Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Flashers!


Progress on my idea of flickering LED fire markers. I had originally purchased a number of LED tea lights. I had planned to rework them onto smaller battery holders, which seemed like time consuming work, but doable. However, Santa Clarita Wargamer has convinced me otherwise, and I just received 25 red/yellow blinking pins. I was afraid they would be too aggressive in their blinking, but I tossed one on a tank and covered it with white acrylic stuffing, and it looked pretty darn sweet.



The next step will be to figure out what to cover it with. I'd like black smoke, maybe mixed in with some red and yellows. My first thought was Flames of War's surprisingly effective Flame and Smoke material, but at $14 per pack, it seemed too expensive for 25 markers. Looking around on the Internet, I had a very hard time finding colored fibers like this. After an hour of poking, I googled "what is yarn made from?," and I think what I'm looking for is roving, or roving yarn. How did anybody get anything done before the Internet??? I'll try to track some down and see how it looks-- may be a couple of days, though, as I head out for the holidays. A nine to ten hour drive with the wife, three kids and the dog...but I will have D-Day: the Battle for Normandy to play on the radio...

2 comments:

  1. Nice one...I did try something similar but with these optic tube lamps....the light effects were too small.Maybe I should have made thenm into little bundles of tubes.?? This idea looks very effective, as shown on the videos.
    Cheers
    Paul

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  2. Andy, I used pillow batting I spray painted different colors. A little smelly, but it holds its shape well.

    Dave
    santaclaritawargamer

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