Best material for creating sandbags

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

Hi all,

I am going to embark on building my first Sherman tank in a short bit, and want to build an M4A3 with sandbag add-on armour; to that effect, what would be the best material/putty to use in making the sandbags?

2

Any type of two-part (A & B) putty works great . Mix them together, form the bags and let them set a few minutes. Press an old t-shirt into them to give them some texture and form the open end with a knife to show where they were stitched or tied together. Its pretty easy and they come out nicely.

Good luck.

3

I agree w/Gino’s suggestion about the putty but you should be careful about imprinting the cloth texture. Sandbags could be canvas type material or burlap. Which ever it might be, how extreme to you feel the texture would be in 1/35 scale? Extremely minute I would think.

4

If you have to make a bunch…hit Michaels and pick up some air set clay. Soften it with a bit of water and though a bags texture could vary the old shirt works great. It makes it look like texture which also helps with weathering. It may not be perfect Roy but I will agree with Gino with the look…call it a bit of art!

Rounds Complete!!

5

Any suggestions on a nice affordable A+B putty?

6

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Most of the pictures I see with Shermans using this type of ‘armour’, there seem to be hundreds of them all over the tank. My other question is, would anyone know either the real or scale dimensions of a typical sandbag in this application?

7

I agree… self-hardening (I used Marblex brand) clay pressed with scrap t-shirt material. I ‘tied’ the open ends with additional clay and wrapped some sewing thread for the draw strings. Not on a Sherman but…

There’s approximately 250 of them on this 3" diameter vignette. As far as dimensions go, IICRC, I rolled out to about 5/8" in length by about 3/16" in diameter. Your mileage may vary. This was built a long time ago.

Same material used on this dio’s bags and I believe that there is something like 1,100 (although 1,079 rings a bell but who counted. :-)) here…

!(http://www.mortarsinminiature.com/images/Other Models/US M110-2.jpg)

Time consuming for sure but IMHO, better than anything bought. (I got the idea/layout for the M110 dio from Verlinden’s pit.) This too was built a long time ago.

A few more bags…

HTH…

8

Thanks very much for the pics; they help a lot.