Engineering Clutter

Here again playing in the plumbing department some of the same part used in my earlier post for engines can also be used for storage tanks for on your ship as well.

Okay so these are 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, 1 inch  and a couple of 2 inch plumbing parts, these are all threaded parts that have the raise ridges of a better look.

One could also use them for other areas. Dress them up with some wire as piping and plumbing, some small panels here and there and I think they would look great.

Here I'm using them with the engines for a large looking engine room.

Engineering Room.

Now the parts in the upper right corner can also be used and a small engine as well for a small shuttle or something and seen below.

Now there are some other items added for more clutter.

The blue thing is a wall anchor.

Cap from a toothpaste style chalking tube.

House hold electrical connector.

Cat 5 electrical connector as a computer. 

A whole bank of computers.

You can get a pack of 25 for about $10

Here is just shot from different angles of would be engineering room.

I hope this has given you lots of ideas. Many of these items can be used for other terrain ideas as scattered items at a spaceport, crash site or other parts of your ship.

When these things are all dressed up with wire and plastic card for panels and other bits and bobs they are going to look great when all painted.

I know I have enjoyed sharing these ideas.

Pipe Fittings From Wire

So I had this idea, that one could make piping for terrain objects to give them more life.

I picked up some 14 gage solid wire in white, you can use other colors but I just thought white would work for this project. You can also buy this kind of wire by the foot at most hardware stores.

I wanted my PVC pipe caps to look more like storage tanks then just plain old painted lumps on the table. using the two caps I want to use, on uncut Plexiglas to determine the size of the base then marked it out plus the placement of the caps so I have a starting point to work from

I then hand drilled the holes to receive the wire in the first cap and drilled matching holes in the base.

  

I then used a wire striping tool to strip the wire first (DO NOT TOSS THIS  AWAY), only doing this to a section of wire that I need going about this a little at a time.

I then bend the wire making an elbow as to where the wire will be inserted in to the cap, and then dry fit it to the base trimming of any extra wire to fit.

 

Now I take the wire covering that I striped away and cut it into little sections with an X-acto knife

 

I then slide these tiny sections back on to the wire to the locations that I feel to look right.

 

 

I repeat this process working from one end to the other everything is dry fitted until I have everything in place then I will glue it all down.

 

So here's how it looks so far with a figure.

I will glue other little bits and pieces to add more life to this, small squares for electrical boxes and smaller gage wire as electrical conduit, using a hole punch and some plastic stock sheeting I'll make a couple of access covers, then with a  very small hole punch, I'll punch out a few smaller disks, and they will go around the edges of the covers to give it more of a bolts or rivets look.

Storage Tanks (Update 1)

Okay I posted the idea of using PVC pipe caps as Storage Tanks, and at the time just showed a picture of some cap. Now I have add a little time I wanted to post some pictures comparing size with a figure.

So here we go.

1/2 inch PVC cap.

3/4 inch PVC cap.

1 inch PVC cap.

Group shot.

So I picked up all 8 of these caps up for just under four dollars, and with just a little work, these are going to look really great when I'm done.

So I hope this idea will add to your table just be careful some storage tanks have a thing about going boom when shot at.



Storage Tanks

Just another thing that will work for the gaming table PVC pipe caps as storage tanks

The tops can be found rounded like these showed here or flat as well, add some wire for pipes and other fittings paint and your good to go

You can make them look a little taller just by adding a stub of PVC pipe in them as if they were on a stand of sorts

Glue two together and they can be tanks laid on their sides just add stands, and you can get them in almost any size for you gaming needs,

I will be using them as storage and fuel tanks for my ship projects