Short Bridge Over The Douglas Canal

On the west side of Metallikahmish Bay the water narrows into The Douglas Canal. The canal cuts across town to a nearby lake (to be named later.) It is just wide enough for the powered barges and small to medium sized boats that will use it for business and pleasure.

The goal was to make the canal big enough to be a key feature but not so big that it distracts from a large drawbridge to be built on the opposite side of the bay.

I used Sharpie pens to outline a few ideas before coming up with the final plan. I was also working around wires coming off of a couple of switch machines and the canal's location was moved a bit out of the desire not to have to break out the drill to cut new paths for the wires :)

In steps:

1. I removed foam (using a basic steak knife) where the harbor and canal will be located. I didn't remove the whole harbor yet - just the area I was working in on the off chance I change the plan again before I get to the rest of the harbor.
2. Once the canal was cut, I used a test boat (a block of wood of the same size as the boats you're planning to use would also work fine) to make sure the canal was the right size.
3. My canal was too wide initially so I backfilled with some of the foam I had removed.
4. I used styrene stone for the canal seawall. Other options would be stone rip rap on a slope, earth, brick, concrete or even steel pilings.
5. Once I'd test fit the styrene stone I cut it to fit and installed it with superglue and model cement.
6. I build the bridge to fit - cutting an HO scale bridge kit roughly in 1/2.
7. I used a small rectangle of styrene for the base, cutting a slot on the top of each side of the canal wall for the styrene to fit snugly.
8. Next up was to glue the bridge sides to the flat piece of styrene. I angled the sides in about 10 degrees because I liked the way it looked. I also used 4 of the truss support plates from the bridge kit.
9. Then the whole thing was painted olive green.
10. Last step was to weather the stone wall with a mix of black and rust paint thinned with a lot of water.

Here are the pix of the finished bridge in place - with a highway bridge soon to be installed right next to it.

The "water" will be left for a later time after the rest of the construction around the bay is done.

Next time: Moving Day!