In our last Ship Board: Part 1 article we left off having made significant progress in building two scale ships for our “Ship Board”. This article will start off where the last one left off and it will take you another large portion of the way through this process. It has honestly turned out to be a huge undertaking and I don’t think we knew what we were in for.
Large Steps where added to get up to the top of the captains quarters
We opted for large block steps that are functional in terms of miniatures rather than make actual steps that match the scale of the ships. This is something we strive to do with all of our terrain, make it usable.
Foam Core used to help build a sturdy hull on the ships
In this case we used foam core and slit the inside to give it the right amount of bend so that we could fit it to the front of the ship. We used two of these pieces to create a proper front end to the ship. This was an easy way to cover up the somewhat uneven foam surface that we cut. Plus this will go a long ways towards our final product having a somewhat armored hull.
Applying liquid nails to hold the foam core hull to the ship
Smoothing out the liquid nails to an even coat
Using the slit foam core to help bend to fit the front curve of the ship
Tape to hold the foam core in place, not pictured are the boxes used to help hold them in place while the liquid nails sets up
As you can see in the pictures, this gives the ship a more definite shape and a smooth surface, this is what our goal has been and it looks pretty good thus far. Something we also didn’t consider was the weight of each ship, it grows every time we work on them. Liquid nails adds a good amount of weight, and their size is also a factor.
Finished product on the front end
Same process on the back of the ship
This article is best shown with pictures, there isn’t a whole lot of explaining I can do, but it shows our ships essentially in finished built up form. We are pleased with the results thus far and we have two identical ships up to this point. In the future articles we some plans to make them each slightly different to make each ship unique. At some point we’ll need ship names too…..this could be interesting…..
