Knife Rest

I’d glued the stained matchsticks together a few weeks back, and ordered some more barbed wire from Barrule.com Before starting my paperwork today, I snipped off some model wire and wrapped it round the frame. A few dabs of super-glue, and it’ll be ready for staining at tea-time.

The plate is from Osprey’s “Fortifications of the Western Front 1914-18”. A book I’d used before, and wish I’d had before starting to model my trenches.

Over the last fortnight, I’ve managed to re-line about half of my trench sections with stained and snipped coffee-stirrers (big box bought from eBay). All manual labour, takes about an evening per section. Nice and relaxing. I reckon they look better than the underlying matchstick version.

Of course, it now means that the height of the trench has been reduced, but I was always needing to revisit that with sandbags and earthworks. But that raises a storage problem, so I guess I’ll be making these in lengths that will sit on top of the trenches.