Has anyone tried to scratch build a map to be laid on top of a HMMWV hood??? I am trying to figure out what is the best way to make one.
Just take some thin paper and lay it out on the hood with the stuff that a map would have on it. As I said in your other post, you don’t neeed all the details. The thin paper will look like a actual map on the hood.
David
Another thing you can use is metal toothpaste tube. Cut it open, clean it out, flatten it, and burnish flat where necessary. The advantage is that you can add wrinkles and folds that will be to scale, and are more durable than paper.
at places like Michaels or hobby lobby you can by some pretty thin copper and aluminum. It’s really for embossing or something. Might try some of this for a mediun. More durable than kitchen aluminum foil but not much thicker.
Here are some thoughts to consider:
(1) Make a decal of a map using white decal paper with the resilution set as high as your photo application and printer can produce. This will take a LOT of memory space. ( many, many Mb’s ) But this is only temporary because once the map / decal is printed, you can erase that file and scan the end product back into your 'puter at scale size to be saved permanently and reused. The key is the high res will give the fine detail and setting the print size, using inches instead of dpi will produce the 1"x 1" sized final decal print.
(2) After “fixing” the decal, slide it onto a piece of heavy-duty alluminum foil that you’ve precreased with “map” folds.
(3) Use decal set and fix solutions to make the decal conform to the creased foil.
(4) Trim the piece even so that no foil shows around the edges.
(5) After smoothing out the finished “map”; put a small amount of rubber cement ( or other contact adhesive ) on the back of the “map” and place it on the hood of your vehicle. Remember–in real life, the map would not lie flat as a second skin on the vehicle’s surface. There would be some space between the map’s edges and whatever it was laid on. Thats why you’d use just a spot of glue for holding it in position instead of glueing it flat like a regular decal.
If these steps don’t give you what you want, experiment a little more.
GOOD LUCK. [:)]
Check out www.printmini.com the website has some miniature maps in various scale that you can print out on your printer.
AND it even has info on how to rescale the graphics so you can print them out in 1/35th!! Now our OIF/A’stan/Kosovo/etc modern troops can have LAPTOPS!!!
Hit Google and search images with the phrase “military map”. Find one to your liking, scale it appropriately and follow Tinkers instructions. Hope this helps!
Cool… that one has been bookmarked.
There is a site out there for emergency vehicles that has ALOT of maps and other things, just rescale them to 1:35 and print them out. They look GREAT. I have a couple all folded up that I am going to put in the cab of a truck I am building.
EDIT
http://scalefirehouse.com/pages/reference.html
Hit up there and click on 1:24 scale maps. Resize them and print. You have many styles to choose from.
I just visited this site and WHOA!!! If you scroll down to the list of links at the bottom of the page you’ll find lots of V-E-R-Y interesting sites. I clicked on “Fire Bombers” and found loads of diaroma ideas just begging to be used. I knew that B-17s and B-24s were used for fire bombers, but I’ve never seen B-29s rigged out that way.
Another link leads to equipment. EXCELLENT lead there fantacmet. THANKS!!!
use paint on your pc to open the image you save, now hit ctrl+w to bring up stretch/skew. type in the percentage of reduction from current size for both dimensions and hit enter. if the map is currently around full size put in 2% for 1/48, 3% for 1/35, 4% for 1/24-25, or 6% for 1/16. you can also get really precise if you want and put in decimal percentages i.e. 1.388889 for 1/72. i’ve never done smaller than 1/24-25 (magazine covers for a cars front seat) using paint so i don’t know how well it’ll work for 1/35 or smaller, but it worked pretty well for 1/25
What I have done in the past is taken a topographical map, scanned a section of it into my computer, and reduced it down to the scale I wanted to use. Then just print it out on your printer and fold it like you would any map.
it is a bit late to reply to this but if you have sorted your map problem out then ignore me. what i have done in the past is google images, and select map and which country copy and paste to word then you can click on it to expand or reduce it to what size you need. good luck