After a very pleasant and productive planning session yesterday, interspersed with copious provisions provided by Mrs 10800, we're now virtually ready to go with the commissioned laser cutting of the fiddly repetitive bits for the viaduct. Final tweaking of the specification and scope is going on with York Modelmaking today. The laser cutting work will comprise 74 balustrade sections with 19 arches in each; the main arch sections for the eight pavilions (semicircles on squares, very Renaissance); the main arches in units of six (limited by the laser cutting bed 900mm long); and the tapered pier sections which would be a pain to do 80-odd of consistently.

The rectangular plinth sections we will do ourselves, partly because even we can cut rectangles consistently (the bandsaw helps) but also because we want those in 4mm MDF for structural strength - laser cutting won't do thicker than 3mm because it starts burning the MDF on the top side before it has cut through to the other side.

We're looking to use embossed brick plasticard (5-6 m2 of it, so seeing if we can buy in A1 size rather than loads of A4 which would be expensive and involve a lot of joins). Next is the issue of all the details such as the arched brickwork, fancy moulding and the brackets supporting the refuges (see below). This will be done from a variety of brass etching, plastic strip, maybe doll's house type picture/dado rail stuff, and resin casting (any useful contacts for the doll's house stuff?).

I've also just noticed that although the piers and sides are mainly English bond, the exposed brickwork under the arches is mostly stretcher bond with a few header courses thrown in.