Pimp My Batmobile!

Archive for the ‘Batcave’ Category

It struck me as I read those older posts (from TWO years ago, yikes) that I didn’t adequately explain our plan for  creating the “floating” effect of the Batboat. Firstly, the Batboat itself was modified by Jim Apitz from a Polar Lights kit. Those of you that know your Aurora history will remmeber the original 1966 model was issued in 1/32 scale while they wisely (at the urging of Mike Stutelber if I recall) made the reissue 1/25 scale. This was probably the coolest thing that a  model company could do. It was like they said – Hey, we know we can’t issue a 1/25 Batmobile (yet) but in case we or someone else ever does, and for those thousands of you who’ve been building 1:25 bootlegged, garage Batmobiles for 15 years – here’s a Batboat in the correct matching scale.

I’ve modeled the 1/32 older one, both from the Aurora kit and from recasts. I had planned to build one of the PL reissues, but had never gotten around to it when Jim Apitz alerted me that he might be willing to sell one that he had built. Well, being the huge fan of Jim’s work that I am, I purchased it.

Clearly, I didn’t want to do what we did with the less valued Robin’s Seadoo – which was to embed it in the clear resin water effects.BUT – we did want to give the floating effect to the boat. So here’s what we came up with. we took an extra PL Batboat hull, wrapped it in plastic-wrap and vaseline and mounted it via a clear thin tube (that would hopefully disappear)  to the bottom of the lakebed.

The extra Batboat hull, wrapped in plastic and mounted to post

The plan was to then fill the lakebed with the clear water resin, and when it had cured, pop out the hull, leaving a perfect negative space to gently lay the finished Batboat in. Great plan.

Boat hull mounted to lakebed

Unfortunately, we forgot to glue on an exhaust. So after we poured all the resin, let it cure and popped out the hull and cleaned up the release material – we tested the ‘hero’ Batboat in the space only to find that it did not fit due to the exhaust!

This was solved, albeit a little clunkily, by Dremeling out a slot in the rear of the resin so the exhaust could fit. It wasn’t as snug a fit as we were hoping for, but the boat still looks pretty good in the water AND is easily removed from the lake.

More to come.

After resin was poured and cured. Carved out a notch for the exhaust.

Testing the Batboat in "the water"

Editor’s Note: The following post has been migrated over from our now defunct Batcave Blog and dates originally from October, 2008:

After we added the foam putty to fill in seams that the foam layers created, we hot-glued real river pebbles to the base of the grotto floor.  We then spread more foam putty down and shook out various sizes of model railroad  “ballast” pebbles to give it a cave lake feel. Again, we were going for NorthEastern US Limestone cave lake. I have actually been caving all through Pennsylvania and the cave streams I’ve crawled through are pretty green-covered and cold.

We then added some suede spray paint for a mossy look and added some putty and our own water effect techniques to create a wet area. Decals were added to the drainage pipes and set with micro-sol, then weathered.

As I mentioned before, this is not just the 1966 TV cave, so why not expand the aquatic transportation options? We thought Robin should get his own watercraft. I used to own and ride a big 3-person Seadoo so we thought that would be great to sneak into the cave. Alexander drew and colored many designs. We ended up with a color scheme similar to his 70′s motorcycle.

I wasn’t concerned about getting this model back out of the clear water resin later so we just mounted it on a clear rod to the lake bottom.

Then we clamped up the side openings with wood and plastic tape, and started filling with water. Well, clear resin. We tried several brands and types on some test surfaces. Some cured too slowly, some had an incredibly bad chemical odor as they degassed. Some were made for floral arrangements and cured as a soft, jello-like consistency. The Woodland Scenics product was the absolute worst. It was basically thinned down water-based polyurethane. Absolutely useless for anything but giving the whole bottom a wet look. We needed volume. After finding a great but expensive One-To-One ratio 2-part epoxy product at Michael’s, called  Easy cast, I went online to try to get it in bulk, cheaper. Success! I found gallons of it for a bit more than twice the cost of the tiny samples they sell at Michael’s. I highly recommend this clear casting epoxy for all water effects.

We still had to pour the lake in half-inch thick increments. As we did, we mounted small fish, crayfish and a few other items to give the area some action and depth. It is very hard to see in photos, but we’ll try to show some of the depth later. Here is our workspace as we added layers of lake, .25″ and 24 hours at a time.

Editor’s Note: The following post has been migrated over from our now defunct Batcave Blog and dates originally from September, 2008:

Our goal is to mix elements of the 1966 TV Batcave with some of our favorite comics stuff and some of our own inventions as well. So -

The TV Batboat is super cool but never lived in the Batcave on TV. They had to drive to the marina to get to it. That seems unlikely and awkward to us. Just slightly less goofy than having the Batmobile actually trailer it. (a la the Corgi gift pack) I always loved the idea that the cave housed EVERYTHING. So we are borrowing from the comics the idea of an underground Grotto that is a tributary to Gotham harbor. Our back-story is that perhaps Batman expanded an already existing grotto to his needs.

In the diorama – I wanted this far enough away from the center TV Atomic Pile area so we are placing it to the far right. And since that’s our cave exit, we needed a bridge for the Batmobile. And a grotto or cave lake for the Batboat that could actually handle real depth.

We started by creating a light but rigid base for the lake out of slices of pink insulating styrofoam (home depot) and used Project Glue for Foam to put them together.

Then we needed to seal it up to be able to actually support our “water.” We used these great products to seal up the seams and then provide some underwater lake effects.

We decided that the Batcave grotto would be a typical East Coast limestone based cave lake and so most of the ballast (rocks) got the grey/green mossy treatment that we see around PA a lot. It was a challenge to remember and plan for all this to be sealed underwater. We also decided that perhaps the Atomic Pile would need a cooling system so there are intake and outake pipes in the lake walls. Made from trimmed pieces of silver cable hiding hoses and then weathered and decals added.

Grotto/Lake bottom with coolant pipes and drainpipe

We built the bridge after a design that Alexander drew. I liked it because it was a little Burton-esque yet not unrealistic. We made it out of balsa, painted it silver with hammered aluminum for the texture and then weathered it and added the big rivet bolts and the non-skid surface. We dropped it into place and then foam-puttied around the struts.

We planned to fill the lake bed with clear railroad water effect resin. I wanted the Batboat to be immersed realistically in “water” but I also did not want to permanently embed my Jim Apitz-made batboat model in clear resin. So we decided to grab a spare Polar Lights Batboat hull, and mount it in the lake bottom, seal it with plastic wrap for easier removal later, then pour the resin in around it. The theory was that when we had the right water level and it had hardened – we just pop out the spare hull and put the Batboat model in its place. Well it was a great idea that we didn’t think through completely. More on that later.