More Terrain: Small Chem Plant

The recently completed "Terrain Triptych" series wasn't enough for me, so I've been pushing out even more urban terrain projects using my vast collection of bits, scraps and toys. In this blog post, I'll unveil a small chem station I rebuilt for fellow club member Pat. The original version is visible in the far right background of this classic CSW battle (our first go at Tomorrow's War back in 2011, and the second post ever on this blog!). Oh the memories…

Pat gave me free reign to "give it the treatment" and in exchange, he's painting some figures for me, so I decided to do it up right, which necessitated doing away with the old base and starting fresh with a lot of new elements, as revealed below.

This was my first attempt at using the girder and panel elements from the "Power City" toy building kits that I purchased recently, and I've got to say, they're great!

Being made of polypropylene, you have to use superglue at the joints, epoxy for the connection to the base and plastic specific spray paint (I used Kylon Camo Black) for priming, but the girders go together easily. I'll definitely be using this stuff again, which is good since I am now the owner of a rather large batch.

The elements connecting the tanks are from the Pegasus Hobbies "Chemical Plant" kit, one of my favorites and a great source for industrial bits. I use the kit as a toolbox for adding pipe detail where necessary to larger terrain constructions. It takes a bit of fiddling to make them work with the other elements of terrain that aren't built on the same metrics, but the results are worth it.

The small tanks are halogen light bulbs. The big one was a toy silo with the top cut off.

The base is made from "Base Ten Blocks", specifically two of the 100-count blocks epoxied together. You might remember them from grade school and learning about number places. I found a big batch at my local resale shop of single bricks, ten brick columns and 100 brick squares. They are incredibly useful for terrain building!

I gouged up the base a bit before painting, but I now wish I'd distressed it a bit more.

There you have it, a finished small chem plant! Though intended mostly for skirmish games, you can fit about seven figures on the upper floor, so it's got quite a bit of utility for squad-based games as well. Feel free to put any comments or questions regarding construction below.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member


One response to “More Terrain: Small Chem Plant

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


Archives

Categories

Recent Board Topics

Support CSW!