For King & Parliament - Infrastructure Prototyping

I have made lamentably slow progress with my solo practice sessions for FK&P - one thing that has been holding me back [dodgy alibi] is the need for a practicable way to keep track of unit information in a simple but effective way, in keeping with my minimalist toy soldier style presentation, without burying the troops in counters.

This morning I have produced something which appears to fit the bill. My sincere thanks to Simon Miller and Gonsalvo for useful suggestions, and especially to Andrew Brentnall and The Jolly Broom Man for actual examples, which I have adapted (not to say stolen) to fit my basing systems.

I had a happy couple of hours fiddling around with MS Publisher, and I've set up a decent infantry template, which I can reproduce and amend quickly and easily. I ran off some trial sheets of info labels, laminated them and cut them to size. Here are the results to date.

Never happier than when fiddling about

Here are the first trial batch - these for some of my Parliamentarian foote. I'd have preferred to use matt plastic laminating pouches, but the glossy ones are better for allowing successful removal of white-board pen annotations. Note the little strip of white steel paper at the top of each label - these strips may need to be larger

Exciting picture of a flying base, showing how the little label attaches. My bases are all underlaid with magnetic sheet anyway, to allow them to live safely in their box files. The sliver of steel paper on the label allows it to attach underneath the base, without glue or anything messy

Here you go - volunteer demonstration by Richard Shuttleworth's RoF (of Blackburn Hundred) - these chaps were originally the Blackburn town Trained Band, and the yellow square on the right indicates that they are classed as "raw". Old Richard in his best crimson coat is proud of them anyway. The 17th Century font is a bit of an extravagance, since I will have to draw it to people's attention, but it is not inappropriate, since my laminating machine must date from approximately the same period

From the front, the new label is quite discreet

Thus far, this looks promising. If it works (or can be made to work) then I should be able to manage without any major investment in sabots, and the labels are cheap, easy to make and easily edited if I successfully keep the template samples handy. In today's trial, movement on the cork sheet (which might be grippier than the painted battle boards) suggests that the label tends to shift a bit in action. It won't come adrift, but it can get a bit - you know how it is - not quite straight [OCD alert]. I was hoping to be able to use the same size labels for the foote, the horse and the dismounted dragoon bases (which last are only half the depth), but I may have to change to bigger labels with bigger patches of steel paper.

I might buy some better quality laminating pouches - I'm down to a pack of Woolworth's own brand, which illustrates the house focus on economy and making things last. Better pouches will stick on the paper more firmly.

Work continues. There should be some pictures of actual test games once the record-keeping labels are working nicely.

Lead Rot - a Seasonal Revisit

Corroded solder tip, before cleaning up

Yesterday, the gales having calmed down a bit, my son and I got to work to put up the lights on our outside Christmas tree. We have a set procedure for getting this done - it's a fiddly job which involves falling off ladders and other festive traditions.

This year, we got off to a bad start. One of the two strings of lights wasn't working. Now I realise that this is also part of the true Christmas tradition, but we have had no problems of this sort for many years, so our procedure doesn't cover this too well. After messing around swapping individual bulbs - with no benefit - we eventually decided to make a proper job of it, removed all the bulbs and took them indoors, checking each one with a test meter. In fact they were all working, but the solder around the tips of some was showing some deterioration - a pale grey, crystalline deposit which made it tricky to make a decent contact with the test meter.

So I gave them a quick going over with a file - it took less than 15 minutes to clean up 40 bulbs - we screwed them firmly back into their sockets, checked the fuse and the complete circuit with the meter, connected them up, and voila! - Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.

Nick was impressed that our botched repair had worked - though probably less surprised than I was. We got on with the job we had set out to do, and got everything up and working.

So - what is this stuff? The Christmas lights spend Christmas hanging on a tree, obviously, in all sorts of weather conditions, none of which are oppressively warm. The rest of the year they live in a plastic tub in the garage, which can get very cold, though it is protected from direct frost and snow. The crystalline salt, whatever it is, will rub off, but it doesn't conduct very well, and - the main point here - I would not like my toy soldiers to turn into grey dust.

All right, you metallurgists and chemists - should we worry about this sort of thing, or will I be all right if I just don't hang my soldiers on trees or keep them in the garage?