Well, it turns out that making a model from lots of tiny pieces of card and then insisting on adding rivets to every possible join takes a bit of time. However, the base section of the Zeppelin Tower is finally structurally complete.
To my frank astonishment, the structure is also pretty solid. Those chaps who designed the originals for these clearly knew their stuff.
To my equal astonishment, the cunning plan to straighten the base out worked too.
This is a trick taken from cabinet making for using veneers: if you glue a layer of veneer to a piece of plywood, it will warp, as wood likes to do. To avoid bendy furniture, the solution is to add another piece of veneer on the other side to cancel out the warping.
In my case, after all the surface detailing had dried off, I glued paper on the underside of the base and let it dry overnight under a couple of books. The next morning, voilà: flat base.
Anyway, this is based on the only remaining tower of its kind in Recife, Brazil, which in the very short heyday of airships was the first stopping point for airships to South America from Europe and which would have hosted giants like the Graf Zepellin and the Hindenburg before the twit with the bad moustache came along. Of course, in my alternative history, 1930’s Germany is a loose federation of tiny states once more, and airships are the way to travel across oceans, so these towers are a regular sight around the world.
Ascension is developing rapidly as a junction for many airship routes, so in reality it would probably have several airship masts, but don’t ask me to make them all…
