From the Knife's Edge: Vimy Ridge Model Part1

One of my favourite hobbies has always been terrain building. I think it reminds me of when I was a boy and my dad would take me to one of his friends house whose elderly parents lived in the upper story. His father was an avid model railroad enthusiast and his entire attic was converted into a giant model train display; complete with towns, mountains, and real working lights. I used to spend hours there playing with those trains and I guess that's why I like building terrain so much.

One of my favourite boards that I built was a section of Omaha Beach from D-Day for a huge game a friend and I ran over the convention season a few years ago.

When my 6 year old son's school sent home a notice about a model contest at the local museum I jumped at the chance to help him build a model. The criteria was that it had to be a significant person , place, or event from Canadian history. We gave him several examples and options to choose from like D-Day (one I personally was rooting for), the war of 1812, the Canada Arm, The Trans-Canada railroad, Terry Fox and Vimy to name a few. He chose Vimy because he liked the fact that it was the birthplace of Canadian National Identity and Pride.

I wanted to make sure he did the model himself so the only role I played in the making of this was using the sharp tools and showing him how to do each step, he did all the work himself.

Here is a scan of his blueprint. He wanted more machine guns and "Lasers" but I tried to keep it realistic!

Here is the first step after cutting and gluing the base foam shapes. The material we used was pink Styrofoam insulation. Once the layers were glued down he coated it with plaster of Paris to fill in the seam lines and create a rough "mud" texture. Once he layed the "PoP" down he just took some rough grit sandpaper and dabbed the surface to give it the rough look.