A Brief Interlude: Cannon smoke

Like most people, for years I have used puffs of cotton batting or stretched out cotton balls to represent ships firing their guns.  Not until I started taking pictures of my ships did I realize that this method has some side effects.  Said side effect is that quite a few of my ships have little tendrils of cotton or batting hung in the rigging.  For whatever reason, I had never noticed it before but it is VERY clear in photos.  So, I started looking around for something else to represent that ships were firing their guns.

Langton makes a set of "ship fired" markers, and they are very nice.  They come in a package with three "fall of shot" markers for about $3 US.  The fall of shot markers are also nice, but not really useful in any of my rules so I see no need to buy more of them.  The cheap side of me also has a problem paying about 1$ each for these:

Nice, but not that impressive by itself...

As I said though, they look very nice.  Maybe just not 1$ each nice.

I decided to see if I could make something that would look similar, and prevent the problem of stray hairs getting stuck to my ships.  I took a small piece of basing material, trimmed one of those chenille craft sticks (I still call them "pipe cleaners"), and glued it to the base.  I then took some little cotton tufts torn from a cotton ball, rolled each of them into a smaller ball and glued them to the base.  The result is below:

Trust me, it looks better in person.

Does it look as good as the metal one?  Oh goodness no.  However, when you put it up against a ship:

Not so bad now, huh?

Of course, that's just the unpainted prototype.  I lightly hit it with some gray spray paint, painted part of the pipe cleaner yellow and red to simulate gun flashes, and got this:

A little darker than what I wanted, but it's a prototype.

When placed alongside a painted ship, you get this:

I think that will work for me.

As a bonus, there's a sneak peek at the next ship up on the blog.

Does it look OK?  I think so.  Is it cheap? Definitely.  Is it a solution looking for a problem? Maybe.  The nice thing is, I can make a double height one for three-deckers that should really give a feel for how much throw weight they can put out.  Just add another row of cotton on top.

This doesn't mean the cotton batting is going completely away.  It will still be used for drifting gunsmoke.  This is just a way of trying something new, and a quickie project when you just don't feel like doing anything else, for whatever reason.  Cutting the base was probably the most time-consuming part of the project. 

Accessories: Dice Towers

For me, having a dice tower during a naval game actually serves a very practical purpose.  With a bunch of my ships on the table, the last thing I want are players tossing dice all around them.  I'm not saying that anyone would intentionally try to break them; in fact, I'm pretty sure a player like that wouldn't be allowed in our groups.  When the simulated shooting starts though, the die rolls get a little more rambunctious.  We all do it, and I include myself in that indictment.

Why a dice tower though?  Why not just a box, or tray?  Well, according to Wikipedia dice towers have been in use since the 4th Century CE, so it is certainly a period correct piece of equipment.  A tower also helps guarantee that the dice get some randomization to them when rolled.  The most important reason for me, anyway, is that dice towers are just cool.

My first tower was homemade, based on some plans that I found on the Internet.  It worked well, and still does, but is big and bulky.  That means that it's hard to carry with everything else.  It has given many years of faithful service, but I wanted something that is a bit easier to lug around.  The other problem is that I'm not what you'd call a 'woodworking guy,' and the tower shows that.  No one ever said anything about it, and if they had my prepared response was, "the inherent flaws of a handmade item are merely part of its charm."  I guess, if you pare it down to basics, I just wanted something a little better.  That's where Unique Dice Towers came in.

My homemade dice tower. Remember, "the inherent flaws
of a handmade item..." etc., etc.

I told you it was big.

Unique Dice Towers (their website is in the link list)  makes laser cut dice towers out of various woods, and with various decorative designs.  They also sell kits that you can build yourself, and even offer you the ability to customize a tower with your own graphics.  As I'm sometimes cheap, I went with the standard kit made out of 3mm birch plywood.  It has a separate tower and tray, so that it can be folded down for storage.  You could even store your dice in it if you wanted to.  The tower is about 5" tall, 2.6" wide and 1.6" thick, with the tray being 1.8" tall, 2.9" wide and 5.3" deep.  As built, it has no finish, but I may stain it later.

Yes, there is a Plexiglas window in the front.

The open end goes toward the back when closed, so you can
store dice inside, if so inclined.

 
 As the pictures below will show you, compared to my homemade one it is downright minuscule

.

Overall, it's a good product and I could see myself picking up another one sometime in the future.  Check them out!