Ironclad Boats In Toyland

 Quite a few years ago I bought some of Bob Bolton's homemade wooden, foam and cardboard boats. Two of them, the grey ones, are shown here). I always liked his boats as being very solid and functional for wargames.

  The one with the sandbags has rather cleverly made paddle wheels. Unfortunately the boat fell off a shelf and ended up in pieces and so it stayed for several years, until now. So slack was I that I even lost some of those pieces. Consequently, I made some new paddles from cut up icy-pole (popsicles) sticks. it occurs to me that the paddles were often fully covered so they could be represented by a round box cut in half. My solid geometry skills were never great so I looked for a cardboard gift box to serve as the cabin; it is a tad to wide so when I find another suitable box I'll replace it. The missing gun ports I replaced with a thin piece of wood with the openings cut with a jigsaw.

  The boat with single turret has many rivets added. I was tempted to add them to the other boat, but did not want to spend that much time on it! In any case, rivets, on toy boats, although they look good, are really going to be barely perceivable and reduced scale.

  Below is the paddle boat with some metal sailors and a French made (I forget if it is Starlux) officer. The sandbags came from a cheap army-men set and look effective from the front. However, they are hollow and open on the inner side and looked strange so I filled them in with Das clay and coated them with PVA before repainting and dry=brushing.

                   Below; an unfortunate fishing vessel ties to steer clear of a looming battle. 

                                                        Below: The repairs to the paddles.

    The other iron clad is made from hard foam and would probably float. The lone turret revolves, which would be handy in a battle. it has two squarish funnels. it looks a lot like the Monitor.

                                  The fishing boat is a commercial toy I picked up second hand. It comes complete with little plastic fish!

The iron clads were given a new coat of grey paint which was from an acrylic sample pot from Bunnings hardware. It is mat so I am wondering if I should give a gloss varnish overcoat. Thoughts?

   By the way, one reason I gave a new coat was the new repairs. Another was the spiders on my ceiling keep leaving little white spots of spider excrement on whatever is below. I could say that it is from the seagulls but sailors spend a lot of time cleaning the decks. it was with some guilt that I vacuumed up many of the spiders. After all, the daddy longlegs (not all 'true spiders') had served me well eating up mosquitoes flies and moths. But when push came to shove they came a second to my collection. The little blighters even get in my cabinets.

  I have another boat from Bob which is a strange, but effective, one made from a toy train engine. I have forgotten where I put it but it does feature in some of my Funny Little Wars outside games.

  The best place to wargame with boats and ships is on the lawn as they need the space for their size and movement.

  Real life boats like these were suited for coastal use and were not so good at open sea voyages. These particular models are suitable for ACW and also, generally for mid 19th century to later 19th Century. Some were probably still in use in the early 20th century.