28mm Transport Barges for the River Oudear ...

After finishing work on the rowing boats, before getting on with the painting I decided to build some transport barges....

I started off by making up an outline on a piece of card and arranging the figures on it. I decided to have 6 rowers and be able to hold 12+ figures.

The construction method would use the same scheme as for the small boats I made for use on my 17C bridge of Boats. 

I made the base out of thicker cardboard, with a spacer from foamboard and a deck from cardboard.

 seats added (foamboard strips with thin card on top), with converted rowers from Britannia miniatures naval landing boat

 sides added using Daler mounting board, and a test with a typical load of 12 figures ...

also I wanted to allow for an optional removable centre mast. A suitable hole was made in the right position in the boat. The mast is made from an old paintbrush handle and a spar from a wooden hibachi skewer. The spar attachment is done using a piece of wire, which allows swap of furled and open sail configurations

I made three barges, here they are painted with masts in position - two with sail furled and one with the sail unfurled...