Ahoy Shipmates!
MSW crew-mate Dade Bell (Karybdis) shares with us his method of making water with aluminum foil.


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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Nice feature. I like how the water looks. Might have to try it one of these days.

Jim

Very nice sbs Dade. The painting of the water is particularly helpful for me.

Kenny

Very nice sbs - would you say theres a upper scale limit to whats realistic ? 1:350 ?

Thanks and cheers/Jan

A well-thought out and beautifully laid out presentation. The employment of offset colors is the key in making the water look realistic.

Thanks!

--Karl

Hi guys, thanks for the kind words and I'm happy to give you some ideas with this tutorial. Jan, Guido has done a foil variation for a 1/350 build he was doing and it looked really nice, so I'd say it should at least go up to 1/350.

Great feature/tutorial.. will give it a try in the Divine Waterline GB
thanks!

Saw this just in time, in the next few days I would have buttoned up my carrier and put it on it's stand and now i can put it in water

Dade,
This foil water effect that you describe brings to mind something that I have always wanted to tackle, but have had no idea of how it could be accomplished economically.
It occurs to me that by utilizing this technique, one could produce a large scale diorama without breaking the bank, due to the relative low cost of the materials involved. When I say large scale, I dont mean the scale of the model, but the actual area of ocean depicted. I have always felt limited with the relative small size of my 1/700 waterline desktop size dioramas, because they dont really capture the vastness of an ocean setting. This seems to become even more evident when you attempt to portray an historical event, such as a ship to ship battle, a fleet manuever, amphibious landing, etc. It would seem to me that by enlarging the scene by feet, rather than inches, a whole new kind of impact could be achieved. This would kind of give you another payoff for risking insanity by working in such a small model scale in the first place !
But, before I head out to Costco, for that case or Reynolds wrap, I see a potential problem though. How could you conceal the "seams" that would be created by laying down multiple widths of the foil ? It seems like covering them with something like putty would just serve to make the seam more obvious, leaving you with a series of square patches in the ocean effect. Any ideas ?....Patrick

I don´t know if its some thing used in the states, but here in denmark you can get a product called Alucraft which is paper coated with alufoil. Its used in construction as a combination of steam/moisture barrier and heat reflector.

Its about 1 meter wide. A roll is propably overkille (25 meter or so) but if you know anybody in construction or someone getting there house redone, you might get a sample talking with the workers ?

Otherwise with a bit of care, white glue and some fine filler i think it will be possible to join the sheets.

Cheers/Jan

[quote]I don´t know if its some thing used in the states, but here in denmark you can get a product called Alucraft which is paper coated with alufoil. Its used in construction as a combination of steam/moisture barrier and heat reflector.

Its about 1 meter wide. A roll is propably overkille (25 meter or so) but if you know anybody in construction or someone getting there house redone, you might get a sample talking with the workers ?

Otherwise with a bit of care, white glue and some fine filler i think it will be possible to join the sheets.
........Thanks Jan for the idea. a meter would certainly serve to reduce the amount of seams. With the paper backing, this stuff might even bond to a base better than foil alone. I'll check it out..........Patrick

Thanks Dade,

I'm going to use this technique when I do the PT boat.

That was a really well laidout sequence and very valuable information.

Cheers
Michael

Well done Dade, insightful and detailed feature. Will have to give it a go soon.

Frank

Hi guys, thanks so much for all of the kind words and I'm looking forward to seeing what you all do with the process.

I'm sorry I've been so quiet the past week-- been out of town and finishing the Kongo (just a couple more rust streaks). I picked up her case Tuesday and its gorgeous.

Jan, thanks for tackling Patrick's question as I honestly have no idea how I'd handle the seams issue. I don't have any room in my place to support a large diorama, so I never gave it much thought.

Dade you are wellcome, just hope you can get the stuff in the States

I tried "your" technique with a 1:700 sub from hobby boss, and this is the result - still room for improvement, but this is a test for a future project, so thats acceptable.



Cheers/Jan

Looking good, Jan. I'm looking forward to what you do with future projects.

Another way to deal with foil seams would be to take advantage of "seams" in real water, ie: wakes and wave lines. By thoroughly laying out the scene beforehand, you can determine where your model's wake and other naturally-occurring waves would appear and cut your foil to shapes to conform. By joining the pieces along these seams, a large area can covered by several sheets of foil. Their joints would then be coated with artist's acrylic paint.

--Karl