Hello all; I need to make a a few 100 sandbags, any ideas ? I know you can use muillput , but that would cost a lot.. I need to make a buker, does anyone make one in resiin ?

Thanks Rigger ................

How about making about 10 sandbags using milliput or some Epoxy putty then buy a resin casting kit and make a whole bunch of copies? You can get the Alluminite casting resin kit at Hobby Lobby (if you have one in your area) at a discounted price since they often have 40% off internet coupon, which will run you about $40 (comes with more than enough casting silicon and two-part resin). Or if you have Michael's crafts store, they should have some sort of casting rubber and two-part resin in their sculpting section also. Casting stuff is great! I've enjoyed it so far.

Hi Mitch,
If Milliput is too costly,another option could be to use normal clay.I have never made sandbags but there is a good feature here by Ronny Noben(Roadkill),with an easy step by step guide on making sandbags which could be the way to go,just replace the Milliput with clay.Cheers,Shay

Thanks guys , some great ideas.

Rigger .............

in the scratch buld forum, there is an article on how to make sandbags from chiclets, according to the article, chiclets, a candy, is the 1/35 scale size needed, and it shows pics of the results...its on the fourth page, heading is easy sandbags..........

reb in texas

You can also go with baking clay like Sculpy - get it at Michaels or AC Moore.

If you're not going to see the inside walls of the bunker consider building the bunker out of foam board or wood. They applying 1/2 a sandback to the outside like a venir. Make the sandbags, then cut them in 1/2 and glue them on as if the whole wall was built out of them.

You could also try Sculpy modeling compound.
You can buy it in the large block.
After you finish scuplting them you can cure them with heat which hardens them permanently unlike reglar modeling clay which remains pliable and somewhat oily.

Chicklets...... simple and easy.......

Air conditioner sticky insulation...the kind you find in
a hardware store, that comes on a spool and is sort of like a bunch of connected "strings"...is what I used to make about 200 of them for 2 different dioramas I made some years ago.

I used them for soft armor on a Sherman tank and
for the bags that lined an 88 gun emplacement in
the desert.

I merely estimated their size and pinched off an amount of material, which I then shaped with my fingers. For the emplacement sandbags, I actually used a thin thread and tied them off at the top, snipping the excess. They looked great and took paint very well. When they dried fully, they hardened, though no cracking of paint was/is evident that I'm aware of.

Joe Leoce

Another choice is DAS.It is an air dry clay that comes in a sealed 2lbs bag.It can be worked like normal clay but needs no heat to dry.Once hard it can be painted with almost anything.

My two point five cents.......

Jim

hey i have an other cheap idea!

mix
1part flour
1part salt
a little bit water
and a little bit "more kleister"
( i dont know, if its right in english)

If you're not making many bags or if you need a few to cast from, a great method taught to me by an architectural modelmaker is to buy stainless steel mesh from an architectural model shop (4d models in London stock it) but so fine it looks like silk. Cut 50mm strips and stick to aluminium builders foil tape, the stuff used to seal air con ducting. Cut into rectangles about 30mm x 25 and fold around a pinch of miliput, shape and pinch in the corners, paint or cast. The mesh gives an excellent representation of the hessian cloth used for the real thing. Larger strips of the same mesh/foil combo are good for tarps and vehicle covers...
Bit of a sod doing 100 though...

for a dio I did, I went to Walmart and purchased a package of kids' plasticine, for super cheap. Made the bags up, and layed them as I went, forming them on top of one another. When I was done, I had a nice rainbow mix of sand bags! :-) When I was ready, I brushed on straight white glue and let dry Do this a couple times so it seals the plasticine, and will be ready for paint.
Here's what I did with them:

Hi Mitch. As seen above there are a lot of options. But they all cost something ... and with so much work needed, a little investment will pay off in the long run. I used the Ronny Noben method as well, and used Milliput. The cheaper stuff (red and white box) is actually better for this than the fine stuff (white and black box). Below is some images of my first attempt. The yellowish bags are the cheap milliput ... one box ... and then some white to finsih off (.. because I had no more of the cheaper variant).







Primed


Finished.

Yeah, Ive gone the chiclet route, and I can say it is very easy, believable, looks good in 1/35 scale, and fast. Only problem is the girl at the cash register of your local supermarket thinks you have really bad breath when you but 6 three packs of chiclets LOL

I have the perfect solution! Well maybe not perfect, but it would work very well for this particular application.

Make several sandbags out of epoxy putty, miliput, polymer clay etc. You could even add a burlap texture if you want. Next Make a mould from rtv, polymer mould clay, moulding gel etc. Now heres where you save money big time! Now that you have the mould cast the hundreds of sandbags with plaster of paris! Using plaster wont work for most things, but in the case of sandbags its a very simple shape and thick and less likely to break. Good luck! -D

Hi Doug ... I think there are some flaws with your perfect solution.
The rtv, clays and other mould making materials, plus the original milliput/epoxy all take time and money as well.
The result is a small series of sandbags, with a repeating pattern ... and the chances of getting the pattern to fit snugly to its predecessor, successor, below and on top, is slight, as its hard plaster. This will make a repeating pattern even more noticeable. What happens if you want it to conform to a certain base, include empty ammo boxes (as used in reality to keep shape), change direction, etc.
I reckon the red/white box of milliput would make about 120 sandbags.
~$8 (Great Models) a box. Do the maths! (I actually hadn’t realised how expensive milliput is in the states.) As milliput was originally intended for fixing ceramics, it might be worth trying out a local D.I.Y. for something similar!!
Another thing would have to be taken into account is the mould. It would have to be a 2-part mould; so all sides could be detailed. Impossible to have a flat side to use as a repeating pattern.

I've used Sculpey with great success. It's relatively cheap and easy to work. If you can't bake the completed work, you can leave it in a sunny window for several days to harden.

That's alot of Milliput (and work) Frank but the end result is outstanding and very realistic.

How has the Chiklet deal worked out, any bugs getting to it? I've heard they can be a problem, did you seal them? If so, what did you to to protect them from rot and bugs?