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I did some demolition on my layout today. I cut out the area where the river and waterfall are going. My Jigsaw was throwing sawdust all over the nearby trains and buildings, so I stopped cutting, removed the buildings and trains, cleaned them off, then covered the area with big black trash bags. Problem solved.
I finally assembled my Walther's car float. I settled on a gray hull and black accessories, such as the track and cleats.
The box says it's 36 inches long, but mine measures just shy of 39" long. Something to consider if you are limited on space.
When assembling the sides, be aware that it's possible to misalign the sides. The raised "slats" only line up one way, so dry fit everything prior to gluing.
Wrong
Right
When I glued the bottom pieces together, I also glued 2 of the bulkheads in place to help hold things together, since they fit where the bottom seams are.
The next step was gluing the first of the 2 end pieces to one assembled side. This requires you to glue 2 smooth edges together, so I found it easiest to align the pieces with the side section upside down. I use a plastic cutting board for cutting and gluing.
Here's the finished car float. My waterfront scene is far from done, but this is a nice start.
I finished the harbor water. It's 6ft long, 8" wide at the narrow end, and 2ft wide at the widest end.
I then added the Walthers harbor walls to the long side. The water level is lower than the bottom of the harbor walls, so I'm calling this "low tide". My wife painted a high tide mark on the lower part of the walls.
I added some cars to the float to see how well they would fit
Today I finished making my Union Pacific tug boat, using the Walthers kit.
In all my research, I couldn't find any information about UP having any tug boats. So I painted mine in a scheme that UP might have used if they had tug boats. This model is 14.5" long.
My layout won't have the car float apron (also called a float bridge in some RR history books I have). There's no room for one. So my car float is in a staging area, waiting to be towed to an apron.
I still need to assemble a few more waterfront models before this diorama is finished.
