Many thanks to Martyn, Jase, Paul, Chris, Arek, Mr T., Alan, Mark, Phil and Derek for their kind words! Further blushes from the fact I never thought of fish and aquarium shops! Good thinking there Derek! The sharks I've got will be representing two of the Reef Shark species, probably the Grey and White Tipped although a degree of artistic licence is required as this pair are about twice the size of the 'proper' sharks (and one of them is a Great White by the shape of it!) Still, they were the only 'small' sharks I could find at the Aquarium. We saw dozens of the real things back in '88 when we went on holiday to Cairns - all being hand fed by the pontoon divers (made me glad I couldn't swim!)

Ok then, in the absence of real coral, here's the cheapie alternative!

This time around I decided to try wood staining the MDF base before varnishing it, the smaller one used in the Chindit build is only the basis for the resin mould so it didn’t need any ‘fancifying’. Photo 1 shows the plain MDF after a single coat of spirit based Rustins Teak woodstain – the top flat surface went on quite well but the shaped sides … its amazing how much that stuff soaks the stain up, each brush-full lasted for about an inch of moulding! Photo 2 illustrates the situation after two full coats, slightly darker but the sides are still like a sponge! Before beginning the varnishing I cut a piece of 2mm plasticard (my decades old stuff) to form a base plate onto which the Thermalite block will be glued once its been bashed about and cut to size as seen in Photo 3. The block in question is shown in Photo 4, this is how I found it in the garden – fairly clean considering how long it’s been out there. As you can see, it’s already had a chunk cut off it (to fill in a gap in a wall somewhere). This material is essentially a cement ‘aero bar’, it can be cut easily with a standard thin saw but try to shape it the traditional way (chiselling a groove all around and then hitting it with something heavy) results in the very rough uneven surface shown at the top. This of course is excellent to fashion a ‘coral reef’!
The first job was to take my little jeweller’s hammer and an old, flat bladed screwdriver and begin to chisel away some of the block to form the edge of the reef. After about ten minutes the jeweller’s hammer was replaced with something much bigger! The first attempt is shown in Photo 5. At this point I then placed the plasticard base plate template on top of the block and carefully sawed along the two ends giving me the actual length of block required. This is shown in Photo 6 with the two yellow arrows indicating the cuts made along the ends of the base plate. Once I had the length sorted out I also increased the banging away (scientifically produced excavations) to remove more of the deeper sections leading up to the reef itself. Once that looked sort of ok (alterations will no doubt follow later) I replaced the plasticard template to saw in the lengthwise cut. This is shown still under way in Photo 7 - it’s a little harder to see clearly as the block is resting on its side in this shot. Most of the side waste has gone with a little still to come away on the right. In Photo 8 we have the remainder of the block, as you can see, I’ve got a little ‘Emergency Back Up Reef’ left on there just in case! And finally, the finished Thermalite ‘reef’ is shown glued onto the plasticard base in Photo 9. This is only the reef part however, I will be building up the sandbank element soon using some of the Woodland Scenics Subterrain Foam Putty, this will ‘feather in’ the part of the terrain closest to the camera, and with the top covering of actual beach sand will allow me to partly bury some of the jetsam thrown overboard from Endeavour. The vertical sides of the reef will be enclosed in a thin wooden shaped surround, stained and varnished to match the base, more on that bit later.
In the next instalment – I’d better get started on that bloomin’ cannon!

Until then Happy Modelling to all the other entrants!

Robin.

Brilliant start Robin. Corel sand comes in three different sizes fine medium and corse . I think fine and medium will probably be the right size
Martyn

Some very nice work Robin, coming on excellent.

Mark

Thanks again to Mark and Martyn! At last you can see the finished cannon! (Took me longer than I thought it would!)

