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


grahame
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I've not been happy with the small modernish foreman's/supervisors office block and have decided to replace it. With the compression necessary for the site, it doesn't fit comfortably in place. And I want something older, more grimy and industrial. 

 

Down the side of the number 13 holder was a long pitched roof structure which, if I recall correctly, was the meter workshops. So I'm going with that. Again there's no ref pics so I checked on Victorian warehouses and factories to get a good idea and will need to knock up something similar and suitable. 

 

I've put together a basic carcass and this is how it fits in place with the other structures in their correct relative locations:

 

DSC_0290red.jpg.5551e0b838db70b72d2c58f3ca222b9f.jpg

 

There will be another modernish block - a pump/booster house - that was built at an angle between the gate house and the meter workshops. Old Kent Road runs at an angle in the pic at the bottom left cutting the corner. However there is another road, just in front of the gate house, the starts towards the holder but bends round in front of the meter workshop building.

 

 

Edited by grahame
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Yep, that's always been the plan. Recent events have set back the procurement and installation of a garden office to house it. This year has been the pandemic and lockdowns and the previous year I was diagnosed with cancer and underwent four operations. That somewhat put the kibosh on things for two years. I'm hoping to get the 'all clear' from the hospital but appointments have been continually put back this year. Fingers crossed for a better year in 2021.

 

Paints are mainly acrylic; Halfords and Humbrol aerosols and pots of Railmatch and Humbrol for brush painting.

 

 

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Plasticard cutting and gluing this afternoon. Now there are two separate sub-assemblies - the main card carcass and the two window walls. Currently they are not glued together as that will happen after painting and installing glazing/windows. I still need to add sills and lintels and perhaps some more Victorian embellishments without going OTT. I need to check out some options on pics of Victorian industrial architecture on-line:

 

DSC_0293red.jpg.958cd8268ab200aa32784a4ad83214db.jpg

 

 

 

 

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18 hours ago, grahame said:

Plasticard cutting and gluing this afternoon. Now there are two separate sub-assemblies - the main card carcass and the two window walls. Currently they are not glued together as that will happen after painting and installing glazing/windows. I still need to add sills and lintels and perhaps some more Victorian embellishments without going OTT. I need to check out some options on pics of Victorian industrial architecture on-line:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some local options - maybe not all Victorian.

Docks Offices Surrey Docks 12 4 2018.jpg

Hop Studios Jamaica Rd SE1 13 6 07 1.jpg

LCC Tideway Pumping station 28 6 2006.jpg

Queen Elizabeth St east SE1 28 11 2006.jpg

Southwark Fire Station London.jpg

Edited by phil_sutters
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Some nice and interesting building pics there. They'd make great models. However, they're prestigious 'on-street' examples while what I'm after is a more grimy industrial feel of 'in-works' building. I recall many of the older buildings in the works to be very run-down and blackened with age - after all there were retort houses at one time towards the back of the site.

 

Anyway, I've got the lintels and sills on, a primer coat and basic top-coat colour for the wall sub-assembly (still not yet attached to the carcass). I've used Humbrol dark brown as the base colour as I had some and I'm running short of desert yellow (that I usually use for London yellow stocks) and I can't just pop up the the local model shop during this lockdown for some more. I've picked out the lintels and bottom edge in a lighter leathery brown colour but all will be given some weathering and dirtying down treatment. And then the windows/glazing will be installed.

 

DSC_0296red.jpg.41f5d4cf67e7de90ddff4aed655e4023.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

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I like the pic of the Tanner Street shops. Very modellable. Looks like a pub on the left, possibly Ind Coope and Alsop's (or windy coop and all slops as we used to call them). Do you know what it is?

 

 

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2 hours ago, grahame said:

I like the pic of the Tanner Street shops. Very modellable. Looks like a pub on the left, possibly Ind Coope and Alsop's (or windy coop and all slops as we used to call them). Do you know what it is?

 

 

The other side of the frontage is in the second photo in my batch above, with the name Lazy above the door - a club of some sort perhaps. I haven't got a full view of it. On Google streetview in April 2019 it seemed to be vacant although spruced up and with the name Dockhead Stores, at the top where the pub or brewery's name would probably have been.

Edit - I have now found a rather grainy photo in a self-published book by Peter Marcan - A Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Album. I have sent it to you by message as I am not sure about copyright.

Edited by phil_sutters
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The glaziers have been and the roofs are now tiled with Redutex. They look rather pale as they've only been sprayed with primer because they were originally their 'uneven light grey' colour which was very piebald. I'll give them a coat of darker grey after I've made and added ridge tiles.

