Minimum depth of "water".

[tetters]

Hi folks,

I drew up a sketch last night to illustrate for my own sake an elevation profile or cross section my harbor. What I was trying to illustrate was the difference in height between the roadbed and the floor of the harbor ""lake bed". Initially I was just going to plunk the 3/4 ply onto the framing for the shelving I built underneath my layout however that would make the harbor impossibly deep and I would spend a fortune on fake water just trying to fill it. I tried drawing it up in CAD to share but I'm a little distracted today so anyways.

My question after all my figuring is I have a depth of 1/2 of an inch to fill in an volume area that measures 12" x "96" x 1/2". If I remember my math correctly that works out to 576 cubic inches which converted into ounces makes it a whooping 319 ounces! hock:

I am now considering ways to reduce this number however hopefully still maintain a realistic deep lake bed harbor setting. I had already planned on painting the bottom a dark blue fading into a dark green/blue at the perimeter. I'm also thinking of ways to build the dock but create the illusion that it is almost entirely sitting over top of the water, like only put in a couple rows of pilings and then a solid wall of pilings a couple inches inward. If push comes to shove, I may just create a "concrete" dock, however that is not what I want. Call me crazy, but I want a great big honking wood dock. I've also considered that the car float, float apron, assorted pilings and other items like rocks along the perimeter to complete the scene will reduce the over all volume, however I cannot see how it will greatly impact the capacity of the area in question.

If I reduce the depth to 1/4 of an inch at 288 cubic inches that comes out to 159 ounces. Still kinda high and I think I'll go broke trying to model this scene using conventional products. I just remember reading somewhere too where another modeler used a product at a hardware store which was essentially the same product, but almost 10x cheaper. Should have book marked it.

[MasonJar]

Two thoughts occur...

1) Have you seen doctorwayne's method using plaster, dark paint, and gloss medium (or some "shiny" substance... can't recall exactly). It's available at the "old site".

2) If you want to go for the deep harbour, where details are visible down through the water, how about a sheet of plexiglass?

One other possibility is to reduce the width of your harbour - you state it is 12x96... why so wide?

Andrew

[tetters]

Two thoughts occur...

1) Have you seen doctorwayne's method using plaster, dark paint, and gloss medium (or some "shiny" substance... can't recall exactly). It's available at the "old site".

2) If you want to go for the deep harbour, where details are visible down through the water, how about a sheet of plexiglass?

One other possibility is to reduce the width of your harbour - you state it is 12x96... why so wide?

Andrew

1) I'll have to go back and take a look for that particular thread.

2) I hadn't considered that idea. I dunno if I'll be happy with the result.

3) Because it is! Well, I want to be able to fit in a car float at 3' long 5 1/2" wide plus a have a tug lashed next to it at about 2" wide. In all honesty, this is the end result I would very much like to achieve. http://www.bronx-terminal.com/dock/

In fact I may just use this build method. Should cut down on the volume needed. http://www.port-kelsey.com/?p=95#more-95

Whether or not I'll be able to do it justice remains to be seen.

[MasonJar]

Cool...!

That bronx-terminal website has some awesome pictures.

I think the best thing would be to find doc's how to on the Lake Erie inlet. Cheapest (sorry - inexpensive) materials used. Result - fantastic!

Andrew

[Trucklover]

Tetters, i dont know if you read Miles post or not, but he just recently posted a 4 part article on his web site on the correct way to model water

<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=698&p=9405">viewtopic.php?f=44&t=698&p=9405</a><!-- l -->

read it, i think you will like what he says, and plus, he tells you the secret and how to AVOID the extremely HIGH price of the 16 ounce WS Realistic Water

[steinjr]

Two thoughts occur...

1) Have you seen doctorwayne's method using plaster, dark paint, and gloss medium (or some "shiny" substance... can't recall exactly). It's available at the "old site".

I think I found the link you probably are thinking about : http://www.zealot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109268

Smile,
Stein

[MasonJar]

That might be it, but all the pictures seem to be missing...

Andrew

[tetters]

Tetters, i dont know if you read Miles post or not, but he just recently posted a 4 part article on his web site on the correct way to model water

<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=698&p=9405">viewtopic.php?f=44&t=698&p=9405</a><!-- l -->

read it, i think you will like what he says, and plus, he tells you the secret and how to AVOID the extremely HIGH price of the 16 ounce WS Realistic Water

That's who it was... cripes.

Thanks Josh!

[Trucklover]

That's who it was... cripes.

Thanks Josh!

hehe no problem Tetters

[tetters]

That might be it, but all the pictures seem to be missing...

Andrew

That's it. Jump ahead to page three and the good doctor gives a decent explanation of his technique plus there are a couple of good pictures as well.

I must say I really like Miles' technique. That may be the way to go, when I'm ready.

[Trucklover]

I must say I really like Miles' technique. That may be the way to go, when I'm ready.

Plus using what he said about the WS RW and the stuff you can buy by the gallon, man that will save hundreds LOL

[scubadude]

I have never tried it, but I recall someone using the clear floor wax for model water. Maybe Minwax or something like that......

[Dan85]

As mentioned above, I was going to say use clear acrylic sheets to model the bulk of the water - seems like you could reduce the amount of "actual water" to 1/8" just enough to create waves. Clear Acrylic sheets are sold at Home Depot and I think the stuff I picked up had 1/8 thickness.

- Dan

[cnw1961]

Tetters, having a wood dock the size you are planning means that half of your yard would be on this wood dock. Somehow I doubt that this arrangement is prototypical (but I may be wrong). If I was to build this dock, I would build a concrete dock and only have a wood float bridge leading to the car float (as you can see in these pics of the New York Cross Harbor Railroad <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/crossharbor_yard/Dscn0026.jpg">http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/cr ... cn0026.jpg</a><!-- m -->, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/crossharbor_yard/Dscn0027.jpg">http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/cr ... cn0027.jpg</a><!-- m -->, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/crossharbor_yard/Dscn0028.jpg">http://www.oldnyc.com/crossharbor_rr/cr ... cn0028.jpg</a><!-- m -->) – seems to be more prototypical to me, but as I said before, I may be totally wrong.

This bird’s eye view shows the scene from the three pics of the New York Cross Harbor Railroad from above. You can even see the car float! <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=qs7q438tyd1n&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=18443587&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1">http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&F ... &encType=1</a><!-- m -->

[tetters]

Tetters, having a wood dock the size you are planning means that half of your yard would be on this wood dock. Somehow I doubt that this arrangement is prototypical (but I may be wrong).

It's my railroad and I want the yard on the dock.

I doubt is prototypical too. I taking my modelers license and running with it on this one. The prototype police won't be catching me on this one and if they do, they'll have to shoot to kill!

Then again. I may go that route. I really the like the look of the wood dock though. I'm still weeks, if not months away from any actual construction. We shall see.