilute brown ink to simulate age. The diamond plate decks are made from nylon banding scrounged from some large boxes.
I decided to use 4x AA batteries to give me a 6V supply. The LEDs are blue (3.5 V @ 10 mA) so a 250 ohms resistor was needed (100 + 150 in series). All of this was calculated as per my article on How to Light an LED.
At this point I realised that I had no place to hide the blasted batteries! Brick wall. Normally I would put them in the base (I usually use Styrofoam), but alas the 1/8" hardboard used on this project left nowhere for them to go. Now what? After some consulting with friends, I decided to create an extension to the base for the bill board and hide the battery pack under a pile of scrap. Yay team! The scrap pile houses the battery holder and the switch. The wires are hidden under the ground flocking, and the resistors are hidden under the front walkway of the billboard itself. The LEDs have had screw cover caps added to look like reflectors and are glued into place (done in the dark to ensure they are aimed right).
For the benefit of those who don't read Tau (shame on you), the poster says "Tauerade" and "Drink of the Warriors"
Copyright & Credits
TerraGenesis was created in 1997 by Gary James and is currently owned, edited and maintained by Andy Slater, however the ideas and opinions expressed are those of the individual contributors. TerraGenesis and its content are © Andy Slater, unless otherwise stated, and should not be reproduced without permission.
The information published is correct to the best of our knowledge however we can accept no liability for errors. (Please let us know if you spot something.) Neither can we accept liability, but you can credit us if you like, for the results of any actions based upon the information. Modelers should use their own research, judgment and common sense when assessing the potential benefits and/or hazards of using any of the materials or technique described on these pages.
Some areas of the site use a modified version of phpBB so we owe a word of thanks to the team over at phpBB Group and wish them well with its future development.
Trademarks of companies mentioned in these pages, have been used without permission. No challenge is intended to the status of these trademarks.