 

DSC_0301red.jpg.ea8054065ff39a03e8b81c80d84c65a0.jpg

 

I guess this structure is going to be made by the details added. I need to make some gutters and downpipes, vent pipes, flues and maybe a chimney stack. And perhaps some skylights . . . . 

 

 

 

 

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The ridge tiles have been added and the roof painted, plus a chimney stack made and fitted. There's still details, like gutters, downpipes, vents and flues, to be made and added (to both the buildings in this pic). The next building project will be the booster/pump house that should complete all the structures needed for the gasholder station scene.

 

DSC_0303red.jpg.997b234b887178057326bac7c35a27d9.jpg

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1 hour ago, millerhillboy said:

quite superb as always, but in particular I really like the use of colours here, just absolutely perfect, nothing too garish or incorrect.

 

Many thanks for the compliments. My take, if I may be permitted to expound, on the finish of models is basically two fold:

 

1) Light reflected by glossy/shiny surfaces doesn't scale well due to atmospheric distortion caused by dust and other particles in the air that reduces the light reaching the observer, making real life glossy objects appears less bright/shiny, and more so the further away they are. With a model the distance the object is viewed at is very much closer meaning the distortion/blurring would be less. Consequently I tend to use a lot of matt varnish to 'knock back' shiny/glossy surfaces and avoid any such surfaces to give a more scale look. Most model subjects, particularly distant ones, should not be glossy.

 

2) Colour also appears faded over distance due to atmospheric distortion and consequently also does not scale well with models that are seen comparatively relatively close. Therefore, I try to use muted colours or modify them with washes and weathering. My take is to avoid garish (and glossy) colours particularly on buildings and structures.

 

If you view an N/2mm scale model from two feet away that is a scale equivalent distance of almost 300ft. To get an idea of the effect on shine and colour look at a shiny car and other objects that are three hundred feet away.

 

 

 

Edited by grahame
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I'm getting close to the time for ground cover scenics (roads, pavements, grass, gravelled areas, etc) to be considered although there still is the booster pump house to make. Here's a rough plan of the modelled site entrance area with its relationships to the public roads. Of course, the usual liberties have been taken with regards to size, compression, placement and selective content, but hopefully it is reflective:

 

plan2red.jpg.3348d5cc4cbb29ee8825c1468b88556b.jpg

 

 

 

 

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I've knocked up the booster pump house and given it a dusting of primer ready for painting. In addition I need to make a long skylight for the roof. It was a fairly nondescript functional modern style building, probably built at the same time as the showroom and security gate house in the later 60s, although all three have now been demolished. I don't know what type of pump was used but on the high pressure natural gas mains distribution system (this local stuff wouldn't be high pressure) they used jet engines (RR RB211).

 

DSC00601red.jpg.60821776a240b49c83386e543ef84a7f.jpg

 

 

 

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Hello Grahame,

 

You've probably explained this before ....but in what order do you paint to get from the first (undercoated) picture to the second (bricks and mortar) picture, please ? Apologies if you are having to repeat yourself.

 

Regards,

Ian.

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I'm not quite sure what you're asking. The application of the top coat paint colours was directly on the grey primer so were the next stage. Afterwards a coat of matt varnish was applied to seal them, then a little weathering.

 

The order of colours is usually lightest to darkest but because the brickwork colour (the last dregs of desert yellow from an aerosol), was sprayed on the brick areas, it was applied first, then the white was painted by brush and finally the grey.

 

HTH

 

 

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Thanks Grahame, 

 

I was trying to work out if after the undercoat you had sprayed the whole building in the darker colour (ie the main brick colour) then over sprayed the lighter (mortar) colour which you then 'wiped' off again to leave it in the recesses whilst re-exposing the darker brick colour on the raised areas, before adding a few weathering washes..... or you'd sprayed it with the lighter colour and then picked out the individual bricks with the darker colour.

 

Your method of application definately looks effective.

 

Regards,

Ian.

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No, I don't paint the mortar courses separately. The entire wall is painted (usually by aerosol) in the brick colour and then dirtied down with weathering -  washes (to tone/moderate the base colour), powders (to add variation), and mainly a 6B pencil rubbed over by finger (to highlight the raised bricks).

 

Consequently the mortar is the brick colour. It's a bit of a cheat but somehow tricks the eye. I have tried mortar colour washes in the past but it is messy and I found it difficult to make look effective in this scale (N/2mm) and the embossed bricks aren't well defined sufficiently- often just a series of dots and dashes. See posts earlier in the thread for further details and close-up pics.

 

 

 

 

   

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