This is the point where I came to the second ‘deviation’ from the cannon instructions. As you all know we get two brass rods with the kit; a 1mm one for the bed bolt through the wooden carriage and a 1.5mm biggie for the cannon barrel trunions. The 1mm rod fitted the hole drilled in the brass barrel perfectly – which of course meant that the 1.5mm one didn’t! So, as shown in Photo 12, the first task was to drill through the barrel with a trio of ever increasing width drill bits to get the hole widened out for the trunion bar. With that done, the brass and copper components were given a nice long bath in white vinegar to remove any traces of grease and oil (especially from that cannon), occasionally ‘swishing’ them around with a fairly soft paintbrush to clean off any deposits, this was done in one of my unused larger resin mixing cups as illustrated in Photo 13. After the cleaning the parts were then rinsed off in a clean water bath and dried between tissue paper (toilet rolls!) Then they went into another bath this time of ‘Blacken-it’ chemical blackener. After about twenty minutes or so the parts looked as they appear in Photo 14 – all nice and uniform black (for now) . What I forgot to show before that was the ring bolts for the carriage sides, as shown in Photo 15, these were made from 0.5mm copper wire which was wound around a suitable drill bit held in the mini vice forming a coil of three or four rings. After removal from the drill bit former the coil was cut into individual rings two of which were threaded onto the copper ring bolts and carefully squeezed closed as shown here. Before carrying on with the metal parts I decided to add on the tiny bolt heads around the wooden trucks or wheels. Although they should really be the same ‘black iron’ as the rest of the metal parts, I decided to use my old pot of Citadel Bolt Gun Metal as shown in Photo 16. As you can see from that photo, the paint has long since passed its sell by date (must be 20+ years old by now) and is thick and gloopy to say the least! This though makes it perfect for applying with the tip of a large sewing needle to create raised dots of paint to simulate the iron bolts. The first two wheels are shown ‘bolted’ in Photo 17. It is important to clean off the needle after every few dots to prevent too much build up of paint on the tip, which will eventually prevent the application of small deposits. In actual fact I’d just finished the third wheel when I thought “I must mention cleaning the tip in the diary” as I began the last wheel without cleaning the tip and instead of a bolt I ended up with something like a hub cap! That required a quick clean off and a red re-paint for the wheel before I could finish it off! Notice the colour of the barrel here, after twenty-four hours the black finish had converted itself into an antique bronze (which I actually quite liked). Photo 18, which shows the other side of the carriage was taken earlier when the barrel was still the intended black. Instead of using the metal pins on the trunnion brackets I decided to try and model the mechanism which allows the brackets to be opened up allowing the cannon to be removed. I did wonder at one point if it was only the cannon barrels which were thrown overboard (which would have meant a lot less building) but one of the eyewitness accounts did say the carriages went too! The arrow points to the rear hole in the bracket which is where the hinge mechanism was fitted. The hinge is essentially a curved metal loop which the bracket swings back over after being released at the front end. Photos 19 to 22 show the initial trial loop under construction. First a selection of three drill bits were used to drill out a hole in a section of Plastruct 0.8 x 2.5mm Styrene Strip. I tried to get the hole slightly closer to one side than the other. Next the strip was razor trimmed back to just above the hole with the corners sliced off before then sanding the edges to a rounded profile. Finally the resulting loop was sliced off to create the piece seen placed on the trunnion bracket. The thinner end made by the off centre hole drilling now drops down into the brass trunnion bracket pin hole as shown here. That worked great for the prototype but wasn’t very easy to paint so I came up with the version shown in Photo 23. I now realise of course I could have simply spray painted the darned things before slicing off the loop – dead line panic setting in! Anyhow, it was easier spraying the new version with a can of Poundland Matt Black Primer as shown in Photo 24, before then rubbing over the black with a dash of Uschi Steel Type Metal Polishing Powder as in Photo 25. The locking mechanism up the front end is equally as simple – just an iron pin which sticks up through the bracket with a horizontal hole drilled through into which is pushed an iron rod or bolt to lock the bracket down. The bolt is secured to the carriage by a short chain to prevent it being ‘mislaid’. The iron pin was made from a length of Plastruct 1mm Styrene Round Rod with a tiny hole drilled through it. With the hole in place I could then sand the rod down until the diameter matched the size of the hole in the brass bracket. Sanding the rod to size first would have made it almost impossible to drill it afterwards. A single strand of 0.2mm electrical wire was then bent double and twisted up using pliers and a pin vice to represent the chain. One of the strands was snipped away leaving the other to be inserted through the hole, super gluing it in position as shown in Photo 26. The two pins are shown semi completed in Photo 27, the one on the left is done with the ‘chain’ bent around and snipped off and the top of the rod cut back, the right hand one has still to be trimmed. These were also sprayed matt black and steel powder dusted before cutting down to size as shown in Photo 28. Once completed, the hinges and locks were super glued into position as shown in Photo 29. The hinges were glued to the carriage and the bracket hole, the locks just to the bracket hole – the chain ends are just kept there by the tension of the wire, no glue required. And finally, the entire cannon in all its miniscule glory is shown in Photo 30. The quoin I left in natural wood with the tip of a cocktail stick inserted into a tiny, drilled hole for its handle. The barrel has gone right back to its bronze effect again despite me having gone over it with a wire brush in the rotary tool and re-blackening it all over again. Ah well, it IS under water after all (and its even getting the first signs of coral growth as well) so I’m happy with that!
Well I finally got the actual subject of the diorama completed – so much for ‘I can build that little thing in a couple of evenings!’ It was good fun going back to wood again though – now onto the base work again!

‘Till later.

Robin.

Love the colour
S they look like they are being seen through the filter of the ocean, great work

Jase

Very nice robin. I tried to add that level of detail but my eyes wouldn't help lol.

Chris

Excellent work, looks fab....

Regards

Alan

That is looking very good

Looking really excellent. Great work.

Mark