20mm Belgium Gates

Gate measures 1.55″ wide and 1.33″ tall and entire structure is 1.92″ deep.  Kit consists of two gates that interlock so you can make a barrier of as many gates as you like.

Kit contains two Belgium Gates made of 1/16″ acrylic (Plexiglass / Persplex).  See this item on our site at http://store.gcmshop.com/p/1978/20mm-belgium-gates-2-per-kit-20macr001

The Cointet-element, also known as a Belgian Gate or C-element, was a heavy steel fence of about three metres wide and two metres high, heavily used as a mobile anti-tank obstacle during World War II. An individual fence element weighted about 1,280 kg but was movable e.g. with two horses through the use of two fixed and one rotating roller. Its invention is attributed to a French colonel, Léon-Edmond de Cointet de Fillain (1870-1948, later to become general), who came up with the idea in 1933 during the run-up to WWII, as to be used in the Maginot Line. Besides its use as barricade to the entrance to forts, bridges and roads, the heavy fences are most-known for their use in the Belgian Iron Wall of the KW-line and the re-use as beach obstacles on the Atlantikwall.

Al Sijood Palace in 1/285th Scale

I am working on this new piece for our 285th scale middle east collection. This is the Al Sijood Palace in Baghdad Iraq. This will be a resin cast kit that comes in several pieces. I’ve taken some liberties in scaling this building down, the actual building in 1/285th scale would be about 16″ long … I’ve cheated a bit and got it down to a more reasonable 10″ long while still maintaining an impressive size.  I’m doing something very new with this kit, creating a mixed media kit.  The 4 walls and the dome will be resin castings and the roof and internal structure will be MDF.

These photos show the internal frame structure that is made of laser cut MDF.  This internal structure also makes up the roof pieces.   Note: the dome will not be a perfect hemisphere like the one shown, the Al Sijood Palace has a dome with a slight point to it’s top ,, the white dome shown here is for demonstration purposes only.

Trying some new colors

Most of my Middle East buildings have a pretty boring concrete color to them or some variation of concrete, I thought I’d try some different colors today.

New 28mm Wild West Kits

Today we are announcing a few new additions to our  28mm Wild West series of structures.

The first structure is a two story building that includes an external staircase leading up to the upper floor (Kit number 28MWEST026).  On this model the stairs can end at the front of the building or the rear of the building and the wall with the upstairs door can go on the left or right side of the building … giving you 4 different possible ways to build this kit.

Other new buildings, some with external staircases will follow in the next few days.

Also added today is a spare parts kit (Kit number 28MWEST024) that includes  window frames, door frames, doors, balcony supports, and other bits. This is great for doing customization to your buildings or in case you lost or broke a piece or if you are doing some scratchbuilding and want the finishing touches for your new creation.

The third release for today is a set of two staircases (Kit number 28MWEST025) just like the one shown on the kit pictured, this kit allows you to customizes existing GameCraft Wild West structures with external staircases or use them on the interior of the building so your cowboys can actually get to the second floor.

To see these and other great 28mm Wild West structures please click here.

New subcategories for 1/285th Middle East Buildings

The 1/285th scale Middle Eastern buildings category includes resin cast buildings, acrylic building kits and matboard building kits.  As the category grew to hundreds of items it started become difficult to tell which items were resin, which were acrylic and which were matboard … so we’ve added sub-categories for the three different types of kits.

Now you have a choice.  If you want to see all items, regardless of material you can scroll through all the 1/285th scale Middle East structures, just like it was before or you can select any of the sub-categories if you only interesting one type of kit.

In addition to the three material types we’ve also added specific categories for Mosques, Ruined Buildings, and Middle East Accessories.

(Click image to see larger version)

New sub-categories for the 285th scale middle east series

New Building Designs

I’m working on some new 1/285th scale (6mm) Middle East buildings.  These should be available in a few days or so.

Force on Force game at Orccon 2012

Reporting live from Orccon 2012…

The guys at Strategicon and PlusTenToAwesome.com are running a few Force on Force Middle East games this weekend at Orccon in Los Angeles. GameCraft Miniatures worked with the guys at PlusTenToAwesome.com to get them the Middle East 20mm buildings they needed for their game.

Based on the results of the first game today I think we have a success on our hands. This evening’s game was just the first of several to run this weekend there will be two games this Sunday and I will be in attendance for both of those games as well. Tonight’s game was a 10 turn game that ended with the Americans seizing their objective in the last seconds of the 10th turn. The battle was well fought and fun to watch.

The guys assembled and finished all of the buildings in just a few days prior to the convention, they have plans to fine tune the detailing of the buildings and add additional accessories such as air conditioners and satellite dishes in the future. In spite of getting the buildings finished in just a few days they managed to achieve some very nice results. I’m looking forward to the next convention when they will have more buildings and more time to put into finishing the buildings they already have.

I will continue to work with strategicon and the guys from PlusTenToAwesome.com and supply them with the buildings they need for future games and I’m sure by the next convention the gaming board be much larger and far more detailed than what you see below in the photos.

Below are just a few photos from tonight’s game. Click here to see all the photos on our Flickr page.

 

Design and manufacturing of a 285th scale ship model

Recently I started working on a 1/285th scale (6mm) version of the US Navy LCS2 Independence.

This project utilizes rapid prototyping (3D Printing), Laser Cutting, Laser Engraving, and good old fashioned scratchbuilding by hand.

The following are some of the steps in the process.

The first step is the research phase, this involves downloading every available photo that can be found on the internet and researching dimensions and other details about the craft.

After all the research is done it’s time to generate 2D CAD drawings of the ship.

Included in the CAD drawing process is creating flat views of some of the parts that will be laser cut and engraved from flat stock.

Next, 3D solid CAD models are created for some of the parts that will be made using rapid prototyping technology (3D Printing).

Once all the CAD work  is done it’s time to start building the model.  Below you see some of the laser cut and engraved parts as well as some hand made scratchbuilt parts.

More to come soon….

 

Gas Station in 1/285th Scale

Today we are releasing the 285MEV045 Gas Station. This gas station is a very generic design so that it can be used in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and even the Americas and other regions. It’s plain, clean design suggests it’s a modern structure and is suitable for the Cold War period and onward. The gas station is a single piece resin casting, no assembly required, just paint and play.

For users of our 285th scale modular road system we are offering a 4 way intersection specially designed for this gas station. The part number for the intersection is 285MEV046.

Gas station shown with optional 4 way intersection