Cotton Swabs and Staples: Cheap Flight Stands Redux

Chris from over at the Just Another Wargames Blog commented on my latest scratchbuild spaceship and asked me to expand on how I use cotton swab stems as flight rods and staples as the ship-to-flight rod interface.

I posted back in 2014 how I use Equate brand cotton swabs as flight stands for little 1/600 jets, after discovering that the stems of these swabs are thin hollow plastic tubes (and not paper).  That post also highlights my favorite part about the method: a piece of thick spaghetti inside the hollow stem not only strengthens the flight rod but allows one to make modular pieces for variable height flight stands.  Check it out!

As for the staples, they've been a, um, staple of my scratch building for years.  Staples are great because they're cheap, they're sturdy, they're steel (and hence magnetic), and they come in all sorts of sizes.  Best of all, staples come in long rows, with individual staples held together by an adhesive that keeps them together but is easy to break.

I've found that three "normal" office staples together are just a little wider than the inner diameter of the hollow cotton swab stem.  Since the tube is made of soft plastic, it deforms pretty easily, allowing the staples to fit snugly in the end of the tube.

I start off by using an old used hobby knife that's still relatively sharp but not fresh out of the box to separate the three staples from the rest of the row.  

Next I bend one end of the staple interface down to create the tab that goes into the cotton swab stem.  The other side of the staple-group stays straight to create a little shelf to glue the ship/airplane onto.  The picture to the right shows three staple interfaces I recently made for a group of spaceships on my workbench (ignore the pasta).  This shot shows my new technique, which is to not bend the staples all the way back; this gives a snugger fit when inserted in the flight rod.

The next picture shows a TU-22 Blinder with the staple flight rod interface attached.

The staple interface can be used for the base as well, as shown on this older spaceship base.  Here I simply cut a slit in a plastic bit (from food packaging) and glued the flat part of the staple interface to the inside.

 Recently I've started using these hemispheres for a cleaner look.  I'm constantly casting things with dental plaster and always have extra plaster left over.  Instead of wasting the plaster, I'll take a large ball burnisher and push several hemispherical divots into a piece of clean, smoothed polymer clay and make a handful of these little domes with the excess.  Next, a cavity gets drilled in the center and a piece of thick spaghetti is glued in for the flight rod to slide onto.

 And that's it: pretty simple.  The shot to the right shows everything sliding together.  Go make some miniatures!

1/600 Jet Games: Wings at War Recommendation Request

This post is a request for information to any reader out there with experience with the Wings at War rulesets.  I tried writing the Wings at War folks directly but their email server bounced my message back as undeliverable...

Now, I'm still working on the rewrite of my own jet game, Our Space Age Air Force, and hope to have it done and posted here before November. I designed my game specifically for solo play and I'll allow myself a little immodesty and say it's one of the only rulesets I've created that actually work.

All that being said, I'm a big fan and proud owner of many Tumbling Dice jets and I've recently discovered the Wings at War website. I'm intrigued by the various Wings at War rulesets, mainly because of slightly discounted starter set of minis that come with them but also because they look like solid rules. I downloaded the free Desert Spitfires game from the WaW website and really like what I see, at least for a multi-player game. The designer obviously has some knowledge of air-to-air combat theory, especially with regards to energy management.

So, anyone out there have any experience with WaW games, especially solo-play experience? If so, how exactly did you modify it for solo-play? The rulesets look like they would play well solo with simply a random movement order.

My other question is: which ruleset should I get?

I'd like to play out some "what if" scenarios based on a Cold War-gone-Hot premise, set around 1960. Basically I really want to use all those Cold War interceptors and early missiles.

I like the aircraft complement included with the Wings Over Suez game better than those provided with the Thud Ridge game but I'm concerned the missile rules in Suez may not be as detailed as Thud, or even non-existent. Flames Above the Falklands would probably have the most options that I could "dumb-down" for earlier decades but I'm not enthused about the aircraft included the Starter Set.

Based on my objective above (1960 WWIII, NATO vs. Warsaw Pact) which ruleset do you recommend?