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

[Kylestrome]

15 minutes ago, grahame said:

This pandemic lockdown and time indoors means you can play around with things and experiment.

 

Nevertheless, I am still amazed by the speed at which you can put these models together. I know you've had lots of practice but it's impressive, just the same.

 

David

[acg5324]

Which Redutex tiling sheet due you typically use Grahame. After Charles House I have several Mews type houses to do and a run of shops that includes The Hand and Flowers pub.

[grahame]

Square slates in dark grey (148PC111). They do a version in uneven light grey (148PC112) which is the same but a different colour. I did get that once but it needs painting. DCC Suppliers stock it.

 

HTH

[grahame]

Last pic for today if anyone is interested. I know it's at a funny angle but at least you can see that I've topped off two of the chimney stacks and started on the windows/glazing:

 

 

 

[alangdance]

Hi Graham 

 

Have loved your work for a long time now. 

Any tips for making windows

 

[grahame]

There's several methods I use:

 

A) The ones above are SceneSetters glazing grids. See earlier in this thread for details of their use.

 

B) Pre-printed ones (on clear acrylic). I've quite a stock of them from Downesglaze and Samson but you're limited to their designs and sizes.

 

C) Using strips of self adhesive label (to form the glazing bars) stuck on clear plastic. Time consuming but handy for bespoke windows.

 

D) Very occasionally I've cut the glazing bars from styrene strip and made the frame but it's quite fiddly and I don't often do that.

 

HTH.

[grahame]

A morning photo to set myself up for tackling the roof ridge tiles and remaining windows:

 

 

I appreciate that this block/row will be in the wrong place on the layout but it is, at least, from the road and will be only a couple of blocks out of position. Besides, it's nice to be able to feature an, effectively forward facing, pub. Tooley Street used to have lots of pubs and there is precious few left now. I've included the Shipwright Arms (which is the only one left in the section modelled for the layout but is facing away from the viewing position), the Duke of Clarence (now demolished) and the Antogallican (now an office block behind the façade).

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by grahame

[acg5324]

16 hours ago, grahame said:

Square slates in dark grey (148PC111). They do a version in uneven light grey (148PC112) which is the same but a different colour. I did get that once but it needs painting. DCC Suppliers stock it.

 

HTH

Needless to say they out of stock......looking at aerial views around Olympia looks like Grey is the colour. I’ll have to use my Scalescenes  download.

[grahame]

24 minutes ago, acg5324 said:

Needless to say they out of stock......looking at aerial views around Olympia looks like Grey is the colour. I’ll have to use my Scalescenes  download.

 

Typical. I could do with ordering some more. I usually stock up at TINGS but have mail ordered from DCC Supplies in the past.

 

AFAIA it's a Spanish product so I guess they've got other priorities. But it might be worth waiting for it. Make the roofs from plain card (as tents) and they can be later covered with Redutex. It's quick and easy to fit being self adhesive and flexible. That's basically what I do.

 

 

[acg5324]

There seems to loads on eBay but all from Italy with hideous postal charges.

[Dave John]

I have in the past ordered direct from redutex in spain using paypal. The stuff arrived within a week.

 

However as you say Grahame things are in a state of flux atm. 

 

 

[grahame]

The elastic band no longer required. All constructional tasks targeted for today have been met. I've made and added the roof ridge tiles, dormer windows and the remaining glazing/windows which means the wall panels are now fixed in place. It looks a little like a RTP resin model (Scenecraft and so on) and far too pristine. There are other details to be added but it needs a lot of dirtying down. 

 

But I think I'll give this project a rest now and turn my attention back to the footbridge as the RTV silicon rubber and resin casting chemicals have arrived and are out of quarantine. And I need to research, contemplate and consider the shop frontages before doing any more on the row/block.

 

 

[grahame]

I've started on the ground floor of the end two buildings. The end one was still a pub called 'St Johns Tavern' in the 1980s so that is how I'll model it. Oddly it was originally named the 'Antigallican and Star' which, with the pub at the other end of the row being the 'Antigallican', could have been quite confusing. However, Antigallican, a named derived from hostility to the French and Gallican church, was a popular pub name during the Napoleonic wars period. 

