W.I.P. Desert Fort

I took advantage of a rainy morning today to start building my first Foreign Legion desert fort.  Previously I had done some prep-work by cutting 5mm and 8mm widths of blue styrene sheets (3″, 3.5″ and 4″ high).  I also sketched out the fort’s layout on the quarter inch plywood base using the plans I found at this link.  I used the thicker cuts of styrene for the actual walls and the 5mm cuts (cut .5″ shorter) for the lower portion where the wooden walkways will go.   The walls came together pretty quickly despite lots of gluing and fitting. The crenelation was done a little differently than my test wall (earlier post).  I cut them out separately this time instead trying to cut each one into the wall.  I made three different sizes and glued them along the walls (using Beau Geste film stills as a reference).   This is my biggest piece of scratch built terrain I ever attempted and I did have some some minor problems with getting the walls to fit.  Also I think some of the overall measurements are a bit off because it doesn’t exactly fit the outlines of sketch on the base.  The corner crenelations were a little trouble and I still have some more work yet on a couple of odd locations and after putting the entire structure together I noticed that there are several gaps that need to be filled with some Spackle.  Nevertheless I’m very happy with the results so far.  Once the walls are painted with my paint-Spackle-glue “goop” they will look great.  I also mounted a half inch sheet of foam onto the plywood base.  This will allow me to sink the legionnaire’s barracks room like it was in the Beau Geste movie.  Next items on the agenda is to start making the interior buildings, placing the supports for the parapet/walkway planking and maybe working on the doors.  I should note that all of the styrene used in this project was rescued from various construction site dumpsters or found along side roadways and in open fields.