Ola guys

I have an unusual question. I'm currently working on a figure of Rommel standing on a dune watching out over sea waondering when and where the allies will land. Here is an in progress pic from some time back. The project is in the end stage now


But my question is this. The wooden base was not laquered and since I'm bot good in laquering wood I decided to go a different route and attacked the base with knifes and files and edges of a stonewall. Creating something that looked like a really old, battered and weathered beam. My idea was to make it look like a Beach pole or beach marker like we have on the beaches in Holland (they stand every X meters don't know exactly how much and they are numbered). But then I started to look up pictures for some painting details and more or less only found pictures that were taken in Holland.
So I started wondering... Is this a typical Dutch thing? Or can something similar like this be found in the rest of the world as well?

I hope it is actually otherwise my whole plan is out of the window and I have to think up another reason to have a base that looks like a weathered old beam.

Looking forward to the answer

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Hi Robert
I'm no expert, but I'm not sure you would find similar poles on French beaches...

Here are two other wood-related options :

The poles in the background appear to have no mine fitted..


"Rommel's asparagus" :


I'm sure you would have found hundreds of both types at that time

Frenchy

Ola Frenchy

Thanks for your answer. I was already a bit fearfull for such an answer.

I have here a picture of what these Beach poles look like

And that is quite a simple one with just a number painted on it. Some are painted with red white black or blue bands. sometimes a combination of those colors. Some have the numbers carved in them. I did some searching online and found out that they stand each 250 meters. But so far I haven't really found a clear answer as to what the function of them are.

Those beach obstacles have crossed my mind as well but the problem I have with that is that they pretty much all are simply cut down trees tied together and stuck in the sand. And they mostly are round. While my wooden base at this point looks more like a railway sleeper.

I liked the idea of the beach pole a lot since it also makes the base an interesting visual part of the project. And it allowed me to integrate the title of the piece into the painting of the base.

At least it looks that some of the poles fitted with a mine were square (but were these wood poles ??) ...



I'm afraid I can't help you more

Frenchy