Have you ever noticed that wargamers keep the oddest things lying around their workbench? Sometimes the stuff sits there for years waiting for inspiration to strike. That’s the way it was with a burlap bag I kept from the bottom of a fruit tree I purchased. I knew I would need it some day and fortunately I managed to keep it out of sight as for some reason my wife never sees the potential in such things as a dirty burlap bag. From it I managed to make some decent looking gabions. To make the gabions you need several wooden dowels about a 1/2inch thick. Some sections of burlap bag; Cat litter ( preferably unused); and White glue. Measure off the wooden dowels into 1 inch sections and carefully cut them with a circular or band saw. Watch out for your fingers (I’m a safety freak so please bare with me)! With scissors cut the burlap into strips. These strips should be an 1/8 of an inch taller than the dowel sections. Measure the strips of burlap by wraping them around the dowel and marking the point where it will fit flush when you cut it. Be careful with this measurement that you do not stretch the burlap. It should not be cut too short or overlap. Smear white glue evenly around the dowel sides. Wrap the cut burlap section around the dowel. Make sure that one end of the dowel flush to the burlap and that the other end is slightly recessed below the burlap. Hold it until it begins to stick then set aside to dry. When the burlap is dried enough , make a puddle of the white glue in the recessed end of the dowel. Into this puddle sprinkle the cat litter so that it fills the recess. Make sure you use enough glue so that all the cat litter sticks. Set everything aside to dry. I like to go over them with a black wash to highlight the wicker like depressions in the burlap but it is not necessary. The dimensions given are for 25-mm figures. For a different scale figure just change the width of the dowel and the height until you find something that looks just right. Generally the figure should “see” over the top so you might make your initial measurement of the dowel next to the figures you intend them for. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #80 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com