I needed a sub for a objective in a pulp game.
After seeing some cool pictures on this forum I thought I would try my hand at building my own.
The basic shape was cut from 50 mm pink foam. Then cut and sanded to shape.
For the detail I wanted on the side of the sub I decided to clad it in plastic card. One problem I found with this was which glue to use. First I tried super glue but it just melted the foam. Plastic glue would not stick to the foam. The best stuff I had available was PVA. Not great but it is ok over large areas and it needs to be held in place with masking tape or rubber band while the glue sets.
I am not sure what other people use but any help would be welcome as I sent a lot of extra time mucking about with the PVA glue.
For the drain hole, detail on the plastic card I drilled two small holes in line with each other and then cutting out the material in between with a craft knife to create the slot then used a small round file to tidy them up.
For the rivets I drew lines on the back faces of the bits of plastic card where I wanted the rivets. Marked the line every 5 mm. Then I placed the plastic card face down on a bit of flat leather, a bit softer then a cutting mat. At each of the points marked off on the line I used the sharp end of a small round file to push into the card. You don’t push hard enough to got through the plastic card and you don’t use something very sharp like a pin as this will go right through the card. The soft surface underneath helps in embossing the rivets. Doing it this way is really easy. It takes longer to mark it all out than it does to emboss the rivets. I used this method for all the rivets on the sub.
For the conning tower I used a round cardboard tube, cut to length. I squashed the tube into an oblong shape I required. I then used this shape as a template on a piece of thick card. Drew around the oblong, then cut this shape out slightly smaller than the tube. I then glued this inside the tube to create a ridged shape. It was also the base for the floor in the conning tower.
I then got a very thin piece of plastic card, used the same methods as above to detail it, then folded it into place around the cardboard tube, gluing it in place with super glue. I used some cloths pegs to hold it in place while the glue set.
The rest of the detail was just made out of various bits of plastic, card, rod and GW shields. I used some copper wire to build the railing around the conning tower gun position. But this is very fragile. I am still thinking of a better way to strengthen it. It started off really neat but after breaking it a couple of times during painting it now need’s some more work to straighten it again.
For the deck I had some plastic “check plate” that I cut to suit and glued in place. I used PVA over the large areas but to help strengthen it I used supper glue along the edges where it met other plastic card.
To create the water I used a watery solution of polyfiller spread around the base. The base was just thick card cut to shape. I also used polyfiller to fill some of the gaps in the body of the sub.
The sub was painted using black GW undercoat and then B&Q testers.
In all it took we just over a week of a couple of hours per night.
If I can do it so can anybody.
Crew
November 10, 2014, 06:30:53 PM