Hello,

Just sharing to you a technique making perfect sandbags....without using epoxy putty.

1) Buy a pack of Chicklets. Those white chicklets in a yellow box. Those are exactly 1/35th scale.

2) Put the Chicklets in bowl of water. Leave it for an hour or two. The water will dissolve the hard candy covering.

3) Wash the remaining squares. Let dry for a few minutes.

4) Round off the bags by lightly pressing the corners. Then, dab the sided with the pointed end of a hobby knife to simulate stitches.

5) Press a rough cloth or fine screen on the surface to provide texture.

6) Place on surface and bend according to shape. Let dry.

7) Paint and weather.

If you want to make a hole, just stick the point of your hobby knife in the sandbag and chuck out a rough hole.

Don't worry about ants. The gum base of chicklets is not edible. It's only the hard candy coating which attracts unwanted insects. The gum base also dries rock hard as one can attest to dried gum under the school table.

Here are some pics of the sandbags:







What a waste of chicklets.

It's fun! Hope this helps....

Angela

Nice on Angela. It really is easier to use...

Cheers

Wow! Gives "thinking out of the box" a whole new meaning. :-)

What is this called..... Scratchchewing !?

What a great idea , how much did you tried to come to this result :-) ?

Cheers

That's a great idea!...

The only problem is that the country bans gum...

It took me awhile to figure out what chicklets you were referring to and it suddenly dawned to me that its what i used to look for when going to the local convenient store. (++)

I dont seem to recall seeing them in NZ however although i never actively looked for it. The only problem with this technique is that the sandbags can only be of a certain width. If you like your sandbags fat like i do, we would have to revert back to using milliput.

Thanks for sharing this though. Its good tasty stuff!!

Thanks for sharing this technique whit us

hey Angela,
thats one cool idea!

only problem is I probably would chew half the package while working on this stuff...

Hi Angela,
Thats a great method for Sandbags. Could you please provide us with a photo of the chicklets so we know what we are looking for?
Thank you

This is the box.



The squares look like these:



Angela

Thanks Angela, They look very similar to juicy fruits I may have to buy some and experiment

:-) now that's some unusual use of chewing gum !!

I don't think such a product is available here in the UK is it ?

i'm not sure but the Juicy Fruit that is present in the Philippines are shaped like thin sticks. They don't have a hard covering.

Chicklets, I think, are widely available. Check out the movie "Face Off." A box of Chicklets is visible when Castor Troy opened his box with the golden guns.

That's the chicklets I use.

Angela

Nice tip Angela,
but I've been using them for 30 years for sandbags.
If you get the really tiny Chicklets, I forget what try are called, they scale out to just about 1/72 scale.

You know its only a matter of time before someone use chocolate powder for simulating mud and more edible stuff gets on our dio base.

Actually, Henk used coffee for one of his dios.

Angela

Wow Angela, great tip, definately will have to try that now!

a little, but on can also use tile grout as a weathering pigment..I have a box of "Earth" and "Dark Sand", this stuff is like Mig, MMP, etc, pretty concentrated, and does a great job! Will be using on my halftrack dio I'm working on....

Yes i heard about that! Being a coffee addict myself....that sounds more like a yummier option! I might seriously give that a go.

For the groundwork of my "Marsch Zur Front - Belgien 1944" dio, I used certain cut-up herbs. It's called McCormick Pizza Seasoning.

Getting yummier....

Angela

For the groundwork of my "Marsch Zur Front - Belgien 1944" dio, I used certain cut-up herbs. It's called McCormick Pizza Seasoning.

Getting yummier....

Angela

Now that is a sweet idea. Going to give it whirl this evening.

Thanks for sharing.

Hmmm...Thinking about my wartime (hurricane) stockpilesof MRE's. Nine cases times twelve meals, each of which has only two out of date Chicklets...
Got any ideas on how to use vegetable crackers as well?

I experimented with cocoa powder with white glue and water and it portrays dried mud nicely and smells good too.

I use lots of tea and spices for my groundwork.

.... i got confused by the word chicklets... what is it? small chickens? LOL :-) oh, you mean chiclets!

... but seriously, that was a very useful tip angela! i'll try it one day... thanks!