For my final project I wanted to make a diorama, using the laser cutter to make a structure and the CNC to sculpt the underlying terrain. A couple of years ago I took a vacation based around walking tours of American Civil War battlefields. Among the most beautifully preserved is Antietam in Maryland, with several iconic, recognizable locations. After that vacation I painted some Union soldiers from Pendraken Miniatures:
so I decided to make a diorama at their scale (10 mm = 6 ft). I found a topo map of the battlefield:
but at this scale it would fill an airport. so I focused on one particular structure, around which the third and final phase of the battle centered, called Burnside Bridge.
(Design files for the bridge and riverbanks, respectively.)
Photos and dimensions of the bridge are readily available, so I could design the bridge to scale (though I widened it about 25% to accommodate my stands of miniatures). The riverbanks end up being about eight inches apart. I made the bridge out of eight layers of laser-cut 0.20" plywood. Four crossbeams run through all eight layers to keep them aligned. Protrusions on the center two pylons (which my wife tells me are to prevent logjams) serve to hide two of the crossbeams. I drew on a railing and stone pattern in Illustrator. Here is the bridge disassembled and assembled (there are a few blemishes where the pieces didn't come free cleanly, but those will be covered in painting).
I drew the riverbanks quickly by taking advantage of the Loft command: I created several offset planes, each a quarter- or half-inch above the last, and drew a perimeter of the riverbank on each. The Loft command then interpolated between each offset drawing, instantly creating a three dimensional object. I used the X-Carve with the 1/4" ball and a 1/32" drop-down distance, which gave a very smooth result but took forever to cut (nearly six hours for both); in the future I might go with 1/16" and apply some sandpaper afterwards. Here are the hills taped to my baseboard, with the bridge placed for fitting:
And here is the whole setup after some painting.
Normally for wargaming you would put trees on a moveable base, so that you can position them where you like and shift them aside when troops pass through. But because there was very little flat space to work with, and I wanted this to look diorama-quality, I took some old trees from my bits-box, filed the stems down to points, drove them into the foam, and glued them in place. All that was left was to add a little ink wash to the river, sand to the road (to imitate gravel), flock and grass to the hills, and soldiers to the bridge. Done!
so I decided to make a diorama at their scale (10 mm = 6 ft). I found a topo map of the battlefield:
but at this scale it would fill an airport. so I focused on one particular structure, around which the third and final phase of the battle centered, called Burnside Bridge.
(Design files for the bridge and riverbanks, respectively.)
Photos and dimensions of the bridge are readily available, so I could design the bridge to scale (though I widened it about 25% to accommodate my stands of miniatures). The riverbanks end up being about eight inches apart. I made the bridge out of eight layers of laser-cut 0.20" plywood. Four crossbeams run through all eight layers to keep them aligned. Protrusions on the center two pylons (which my wife tells me are to prevent logjams) serve to hide two of the crossbeams. I drew on a railing and stone pattern in Illustrator. Here is the bridge disassembled and assembled (there are a few blemishes where the pieces didn't come free cleanly, but those will be covered in painting).
I drew the riverbanks quickly by taking advantage of the Loft command: I created several offset planes, each a quarter- or half-inch above the last, and drew a perimeter of the riverbank on each. The Loft command then interpolated between each offset drawing, instantly creating a three dimensional object. I used the X-Carve with the 1/4" ball and a 1/32" drop-down distance, which gave a very smooth result but took forever to cut (nearly six hours for both); in the future I might go with 1/16" and apply some sandpaper afterwards. Here are the hills taped to my baseboard, with the bridge placed for fitting:
And here is the whole setup after some painting.
Normally for wargaming you would put trees on a moveable base, so that you can position them where you like and shift them aside when troops pass through. But because there was very little flat space to work with, and I wanted this to look diorama-quality, I took some old trees from my bits-box, filed the stems down to points, drove them into the foam, and glued them in place. All that was left was to add a little ink wash to the river, sand to the road (to imitate gravel), flock and grass to the hills, and soldiers to the bridge. Done!
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