Tie fighter Rattle

wings are made of poplar and oak.

I chose this rattle as it had very large "glue to" points. And made a nice sound.

In all its splendor, racing around our tree!

Here is a christmas present for our young next door neighbor, Kyle. His dad wanted to name him Darth, but, well we know how that went.  My kids refer to him as Darth Kyle ( they actually think that is his name!)  I saw this rattle in our local cool toy store and was inspired.

Operation Wooden Ships: Carriers and Subs

This Christmas found me pushing the limits on my honorary Elf union card. I managed to knock out 13 wooden toys of various shapes and skill sets before the fat man came tromping on my roof.

Following up on a previous post request, here is an aircraft carrier, a squadron of planes and two subs I made for my children's fleets.

The Carrier in it's rough form. Like the others, this bad boy is made of poplar.

Since I made the Carrier for my son, I built two Submarines for my daughter

A minnow and a "shark" class sub. Note Hellcats drying in the background

All of my ships are meant to be more "Iconic" of the actual vessels they protray. My inspirations are from both World wars- what ever looks the coolest to me (and I think I can make).

Finished Carrier- named USS Hornet, after the origonal, moored about an hour from us.

Size comparison, next to the USS Battley.

Top and bottoms of the "hellcats". Very Quick and dirty, but effective.

finished subs. First painted one color, they tended to get stepped on.

Two shots of Task force F, patrolling the Saltillo seas.

The fleet gets divvied up for our "Wooden Battleship" games.

 In our last battle the carrier was able to launch all her fighters which ended up sinking the Battley. More on the rules mechanics later, but suffice to say, there were many fingers counted to see the damage was added correctly!

Task Force: Wooden Cruisers

 Project Wooden Cruiser:

Last Christmas I made my son a wooden battleship.  It was looking lonely, or out of place amongst the lego cargo ships, so I decided to make a couple of "cruisers" to go along with it.

ships are moslty poplar, with toy wheels for turrets.

Captain Fossling between the devil and the deep blue sea.

As per the house tradition, the children name the ships. My son named his the USS Helpful. When pressed, he stated it was  because it helps his battleship. USS Battley. My  2.5 year old daughter christened her cruiser the USS Alanana, which she assures us is Spanish, yet the definition changes from time to time.

The task force on manuevers on the Saltillo sea

The Hook:

There is a method to my madness, and in this case the madness is math.  You see, I have been designing more games that I can play with my kids, and Taskforce is now one of them. The Rules are very simple:

Each player gets either the battleship, or the two cruisers. Battleships have 100 hit points, the cruisers each 50.

Each ship gets to roll one D20 attack per barrel on the turrets

The Battley fires her mighty guns!

During a player's turn, they may move ( totally Krieg spiel about  this) adjust turrets towards the target and fire by rolling the dice at the target. Any dice that strike the target and bounce are hits, and the number shown is the damage done.  Natural 20 on the dice also means a turret was hit and  is removed for a turn ( IE lose a die).

When a ship has been damaged past her hit points , she sinks. 

USS Battley takes a pounding!

We keep score on a chalk board, and, using  a lot of fingers and hooks, do the math each time.  They are learning math and don't even know it!  If ever a time I felt like Bill Cosby....

Next will be either a sub, or an aircraft carrier... or another battleship.....

Operation: Wooden Battleship

My son's letter to Santa this year, which was all pictures of what he wanted (yeah, I am totally keeping the letter) included a battleship. How cool a challenge is that for a present!  I went to work in the wee hours as he found my blue prints and a research book in my office; questions asked and attention drawn away with ginger bread, the close call meant I had to work in the garage, under cover.

LOOK:
For design, I wanted something Iconic, not worrying so much about accuracy. It had to be big, cool, and have turrets that moved!  My end choices fell between a WWI (?) British ship the Princess, and a WWI Russian battle ship- the round turrets for the win!

The Princess, the inspiration for the hull and stacks.

The Hatsuse, Clean and cool. Curiosly, I thought she had round turrets...

FEEL:
My new choice of sustainable wood with which to work is poplar. It has a great weight, stronger than pine, comes in various colors - seriously you can get it in a light green- sands well, and is cheap. This thing should "feel" like a mighty battleship when picked up by a 3 year old.

 The hull measures 18 inches long and she is just shy of 5 inches wide, and tall.

The business end. My drill caught on  the wooden toy wheels I used for turrets,

so a bit of magic sculpt puttysaved the day.  Maybe next year for christmas I'll get a vise or a drill press!

Finished!
I painted the ship with a mix of Reaper Rainy grey and GW space wolves grey acrylic paints, added in some cannon holes and the stack hole, plus the anchors for a bit of detail.  I toyed with making the deck wooden, but time constraints left me little time for experimentation. Maybe on the next one.

Top down next to my key board for scale.



U.S.S. Battley. The lettering isn't bad considering I had a squirmy 3 year old on my lap, who helped with it.

The busines end!

The  Pay off!  Nolan carried the battleship, named the U.S.S. Battley, number 20,( his current favorite number) for the greater part of the day.  I am thinking a Destroyer escort, and maybe a sub next... then a carrier... I had better come up with a rules set for these to be sure!