Scratch-built card and styrene structures (based on real buildings around London Bridge)

[grahame]

. . . . .although much of it will be hidden behind other buildings (but then that's the nature of urban scenes):

 

[grahame]

Just a very small amount of modelling today - a large wooden garden shed and some back gardens . . . .  but more time spent placing some of the buildings together to take a few snaps:

 

 

[Siberian Snooper]

Looks like Lundun to me!

 

 

[grahame]

And here's that large wooden shed, horribly and cruelly enlarged (luckily it's something else that will be difficult to see).

 

 

I was thinking of making some pre-cast concrete coal bunkers. I recall they seemed to be in everyone's back yard/garden when I was a lad but I don't seem to remember seeing them in the 1980s. I guess everyone had gas central heating by then.

 

 

[svitapeneela]

We moved into a house in 1997 that had a concrete coal bunker - that was "Oop North" though, so probably a bit behind the times!

 

Fantastic modelling - looking at your incredible work is making my lockdown/isolation quite enjoyable :-)

Edited May 1, 2020 by svitapeneela

[grahame]

And this is what the back corner looks like with the low relief buildings roughly in place:

 

 

[2ManySpams]

Work in progress from me in 7mm based on a real structure that stood at Bodmin North. Stone all hand carved in plasticard, and sprayed up in Halfords primer. Roofing next...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kier Hardy]

10 minutes ago, grahame said:

And this is what the back corner looks like with the low relief buildings roughly in place:

 

 

You're a real craftsman Grahame, the buttons on each post just don't do your work justice - cracking stuff as always. 

[acg5324]

I Quick question Grahame. Is this carcass too tall for a 3 storey building with inverted pitched roof?  It’s 100mm tall plus the pitched roof and would be one more storey higher than the pub, which has a flat roof.

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by acg5324

[grahame]

A difficult one as there's no standard storey height. In my terraced house (where I live) the ceiling is 8ft from the floor but add 2ft for the fact you step up in to the house and the thickness of the ceiling, first floor joists and floorboards and I'd suggest 10ft for each storey. However, commercial and public buildings often have a lot taller storeys (especially the entrance/ground floor) although for older ones each floor reduces in height as you go up.   

 

Here's a pic of some of my model buildings (although the ground floors are shops on the other side, the upper storeys are domestic/residential) with various roof types along with a 2mm/1ft rule. The figures on the left represent scale feet.

 

[acg5324]

Cheers Grahame I’ve cut 10mm off, seems better proportioned.

[aardvark]

Short note to let you know how much I'm enjoying your work, despite having no knowledge of the area. 

 

Only page 29/65, so I've got some catching up to do.

[Killybegs]

I have a couple of large factory building to construct for which I intend to use foam board for the basic shells. The foamboard I have is 5mm thick faced on both sides with thin card. I am looking for suggestions as to the best adhesive for this material. Any help would be much appreciated.

[grahame]

I've never used foam board for making buildings but have made a diorama baseboard from it (about 2ft long). It does need a careful choice of glue (not liking anything with a solvent in that tends to eat and melt the foam). IIRC I used a water-based PVA type but it would be best to test it out firstly.

 

 

[acg5324]

I’ve been converted to Rocket card glue.....you don’t need much, it bonds quickly.

[Siberian Snooper]

I use Tacky glue, it gives you a few minutes waggle time, but soon goes off.

 

 

[Ian Morgan]

We resorted to hot glue gun for some of the buildings we made for the Great Model Railway Challenge. The Atmospheric Railway Pumping Station based on the one at Starcross was a foamboard shell covered in a printed photo-collage of photo-shopped images found on the Internet. It is still intact after 2 years.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Ian Morgan
Added photo

[2ManySpams]

Apologies for posting my own progress photos earlier on the page. They were meant for the general scratchbuilt building thread, not your personal one. 

[grahame]

No problem. It's not really a personal thread but a general one about scratch built structure models made from cardboard and styrene. Conversation, comment and examples are welcome AFAIC.

 

 

[grahame]

This is probably a bit of a long shot but I'm wondering is anyone has any idea or pics of the building on the corner of St Thomas Street and Joiner Street, SE1 before this one (ringed in yellow below) replaced it.

 

 

The pic above is quite a modern shot and the building looks very much like an 80s structure so presumably there was something in it's place before (in the 70s). Amazingly that 80s building has now been demolished (along with Fielden House behind it). However, it's one of the 'missing' buildings that I need to make (along with the red building between Fielden House and Telephone House behind and left of it) to complete the block. And I'm going to need to heavily compress the structure as the space available is quite small.

 

 

 

 

[cornish trains jez]

Hi Grahame,

 

Would the Britain from above website reveal anything?

 

Best regards and stay safe,

 

Jeremy

 

 

[svitapeneela]

I've just had a look on old-maps.co.uk and the 1968 map for that area shows that piece of land as a blank space, (and across the road to the east as "ruins") so maybe before the 1980s building it was just waste ground, or an undeveloped bomb site?

[svitapeneela]

 

[grahame]

52 minutes ago, cornish trains jez said:

 

Would the Britain from above website reveal anything?

 

 

I've tried Britain from above and Britain from the air. Unfortunately nothing revealing. 

[grahame]

45 minutes ago, svitapeneela said:

I've just had a look on old-maps.co.uk and the 1968 map for that area shows that piece of land as a blank space, (and across the road to the east as "ruins") so maybe before the 1980s building it was just waste ground, or an undeveloped bomb site?

 

That is a possibility that I thought might be the case. The other corner (marked as 'ruins' on the map) is the site of the old station 'terminus hotel' bombed in WW2 (and eventually built on with Southwark Towers - now replaced by the Shard) so the other side might have also fallen victim at the same time. Some old (1920s) B&W fuzzy pics show there was at that time quite a block of buildings there but this photo of Fielden House (taken in 1954) appears to show just ruins and parked cars in front where the block would have been:

 

 

Also this rather indistinct view of the site (but the best I've found) gives the impression of not much being there and it's date is mid 80s. Typically the site is in shade and partially covered by text:

 

 

The urban landscape is a rapidly changing vista. Many thanks to those who have responded with suggestions and information.