by mike mccabe » Thu May 26, 2005 3:14 pm
Hi Mac
I have tried using acrylic gel over a plain wooden base and it is a quick way to waste a lot of gel. Try using foil, cut a piece roughly to the size you need and crunch it up along its length so you get a sort of wave effect, you can then use white glue to glue parts of matchsticks or anything else suitable to the wooden base and again use white glue to stick the foil down over it. Once dry trim it to size using a ruler and scalpel. This means you can model the wake without needing too much gel. I have used this method for ships moving and it works well, just make sure you look at photographs, especially those of the ship you are modelling, to see what pattern the wake forms.
For ships at anchor or slow speed try using artists watercolour paper, the rougher the texture the better. In this case you can probably just use the paper without needing any gel.
There are various ways of attachment but the most secure is to screw the ship onto the base having drilled holes throught the hull before you do anything. In the case of the watercolour paper, it is quite thick so it may be best to draw an outline around the hull, again before you do anything, and cut this out. Fill in any gaps with gel or white glue.
There is then the simple matter (!) of deciding what colour to paint the base, where your model is set will dictate this but I use a very dark blue grey mix mostly, remember to be sparing with any white highlights.
Hope this helps, pm me if I have missed anything.
Mike
Hi Mac
I have tried using acrylic gel over a plain wooden base and it is a quick way to waste a lot of gel. Try using foil, cut a piece roughly to the size you need and crunch it up along its length so you get a sort of wave effect, you can then use white glue to glue parts of matchsticks or anything else suitable to the wooden base and again use white glue to stick the foil down over it. Once dry trim it to size using a ruler and scalpel. This means you can model the wake without needing too much gel. I have used this method for ships moving and it works well, just make sure you look at photographs, especially those of the ship you are modelling, to see what pattern the wake forms.
For ships at anchor or slow speed try using artists watercolour paper, the rougher the texture the better. In this case you can probably just use the paper without needing any gel.
There are various ways of attachment but the most secure is to screw the ship onto the base having drilled holes throught the hull before you do anything. In the case of the watercolour paper, it is quite thick so it may be best to draw an outline around the hull, again before you do anything, and cut this out. Fill in any gaps with gel or white glue.
There is then the simple matter (!) of deciding what colour to paint the base, where your model is set will dictate this but I use a very dark blue grey mix mostly, remember to be sparing with any white highlights.
Hope this helps, pm me if I have missed anything.
Mike