Okay, here's the basic construction details of what's in the pic. I've added more details since, but I'll wait until I get a pic before talking those up. First though, let me give the Major Generals wargaming page props for the construction idea, they inspired me. I'll post the link to it later when I can find it.
It's actually 3 two-liter bottles. I sawed the necks/most of the very bottoms off, making sure that when cutting off the bottoms I left at least a little curve so that they would fit together (after screwing up the first time). Make sure you have 3 compatible bottles also, there isnt exactly any uniformity to these things.
I then glued them together, and filled with expandable spray foam. Whole bunch of things can (and did) go wrong here, but it finally worked out. They are light, but solid as a ROCK when done.
The ribbing is 1/16" balsa strips that were almost exactly the right length. In hindsight, I would have used something different, like styrene plastic hand-round strips or something. See, the wood flexes well enough to fit over the rounded ends nicely, but no glue I could find would hold them on the ends before the flex of the wood made them pop up. So with a bunch of fiddling, rubber-banding, and re-gluing I got them to stay down but made an ugly mess of it. Oh well, it's a wargaming piece, not a museum piece, right? (Plus, as you can probably tell from how crooked and nasty the undercarriage is cut, I did some of this work after having been out for a few drinks, so it aint exactly, um, professional
). Anyway, it's a starter piece that I experimented with; I have a few more that I'm going to slap together in the near future.
Built the undercarriage out of foamcore and scrap basswoord/balsa, completely scratch-built the engines out of wooden junk I found at Hobby Lobby (since I couldnt EVER find any toys or otherwise that would work). Used thin coathanger wires to drill into the wooden engines and the foam-filled balloon and then glued into place. Used a bit thicker coathanger wire to make the unattractive but necessary loops on top, and to secure the undercarriage. The foam inside make mounting the wire inside easy and strong with a little decent glue while allowing it to maintain lightness and a non-deformable shape.
The fins are made of plasticard and glued into grooves I cut into the dirigible with my trusty hot-knife (it's like a soldering iron, but with all kinds of different tips that screw in for doing all kinds of projects... the thing is beautiful, it cuts through plastic and foamcore like butter without dulling and without using any pressure at all and comes with soldering, xacto knife, iron on transfer, leather tooling, wood burning, and plastic cutting tips).
What I am adding is a few portholes to the side of the dirigible, clear plastic bubble on the front for the pilot to see through, and a small crows nest/turrent on top for a mini (or maybe two if their base is small enough) to be on lookout for those pesky air pirates to come screaming out of the sky hoping to board topside. Also, near the rear of the top I am adding some smoke-stacks made of brass rod and then some removable "smoke" like the fire/smoke terrain posted in above pics, because this bad boy is
steam powered.
Eventually it will be used with some massive steamjacks made out of 12" toys, smaller steamtanks, and tons of steampunk/VSF/Victorian minis that we have (IK Warmachine, Foundry Victorians, etc). Boilers and swords and cannons and mages, oh my.
The fun thing is that it doesnt mount on a table stand like every other one I've seen does... we replaced ceiling tiles at Fludogg's house with pegboard, so we can hang them at varying heights from the ceiling (we're still working that out, but the initial crude coathanger version works just fine for now).
The next zeppelin in this line? Armor plated with cannon ports on the sides, all patches and rivets and nasty-dark piratey coolness.
Oh, almost forgot... those two goofy hooks at the back of the undercarriage that hang there for no apparent reason? Yeah, those are tail hooks small attack/scout biplanes for long range reconaissance and transportation of adventurers into unknown lands. Also can be used to tow another ship, carry extra cargo, etc.