WATER TOWER

My inspiration for scratch building a water tower came from reading, Chain of Command, At the Sharp End. page 12 describes the Terrain for a campaign, stating the presents of a water tower in the middle of a wheat field.

Hence I decided to add a water tower to my collection of buildings.

Completed Water tower

Poster added for a bit of interest

Water gauge is added next to the ladder on the water tank.

The tower separates , accommodating a maximum of one Team.

HOW I MADE IT:

To make the tower I raided the recycling bin and salvaged 2  containers, one made from plastic, the other cardboard.

I reduced the height of both containers to 7cm with the use of box cutters.

Trimmed cardboard strips into strips of 4cm x 1cm to the simulate the metal plates surrounding the water tank.

Glue the cardboard strips in place with PVA glue.

I was fortunate to find an inverted lid which was fixed in place with super glue. 

If you are unable to find such a lid, you can improvise by cutting a thick piece of cardboard and glue it in place about a cm above the lip of the on a normal lid creating a raised area.

This the lid for the bottom portion of the water tower.

cut out the inner portion of the lid with hobby knife.

lid is super glued in place on top of the stone portion of the water tower and glued a single layer of cardboard strips just below the edge.

Used a hand grinder to etch details onto the plastic container.

Drilled 2 holes thru the plastic lid to accommodate 2 water overflow tubes.

Glued in place tubes and below is the view from the inside of the container.

Based the tower on 15cm x 13cm MDF, the ladders where made with metal wire cut to size and fixed in place with a soldering iron.

Ladder glued in place.

Primed with black undercoat.

• I used Tamiya color  Acrylic Paint XF-6 to carefully wet brush the exterior of the tank allowing the black primer to show through.
• For the stone  portion of the building I use stone grey and highlighted with some ivory mixed in with stone grey. I then used different washes to stain individual stones.
• For the water I first painted PVA glue on the surface of the plastic to create a bit of a ripple. Once dry I use Vallejo Model colour Black Green to paint over the PVA, while still wet I mixed in a bit of Vallejo Model colour Iquai sand into the Black Green paint  and painted the water close to the rim of the tank.
• I applied two coats of Tamiya X-22 to the surface of the water to a bit of a shine.

some images found on the web of water towers I used for inspiration.

cheers John