Sunday 4 March 2012

Nothing much and the quest for cork...


Alas, I've still not finished painting anything. I was hoping to combine an up and a down to the tally with this post, but no dice. These 14 apes for Rise of the Planet of the Apes sink the tally even further to:

12 vs 41 = -29

In other news, I've been on a quest for cork recently after mattblackgod posted up pics of some rocky mars terrain over on the Lead Adventure Forum the other day:


Unfortunately, there seems to be a cork shortage on. There's a shop in town that has cork pan coasters at 2 for a fiver, which is a little more than I'm willing to pay for around a square foot of cork. Ikea has the same thing at 3 for £2, but they aren't something they'll deliver, and the nearest Ikea is a little out of the way to nip in for some. I even hit B&Q today, only to be told that they 'don't do cork tiles any more', which is a bit of a bugger...

Now comes the random ramble: I can't stop reading VBCW blogs! The only thing that's stopped me from buying a load more miniatures is not really knowing where to start... That, and I've not got access to the magazines that had the LOTOW rules adaptation in (as they're currently in a box in storage) and I can't remember which issue (or which magazine, truth be told) they're in to try and find a pdf... I was originally thinking about dipping my toe into the water by converting and painting a miniature to represent a local figure of the time (like the Lady Mayoress), but at the same time Crusader Miniatures are doing WWII miniatures at a bundle price...

5 comments:

  1. Now funnily enough I was thinking of getting hold of some cork just the other day, but the wind probably changed direction and I was distracted by something else. That said I did get as far as find that 'Arcane scenery & models were selling some. They are usually pretty good value, but can't say for sure about the cork.

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  2. Do you have a link, I can't find sheet cork on their site...

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  3. If you have a Wickes near you, they still do cork floor tiles, other than that you're looking at ordering from specialist flooring companies for the thicker stuff.

    The "cork shortage" isn't a short term thing, by the way. It turns out that the tiles and sheets used for flooring and wall coverings were actually only a small side-product of the multi-million dollar wine cork industry. In the last few years, so many wine manufacturers have moved over to synthetic corks, a lot of the cork cultivators have gone out of business, which means there's a lot less cork being harvested and therefore a lot less available for other uses.

    Which is a shame, cos cork's a great material to work with, and very renewable so it's green too.

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  4. 2nd shout for Wickes, it's where i get all mine from. 3mm rough one side smooth/sealed the other. I've had no problems with gluing or painting either side and they're floor tiles so have good density.

    Beware internet sales... maybe i just got unlucky but the last high density cork sheets i got off the internet were just cut down rolled cork mixed with rubber... high density incredibly flexible but near useless for modelling, unless you want a curved wall in your designs :)

    All the best.

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  5. Amazon also has some great deals on rolls of cork and cork tiles.

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