Real Water in Your City

[Brickstarrunner]

Since my second hobby is model railroading, I have seen G-Scale (Garden Scale) model railroaders put railroads in their house with running water. If it can be done in G-Scale, it can be done in Lego Scale

PS: But the only problem for me is that I am building a 9v track with a waterfall, but the water keeps splashing onto the metal rails even though the rails are so far away

[digitalmod]

Since this question hasn't been asked since Sept 27, 2009 - I would like to bring the question back to the table. I'm currently looking for plastic tubs that are large or attach to each other rather snugly and/or make my own basin out of wood and plastic/rubber sheet. My design Idea is to include real/actual water in a city display where the city itself all inclusively sits in a tub of water where there will be a sewer/water system under the city, a subway and a boat wharf of such. The water would be held at 1 level in order to make the wharf look correctly with respect to the city but at the same time held back from the subway area and/or end the water section half way under the city, etc. Thoughts, comments & ideas welcome. Currently still stocking up on bricks for the city. It will be SNOT roads, no base plates, all brick built and only square intersections in order to avoid the terrible brick built rounded turns. Thanks!

Edited October 29, 2014 by digitalmod

[Lind Whisperer]

Although it's not a purist option, with the rise of 3d printing, I thought perhaps one could take a blue base-plate(if they hopefully come back into stock at ShopAtHome! ), and print walls onto the edges of them. You'd then set them up, seal the edges with some sort of caulk, and build away.

[ER0L]

My design Idea is to include real/actual water in a city display where the city itself all inclusively sits in a tub of water where there will be a sewer/water system under the city, a subway and a boat wharf of such. The water would be held at 1 level in order to make the wharf look correctly with respect to the city but at the same time held back from the subway area and/or end the water section half way under the city, etc.

Although I like the idea of an elevated city with a subway (something I'm planning, too) I guess what you are describing here is very difficult to achieve - at least as a combination of water underneath plus a subway. You'll need lots of nonlego stuff to separate the areas. And what do you get with that? Water in such small amounts (which is very translucent) doesn't look like the water in a real harbor (which doesn't seem to be translucent at all).

That was something striking me when visiting the fantastic "Miniatur-Wunderland" in Hamburg, one of the largest model railways in the world. They have a great Scandinavian section with a large fjord with moving ships, tides and whatnot. But the whole thing doesn't look realistic, you can see the sea bed from everywhere.

That fountain in post #8 on the other hand, built with a boat hull, looks quite interesting. Anyhow I'm curious to see what you'll come up with.

Edited October 31, 2014 by ER0L

[Thetford]

Although I like the idea of an elevated city with a subway (something I'm planning, too) I guess what you are describing here is very difficult to achieve - at least as a combination of water underneath plus a subway. You'll need lots of nonlego stuff to separate the areas. And what do you get with that? Water in such small amounts (which is very translucent) doesn't look like the water in a real harbor (which doesn't seem to be translucent at all).

That was something striking me when visiting the fantastic "Miniatur-Wunderland" in Hamburg, one of the largest model railways in the world. They have a great Scandinavian section with a large fjord with moving ships, tides and whatnot. But the whole thing doesn't look realistic, you can see the sea bed from everywhere.

That fountain in post #8 on the other hand, built with a boat hull, looks quite interesting. Anyhow I'm curious to see what you'll come up with.

Perhaps food colouring would work in such instances, though I imagine that would stain Lego bricks/models.

While I can't think of a pure Lego method for large open bodies of water like lakes or rivers, for small bodies of water like swimming pools, I guess you could sort of make a purist one with the use of large pieces such as the dumpster from those large dumpster trucks they had half a decade back, would that work?

[BirdOPrey5]

When I was a kid and had a 20 gallon fish tank I decided to build an under-water base and then put it in my fish tank, was there a couple years... the fish eventually died, when I tried cleaning the pieces I got frustrated, I couldn't get the algae off, so I ended up tossing all the pieces that were under there. It was nice for a while, probably wouldn't do it again now that I realize how sensitive fish can be.

[Lind Whisperer]

Although I like the idea of an elevated city with a subway (something I'm planning, too) I guess what you are describing here is very difficult to achieve - at least as a combination of water underneath plus a subway. You'll need lots of nonlego stuff to separate the areas. And what do you get with that? Water in such small amounts (which is very translucent) doesn't look like the water in a real harbor (which doesn't seem to be translucent at all).

That was something striking me when visiting the fantastic "Miniatur-Wunderland" in Hamburg, one of the largest model railways in the world. They have a great Scandinavian section with a large fjord with moving ships, tides and whatnot. But the whole thing doesn't look realistic, you can see the sea bed from everywhere.

That fountain in post #8 on the other hand, built with a boat hull, looks quite interesting. Anyhow I'm curious to see what you'll come up with.

I actually have a bit of a solution to that. It might not work very well if the water has to pass through catacombs/sewer systems, but for an open harbor? Get a lot of transparent blue one-by-one rounds, and squares, and carefully pour them onto the water. If you're careful, you should be able to get some good pictures at the least.

Now, if you want them to float for longer than around five minutes, that'll be a bit more expensive, but still possible. Get a supply of one-by-one blue trans bricks and round bricks. For the normal bricks, a simple cap using either a square or a round for the one open end will be enough, but for the rounds you'll need to remember to cap both ends and for that, rounds are probably the more aesthetically pleasing.

It will cost quite a pretty penny, even if you get a good few big cups from PAB walls, but you'll have a harbor of working "LEGO" water, that floats and shapes around your ships. You can't get too much better than that.*.

*Well, you could make the entire sea out of transparent blue, without any water, but you'd loose the flotation possibilities.