The deadline is looking very very loomy at the moment. I hope that the (accidentally?) revised date sticks, since I have a week off before that, but I'm making progress nonetheless.

I finally got the bridge installed - well mostly, I haven't stuck the girder down yet since I want to paint the pavement first, and I'm a bit worried about damage too since it's the first bit not protected by the profile boards. This involved lots of layers - there are balsa blocks atop the abutments to raise the interior of the deck by about 5mm, to make room for this freelance indication of some cross beams and things:

The idea is mainly to have something a bit more interesting if I want to take photographs through the bridge arch - I don't have any shots of the underneath of the real bridge to work on so this is based on guesswork and pictures of other plate girder bridges in the UK. The under-deck is 2mm styrene sheet, laid level across the balsa blocks, with a balsa former above that and a sheet of 3mm foamboard cut oversize to bow up between the profile boards and make the curve of the roadway. Plus: I managed to make the cycle path and the road out of one piece so I'd get smooth transitions. Minus: In retrospect the curvature of the road should be more continuous rather than flattening out at each end.

On top of this is a layer of 0.5mm styrene to make the road surface and cycle path, with 1mm styrene for the footpath. This was also fixed with PVA, scuffing up the underside first and applying a very thin coat to both parts in the manner of a contact adhesive. I went around the edges afterwards with 5 minute epoxy as a filler and for security. I then realised that I'd done it in the wrong order since the footpath was above the cycle path, so sanded a ramp from more 1mm sheet to make the transition. Three applications of putty and sandpaper later, it's had a light coat of grey primer for texture and as a starting point for the tarmac finish.

Oh yes: The girder itself was painted Tamiya IJN green with a brush, but something went wrong and it dried glossy rather than flat after the first coat - not sure why, possibly I didn't wait long enough between coats - I tend to forget that Tamiya "acrylics" are actually something else and need to be treated carefully. I ended up stripping the paint (IPA and a toothbrush) and spraying it with a Tamiya rattle can of the same colour. This had a sheen too (it was an AS paint not a TS paint) but not too bad. I worked some powder into the girder and painted/masked various patches where graffiti had been following Google Street View. Finally I drybrushed it fairly vigorously with GW Orkhide Shade, which did a good job of controlling the powders and moving them out of the shadows a bit. Since the real thing appears to be in reasonable nick despite the weak bridge warning, I've only added a couple of rust spots. I'll probably revisit it later on though.

So this board is about ready for some brown goop, as is the other in fact since it doesn't really have any elevation - I just need to trim the profile boards down on that one.