Back to the West: more Wild West terrain

Yonks ago I left a water tower unfinished as I lacked PVA glue, and I left a bridge unfinished because I needed a base for it. Well, one of those situations has been rectified. I thought I had a base for the bridge, but it turns out I have made it such a towering thing that I need to get it its own 2' by 4' board. That's the only way to resolve the way it towers over the scenery, as the pictures below show. The water tower is nicely done now. The circular core is a piece of plastic drainpipe, which has been wrapped round with balsa planks. The metal bands are plasticard studded with plasticard rivets.

The black (-ish) tarpaulin over the lot is why I needed the PVA. It's made from tissue paper imperganted with diluted PVA. After everything was dry, I undercoated the whole piece in yellow, then set about staining the different planks and faux-planks in an assortment of colours. I painted the tarpaulin black, then drybrushed a cream housepaint over it all. I then applied a coat of black, then of GW Boltgun metal to the plasticard bands, and dotted the rivets - and applied scratches - with Mithril Silver. I hope to get the bridge done inside of a month. Really, I need to get some more polystyrene, too. We'll see.

Planets and towering silos

As I believe I said yesterday, I finished off the last of my Greenstuff, which mainly served to provide some small continents for my medium-sized planet for Star Fleet: ACTA. It's undercoated, and I shall probably paint it (or at least begin to) a bit later. I also found some more snooker balls, and realised that I ought to set them in a holder when drilling to ease the difficulty of getting a good straight line. While I was doing that I suddenly had a flash of inspiration - or of the blindingly obvious. Christmas baubles are all around, and are pretty much round, and I want round things for planetoids and so forth. Yes, it was a flash of the blindingly obvious, wasn't it?

I was checking out Frontline Gamer's site the other day, and very taken with the reviews he's been posting lately of the new Sarissa products. If I had a spot more money, I would definitely be buying a few of those pretty new things! One of the products he reviewed was a silo. As I say, I'm trying to avoid spending money on fripperies right now, but I do have things lying around all over the place. So I gathered an old container for a bottle of Scotch and decided to put it to good use. I added strips of cereal box cardboard up the side. I will rivet those later. Then I added a pair of rickety-looking walkways, halfway up and at the top of the edifice. So far I have also added a cover for the top and some supports for the walkways.

As a closing note, I said I would report on the success or otherwise of those foam asteroids, and I do so now. It's "otherwise" that I have to report. They lack the structural strength to bear all that sand well, so I have switched over to the polystyrene. I shall try to get some pics up next time. Right, be well, folks!

Water towers and a bridge

Want to know how to make a water-tower, kids? Well, gather round! First, grab yourself some large round thing. I've used a bit of plastic drainpipe. I cut two to a height of 3". Then you need something to coat it in. So I got a spot of balsa wood, and cut it into 3" long planks that are 10mm across. Talk about a confusion of measurements! Then I glued them carefully in place with liquid superglue. I seem to have got better result with this stuff than with gel superglue. There's probably an excellent reason. Anyway, see pictures 1 and 2 below for the aftermath.

One of these water-towers will sit on my hotel, and the other will be one for the town. I'm going to watch Tremors again soon, as there's a good looking water-tower in that film. I have a pretty fair notion of how I want this thing to go together, though, so I've done the basic work. Knowing me, I'll find out I need to tear a hole in it to fit in some essential part! :-D Anyway, I got a piece of balsa about 4" by 4", and scribed it on either side so it looked like it had 10mm wide planks. Then I measured 15mm in along each side and marked a point to put a pin through. I made a schoolboy error here. The thing to do with pins is to glue first, then put them in later. I did it the wrong way round, and paid the price in blood, as picture 3 shows! Also in that picture, you can see the kind of pins I used, a short poster pin. I removed the plastic ball by cutting a line with a knife, then gently rocking it back and forth with a pair of pliers. Don't be rough or you'll twist it.

But just the legs on their own are a bit rickety, so if you take a look at real water towers, you'll see the legs linked together for strength. So I set out to do this, first gluing lengths of balsa between the legs, then gently hammering in these pins. See pictures 4 and 5. There's no point having a water tower unless you can get up to the thing and snipe from it - or get shot off it. In the real world, there may even be folks who want to repair it or somesuch, but a vantage point is as good a reason for a ladder as any. So after securing the legs, with Z-frames on two sides, I added a ladder. See pictures 5, 6 and 7. There are a few more details to add to this beasty, but she's well on her way to completion.

As well as this, I started a bit of work on a bridge. I have the idea sketched out, and you can get an idea of her size from pictures 8 and 9. I went a bit overboard on this one, and hammered a pin through every fake plank at four different points. The end bits, which are now sticking out, will be cut back, and a ramp added at either end. She might sit on a specially made river base, and then again, she might stand apart. I haven't made any river terrain yet, but I've long intended to! This might be just the impetus I need. Until next time, dear reader!