Scratch Built Aircraft Hangar - Part 1

After my recent AVBCW battle set in the Bristol 'bocage', one of the Pendraken forum members made the comment that the 'Bristol Bocage' sounded like a great name for one of those slightly whacky British Inter-War designs. This got the old grey cells working and so I have plans afoot, subject to the delivery of a plane kit, to make a 'Bristol Bocage' for use in a forthcoming AVBCW campaign. The ideas for both the plane and the campaign are broadly fleshed out, but I thought it would be good to model an aerodrome or aircraft hangar for the final scenario.

I wanted something easy to make but fun also, and whilst doing the washing up (I hate dish washers!) I thought half of a tinned can would make a perfect basic shape for the hangar. So a few days later off into the garage I went to saw the tin in half with a hacksaw and knock up a base. the results can be seen below:

 

The mdf base is 8" x 4", with the tin can 3" in diameter. I used tinned tomato can as this had the simplest shape without any added curves at the base or top. The can when cut loses its shape a bit, so I added strips along the sides and back to help keep it in shape, whilst I glued it in position with Araldite. The hangar door is made from 1.0mm ABS sheet, with a strip along the top to represent the rail to allow the doors to open. I have also scored in lines to represent the door panels. The plane in the foreground is a Pendraken FE2B to give an idea of scale.

A view from the rear.

I added fine surface Polyfilla along the sides and back to hide the support strips. I'm not sure whether to add some windows half way up or not and will mull this over tonight. Again I'm not sure whether to have just grass in front of the doors of some concrete slabs, but I'm favouring the latter at present.

I hope this small post has been of some interest to you and I'm certainly enjoying the whole scratch building process. Much more enjoyable than making models for clients to ridiculous deadlines, as I only have myself to please! More updates to follow in due course over the next few days, all being well. So until next time stay safe!