9 November 2016

An old steamer gets ready for some dry dock work

The funnel has snapped off, the roof of the cabin and captains bridge have absconded and the missing
hand railing would be a modern day W H & S disaster. 
In the old days of Sudan gaming at the club everything was, with the exception of the figures, scratch built.  Buildings were carved out of refrigeration foam, coated with Polyfilla and then painted and based upon MDF bases and decorated with sand, sand coloured lichen and bush grass.


That also went for the first Sudan steamer at the club, lovingly put together by Phil Cook many, many years ago and based upon pictures from Wargames World, Wargames Illustrated as well as articles and sketches from Military Modelling.




A particularly poor photograph taken nearly twenty years ago showing the gunboat as it falls
into disrepair...damned engineers and missed maintenance schedules!


This saw a lot of action in the very early days of our gaming and though it was reasonably basic, it absolutely served a fine purpose in our battles.


We need to fix up the paddle wheel and fit this vessel to a base.

Nice steam engine on the main deck...very nice piece of heavy metal.

The life preservers and captains wheel were added by myself many years ago

Lovely shape and good bones to work on.


This particular vessel went into storage sometime ago and has been across Australia twice in moves over the years where, as you can clearly see, it has not fared as well as it may have under a different Captain.


However all that is about to change.


I have been working on a few scenarios where we need to have a couple of steamers/gunboats making their way up the cataracts of the Nile and this one is now getting ready to have a bit of work lovingly bestowed upon it over the summer months.


The newer gunboat - slightly flasher but willing to have a partner to patrol the waterways in the Sudan


We will keep you posted upon its progress before she sets sail again in the New Year.