Aloha!
Fresh off my hard won draw against HardieBacker, I used a lot of the suggestions and guidance from that project in selecting my second. My goals are modest:
- Gain some experience with my new foam cutting tools.
- Fix a good-enough-scale water tower my father-in-law built that did not stand up to little hands and a cattle dog.
My plan was to replace the legs, currently held together by a wire core and “Gorilla Glue” with a structure that cold serve as both a pump house and support structure. Spindly legs are simply not going to survive on the Triple O for long!
Here’s the scope of the problem:
I had looked for the recommended blue foam, but only found massive sheets of multiple inch thickness. Previous experiments had shown that slicing foam into thinner sheets is problematic - at least for me - so I used standard foam from packing, making a little box as you see here. The plan was then to scribe in a door and a rock wall; however, as I reflected on the project, I saw no way to hide the seams. If I had to do this again, I would’ve simply stacked foam squares. Oh, well…
Instead, I fell back on the "craft sticks and construction glue error hiding technique I honed in my battle with HardieBacker. I glued them vertically, and, after cutting an angle into what will be the top, I cut a piece of roofing material to serve as, well, the roof! I glued it upside down, as I thought the underside was closer to good-enough-scale. I also framed a doorway, using a credit card and a handy PLAYMOBIL figure for size. I’ll glue it on later.
This weekend, I will Dremel away the tops of the craft sticks to match the roof line. As my hot knife skills are only slightly better than my grinder skills, I am considering actually leaving a good bit of the excess craft sticks on the bottom to hide my hotwire work. I will then mount the whole thing on a piece of - you guessed it - HardieBacker using the scribe-and-snap method I learned here. I figure that should provide a stable foundation for the tank, after I cut off its old wobbly legs. The only detail part I will add to my father-in-law’s work beyond that is a fill tube running up from the pumphouse to the tank. Four pairs of small hands, four cattle dog paws, and forgotten modeling skills make additional detail overkill.
Again, I appreciate the guidance with my last project, and I look forward to any “orders to the helm” you can provide here!
- Eric