"basing for 1/2400 or so ships" Topic

QC

I use glass. I bought it on Ebay along with a glass-cutter. It's easier than it sounds and works a treat for my Langton models.

I bought my clear bases on Litko Aero. You can pick custom sizes.

Lowes sells various sizes and thicknesses of acrylic in their window department. They can also do some custom cuts if you want it in strips.

Textured acrylic shower material.

You can get it cut to size, so in 1" strips, 36" or so in length, if you have a plastics store nearby.

I use TAP Plastics in the USA.

I then use a mitre-saw box to cut in length, and round off the edges with a file and sandpaper.

Works well, and looks a lot like a rolling ocean.

There are various textures with more or less waviness.

I'm not 100% sure, but the "protect-a-glaze", and/or Innsbruck look best to me.

Both, and/or all will work, depending upon what final finish you want, and what scale your minis are.

There are a few other ones too, that I'm not seeing listed, e.g. one that is quite smooth, with very thin/small swirling to it, best for relatively calm water, and/or smaller scale minis.

The other one, that I think I used, doesn't seem to be listed either. It has larger "swells", and/or random humps in it, which are deeper, and much more widely spaced than the patterns shown in the images.

It is used for old bathtub and shower doors, and has a more rippled effect.

I'm sure if you do a bit of searching in Philly, you'll have a local plastics store there, or in NY, that can provide what you need.

They may even provide free samples, like TAP does, from their scrap bins. Probably best to see the stuff in person, but it you can't do that, ask them to send you some small squares, suitably labeled, for you to review.

All are sold in 4' x 8' sheets, and they charge by the square foot, and for each cut, but one or two long cuts, in the width desired shouldn't cost too much, even if you have to get them to do that, and ship it to you, since it's pretty thin, and lightweight.

Various thicknesses are offered, but I suggest 1/8" is good for most applications.

Some sheets will come as thin as 1/16", but I'm not sure if they sell the patterned ones that thin.

On all, one side is textured, and the other is smooth.

I painted mine blue on the smooth side, and left the rough side up, so with the acrylic shine still showing, it makes it look wet.

Others paint theirs, so it's up to you.

With the shower-door pattern I mentioned above, you can even paint white on the top high points, to represent whitecaps on the sea.

Fairly thin plastic. Score it with a hobby knife and break it off. I haven't had any problems yet.

I'm with TGerritsen on this one. Litko Aero is great. Let Litko and it's laser cutters do the work for you. Great company.

@Make – will a standard craft saw/knife be enough to cut the plastic in the mitre box?

Thanks for all the info, my naval projects have long stalled because I get hung up on basing.

Sorry that should be "MakO"! Stupid autocorrect…

I've based my GHQ 1/2400 ships on a piece of plastic card onto which I glued crumpled up grease-proof or baking paper. This created a nice textured look that could be painted and highlighted. I also added a bit of artec or rough plaster to give a bit of texture for the wake and the bow wave.

seem to have trouble getting the images to show – any advice? The images are just on my laptop in a folder.

I think you have to have the photos online in order to show them. I have a free photobucket account and load all the photos I show on this website there and then put the URL here. this website follows the URL and pulls down the picture.

Instructions on posting photos are at the Check the FAQ link (which appears at the bottom of every message board page of TMP, including this one).

There are lots of ways to do it, but it all boils down to posting your photos on some photo-sharing service and then embedding the link(s) in your TMP post. TMP has no capacity for posting images.

- Ix