Grandpa George and Grandma Stella

 Here is a photo of my grandma and grandpa somewhere in Europe at the end of WWII. I'd like to find out more about this photo and about George's military service.

All I know about George's service, is what was told to me when I was a younger teenager. Supposedly he fought with the British in Italy. He was a Sargent or higher rank. He used a Thompson submachine gun to "cut German's in half". He was wounded, shot in the ass, supposedly by a German playing dead. My dad (George's son) thinks he was shot from a woman's husband after getting caught with his wife.

He was born in Serbia in 1911. His name was George Jovanovich before he came to the USA. He dropped the 'h' from the end of his last name to make it sound more "American". I believe he lived in Belgrade. His brother or dad owned a car dealership. This info is stuff I'm trying to remember from my childhood (20+ years ago).

Stella is from Lithuania. I don't know her maiden name. She had a husband in Lithuania that was a pilot and was killed in the war. She had a son, my uncle Paul. All the males of her family were taken to Siberia when the Russians invaded. Her, her sister Vanda (maybe sisters) and her toddler somehow survived the war on the Eastern Front. 

Stella met George somewhere in Europe at the end of the war. They were married and had a baby (my aunt Zita). They came to the USA sometime after Zita was born (48'-50') and before my dad, Alex, was born (53'). They lived in Chicago, Illinois and then later in life owned property in New Buffalo, Michigan.

Stella never spoke English, but she did speak plenty of other languages. George spoke English. My dad would translate so I could communicate with Grandma Stella.

One of my favorite memories of Grandma Stella, is her eating an entire apple. Core and all and spitting out the seeds. She was tough. She fell and broke her arm when she was in her 90's. She refused a cast and just walked over to a table and pushed it back into place like it was no big deal. They got her to wear an arm brace for a week.

If anyone has any good leads to find more information about this photo, please let me know. Thanks!

Cheap fields part 1

 I've been thinking over fields and the best way to represent them on the table. I came across these felt sheets at Hobby Lobby. I really liked the texture and the look of them. The price was great too! $0.33! They are 9" by 12" thin sheets.

I picked up some 3mm plywood sheets too for the bases of the fields. They are fairly inexpensive, and really easy to work with.

I could cut them with a heavy duty utility knife. It did take a few passes and I would only cut in a straight line with the utility knife. Curves or shapes I would cut with a jigsaw.

I was able to get 3 fields out of one sheet of plywood. I painted the exposed edges of the plywood a dark brown and attached the sheets of felt to the plywood with some spray adhesive. I think I am going to seal them with a layer of glue/water/matte medium.

This is how they are looking with a little bit of other scenery:

Three fields covering 2 square feet of tabletop for $6. Not bad. I'd like to pick up some 4' by 8' sheets of 3mm plywood and cut my own field sections. I want some trapezoids and not just rectangles. I'm happy so far.

Orchards Part 1

 I picked up a ton of trees. Like 150+ to make a bunch of different foresset stands and single tree stands and to put some in my bocage.

You can't really see it, but to the right of the photo are 3 bags of trees with about 45 trees total and in the bowl are a bunch of flower trees I'm going to use for the orchards,

I wanted the orchards to have a more orderly look to them, so I picked up rectangular bases for them. I've got 8 bases total. They are 3.5" by 4.5". I'm going to fit 4 trees on each base. In reality they would probable be packed a bit tighter, but troops need to be able to maneuver around them on the tabletop.

I taped all the bases together so I could drill the holes for the trees at the same time and have all the holes in the same spot.

Next I added a layer of glue/sand. I'll do this 1 or 2 more times before moving on to the flocking and tree attaching steps.

Hills Part 2

 The process so far with my hills is this:

• Get some cheap material to build up a base and some height (cardboard and styrofoam and hot glue)
• Use Sculptamold to form the hills
• Apply 3 layers of glue/water/sand for texture and strength
• Apply top layer of glue/water/acrylic paint to seal the surface
• Spray paint the hills dark green
• Flock the hills
• Seal the flock

Here are some photos of the process:

Step One: Build

Step Two: Form

Step Three: Sand

Step Four: Spray Paint

Step Five: Flock

I'm going to pick up some acrylic matte medium. I want to seal the flock with a spray of glue/matte medium/water. I watched this video and Luke really breaks down the different flocks and how to seal them. I've got 4 hills of various sizes going.

The two major things I learned from building these are:

1. Use a more sturdy base. I think I'm going to switch to 1/8" thick hardboard. I can cut out the shapes with a jigsaw and sand the edges to a bevel too. I won't have to bring the Sculptamold all the way to the edges then.
2. Work in smaller and thinner layers of Sculptamold. I built all the hills at the same time and used 5-6 pounds of Sculptamold. The hills took forever to dry and they started to warp. Thinner layers and smaller sections will just make a better finished product.

In the future I am going to try and make my own paper pulp to make my own version of Sculptamold.

Hills Part 1

 I'm trying to make some hills for the first time. I started with some real basic materials and some hot glue.

I didn't think about this part too much. Just kind of break up the pieces and glue them in piles.

Next was to use Sculptamold to make the hills.

That same pesky Panzer IV driving around.

After they were molded, I had to let them dry. In the future I would have done them in small sections to help with the bending and dry time. I had to bend some pieces back to make them more level and cracked them a bit. I filled the cracks with glue and sand.

To get them to dry, I had to raise them up off the plastic covered table. It took them days to dry out. Next time I'm going to work in small sections.

Once they were dry, I covered them in glue/sand a couple of times.

This helped to seal them up and make them stronger. After the glue dried for a day or two, I hit them with the spray paint.

Next up for the hills is to flock them and seal them up.

15mm Bocage Part 2

 I've got all the insulation strips attached to the popsicle sticks, I've got the bases sanded and painted. Here is what they look like now:

The Bocage have 2 layers of sand/glue around the base, and 1 layer of sand/glue over the top. After they've been sanded and glued, I painted them again with the spray paint.

After they've been painted and dried, I flocked them. First, I put blobs of glue for the coarse tufts and then watered down glue to sprinkle flocking over the Bocage.

I tried a couple of different methods, one was to use spray adhesive, but I liked using the Elemer's glue the best.

Here are a few shots of them up close.

Here is the first batch with a FOW Panzer IV hiding among them.

These are ready to get sealed up with matte finish. I'm thinking of adding some trees into the Bocage itself too. We'll see.

Saving Some Old Trees Part 2

 So, I've got the trees based now. Next step is to roll the old trees around is some new flock

Exhibit A: Old Tree based

Exhibit B: Spray Adhesive

Exhibit C: Pile of Flock

Newley flocked trees with more sand on the bases

Next up, the bases just need to be painted and flocked, and then everything needs to be sealed.