Sunken ship weathering?

You may laugh at this but in that scale I found "grits", (the kind you eat, unclooked)  to work great, you use white glue to adhear them and place them in any manner you feel like, they look great, as far the rust goes you have the answer already.

Hi

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, ,  "grits" for coral ona shipwreck, sounds like "True Grit" to me ! ! !   LOL

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

SteveH

Poor John he's rolling over on that one!

Another item that works O.K. is kitty litter but you need to crush it down some more to make it smaller, a piece of hard wood on a chopping board will work,  just roll it around some should do it.

Jake

  to simulate coral I found that by  milling into styrene plastic the material that is caught in the flat drill head will give great chunky material, I've even used it to create some plants.   Karl 

 1:125 scale.....sunken wreck.....OK there would be some coral, as well as barnacles, urchins, and other assorted sea life encrustations, and the ever present silt. So far, some good recommendations. What I would add is, when applying all this stuff, keep it relatively small (the Great Barrier Reef wasn't created in a day). Apply glue, and then sift the material over the model. When the glue is dry, dust, or vacuum the excess off, and do the next application. And so on. The final touch will be the silt. this should be a fine dust, and I would overspray everything with a light coat of Testors glosscoat, and blow the silt material above the model, letting it settle down from a foot or two above, layering until the desired effect is achieved. When everything has been applied, and is done drying/curing, apply a final coat of testors dullcoat. The whole idea of "sifting, and settling" is, that how it happens, and the whole display area should have the same overall look and feel, especially with the silt.

Remember that if you are going to show coral growing on this wreck, that it sank in shallow, tropical waters. Now ask yourself where a German U-boat might have been lost in these conditions, the Caribbean probably would be your best bet, or the Gulf of Mexico but coral isn't really common off the southern US coast. A Japanese or US sub would be the more likely candidate for a coral encrustation treatment. I would go for a silted up and rusty/corrosion treatment for a U-boat.

Some years ago, I built a model of Bismark as she is now resting at the bottom of the Atlantic. The Ballard book with the photos of the wreck and some amazing paintings of the vessel as she is now was the inspiration.  To simulate barnacles and other growths I used the white glue and VERY fine 'silver sand' applied to the vessel.  It took several applications and building up to get the correct effect, matching the photos and paintings.  I then embarked on a series of washes with thinned oil paints (raw umber, yellow ochre, grey, black and white) to blend everything together.  The final results pleased me, and the model has been commented on at shows where it has appeared. If you can get a look at the Ballard book, the finished model looks just like the paintings.  Hope this info. is of value to you.

Colin Russell

I saw a model of the Titanic as she lays, I think on the website ..the Debris Field.....and I must say it was one of the most  incredible models I have ever seen.  I think the basis was the Minicraft 1/350th kit. Just WOW!