Butter market built

So here we have it - one butter market/market cross.

I initially painted it grey to match the church, but found it looked too drab. Mixing up a light mustard-colour I repainted it to look like Collyweston stone, a variety of stone found in the British Midlands which varies in colour from pale grey-beige to honey-yellow. The grey paving slabs on the base were drawn on using a sharp-ish pencil.

Of course, now I have a market cross, I need a market place to go with it. I'm thinking of using a section of roofing shingle coated with vinyl adhesive then painted. Not sure if it'll work or not, but I'll give it a go.

In other news, I find I'm horribly tempted to get into yet another field of gaming - WW1 Mesopotamia. The question I ask myself is - do I need another period with troops in pith helmets supported by river gunboats?

Table upgrade

It never rains but it pours. Drenching rain this weekend made any prospect of gardening a literal washout, so today I decided to make a start on fitting my gaming table with a set of folding legs. Being able to work in the dry comfort of the garage certainly helped.

I didn't manage to complete the project today - I discovered I don't have enough of the right particle board screws - but I made good progress. A couple of photos below show the general idea and how far I got. The pencilled rectangle in the top right corner of the board is a guide for where the screws will go to secure the blocks under the tabletop which will take the hinges. These are the type of screws I ran out of. Whoops...

The legs and the top of the table.

The legs are cut from a length of 8 feet by 2x4 wood. I sawed the wood into four lengths then drilled holes in the ends to take the casters, fitting standard door hinges to the other ends. To keep the legs square I braced them with cross bars. I intend to fit hooks to the upper bars to prevent the legs from folding when the table is in use, but I may add a removable strut to run between the bottom bars on both sets of legs to be sure they stay put.

I'll get the right screws sometime this coming week so I can finish the job. Photos of the finished table in all its glory will follow - then, with luck and a following wind, I might actually get some gaming in!