Dr. Ullrich Böhme

Diorama North Sea Coast

Translation Ralf Schnurbusch

A ship alone can be very nice, but it becomes more interesting if you put into a relation to another object as for example a habour. In this case it is a so called sleuce harbour. The basis fundamement of the three docks consists of three basic parts, two lengthwise docks and the part with the sleuce door. The basic frame of the docks consists of the cardboard, which is always included in the delivery of model sheets from the Moewe Company, and are built separate. The quader stones to cover the basic frame are available als card sheets from model train accessoires. The size of the quaders is a function of the scale. They are available for HO (1:87) or for our case the Z scale (1:220). It is important to consider the season in which you depict the diorama, as there are Spring, Summer and Autum grass available. In the spring gras are colorful flowers. The paplars right in the picture are made out of dried wild herbs found outside. The thin, brown blades were colored green. According to the season a little more light green or little more yellow or brown. The wind has bend all trunks in the same direction. The trees left are made out of the bladdes of the paplars. You can make them also out of dried Rose sticks. The heads of the "sticks" are dipped in white glue and the island moes is glued around. Through the years you have to spray the moos with water as it drys slowly out.

The stone and quader sheets are always looking very new when purchased, therefore it will be aged with a little color. As the sheet is very firm it can be done with water colors. Otherwise for a lighter carboard enamel colors are recommended.

Also out of the box of left overs we take boats and cranes. You should not be too liberal with the time you want to place the diorama in. Here we use the twenties. It would be wrong from the architectural but also from style to include a house or a lighthouse from the nineties or even to put a luxury boat of the year 2000 on a slip equipment. The slip equipment is own construction. A left over anchor winch (from a Bismark or so) is helping to draw the boat to land. The wood tower is really from wood. The scale can be taken directly from a card model kit, only the top is from cardboard. I do not know what is the name of the original. Prototype was the sea symbol of Wilhelmshaven. The big lighthouse is from paper. The sleuce door is out of wood. The flag mast are made from natural bristle of a broom and flags are painted. The keeper house is from the kit of the lighthouse Westerhever of the "Deutsche Schiffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven". The garden fences and the hedges you can find in model railroad accessoires and cut to the scale of 1:250.

The benches on the left quay, below the landing bridge und the course of the right quay consist of wood. Right in front a few sleeper are lying around the harbor light. The individual components of the diorama can be combined with each other. I always built my dioramas in a way that I can exchange the components and can built therefore always new dioramas. The ship is from HMV and is showing the swan, who in the twenties before the big trucks would carry out the supply to the remote areas of the coast. It can be recognised that I have cut the railing and the companionways has be cut out of cardboad and the mast include rigging. The "Blaue Peter" which means that the ship will leave within 24 hours is flagged.

The flag on the stern indicates that he ship is still in the harbor. Otherwise she should be on the astern mast. So some reader might ask, if zou make yourself so much trouble, wo is then the water. Water can be made from blue tone paper and water folie from the model railway. This picture was made in a photoshop to test equipment and a lens. Therefore I did not take the water there. I ommited a detailed description of the ship, because the diorama is in the center of my short report. May be I could motivate some modelers to build a diorama. Try it out. It is easier than you think.