 

I don't recall going in there but being a Watney's pub it would have been very unlikely. The other building appears to have been quite derelict at that time but finding information and pictures from the period has been difficult. However getting the ground floor in place, even when unfinished and only temporarily, gives grounding and solidity to the building:

 

 

[grahame]

Four shop fronts left to do . . . . then making and adding the more fragile details:

 

[grahame]

To make it easier and quicker I decided to have a converted double fronted shop, rather like those small supermarkets such as Fine Fare and the local ones you used to see in the 70s and 80s. I just need to settle on the branding and colouring. Hornsby Broadway has a Fine Fare shop which made me think about it, although the building is more modern. The small shop next to the Antigallican (in green) will be a newsagents/tobacconists and I might even go for a shuttered option for the other shop for ease of modelling.

 

I expect people are getting a bit tired of pics of this building row/block, each with just a little more work on it. So this is it for today. Promise.:

 

 

 

[Siberian Snooper]

I think it's good to have a near blow by blow series of postings,  it certainly gives me an insight into how things can be done and gives some inspiration for us mere mortals who aspire to such levels of modelling ability.

 

 

 

 

[acg5324]

Wavy Line used to be one of the small grocery stores....and VG? Stores.

[Scott B]

1 hour ago, Siberian Snooper said:

I think it's good to have a near blow by blow series of postings,  it certainly gives me an insight into how things can be done and gives some inspiration for us mere mortals who aspire to such levels of modelling ability.

 

 

 

 

I agree and I am certainly not getting tired of the updates, keep them coming Grahame.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Scott B

[richard i]

I agree, I like to see how constructions are done. It used to frustrate me reading model magazines in the 1980s there would be a kit building article where all the pictures were of a finished and painted model. My other bug bear was when people said, “ I (eg) ballasted in the usual way. “  it left me shouting at the magazine, “ fine but what is the usual way”  only years later did I learn. 
richard 

[grahame]

14 hours ago, acg5324 said:

Wavy Line used to be one of the small grocery stores....and VG? Stores.

 

I don't remember Wavy Line but VG, yep. I've already got a Londis and Budgens, and there is also, of course, Spar, Co-op, Liptons, Safeway, Fine Fare and Gateway. Plus this is an interesting site: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/10-old-supermarket-chains-how-12284520  that give a few ideas as well as pics. Fine Fare is currently top of my list but Co-op is also a contender, but I'll do some more research for something suitable.

 

Anyway, I succumbed to the easy, simple and quick option of having a shutters down shop and have managed to get the green newsagent/tobacconist frontage done - very fiddly and fragile as it is all layered on one bent piece of thin clear plastic glazing with some very small window sections, so this is how far I'll take it:

 

 

 

 

 

[grahame]

Co-op it is. Nice, plain and simple livery and branding (using very few letters) as this 1981 pic shows. Plus they're quite ubiquitous - there's even two in our village:

 

 

Here's a quick first stab at it. Wrong font for the lettering and should be lower case, I realise, but that is the only small letters I have. And I need to straighten things up a little, although it is very small in N/2mm. However, it is at the back of the layout, behind other buildings and the railway viaduct, so should be difficult to discern clearly:

 

 

[Siberian Snooper]

Would the shutter have been graffitied or tagged in your time period,  I can't really remember when such things really took off, I remember seeing MU or Man Utd on walls at the end of the 60s.

 

 

[grahame]

2 hours ago, Siberian Snooper said:

Would the shutter have been graffitied or tagged in your time period,  I can't really remember when such things really took off, I remember seeing MU or Man Utd on walls at the end of the 60s.

 

 

 

Probably, there's quite a bit on the railways these days although much of it is just tagging rather than artistic graffiti or murals. 

 

I took a lot of photos at the 'cans festival' in Waterloo (in the arches) in 2008 which had a huge amount of interesting and amusing graffiti which was encouraged by the authorities for the festival. Not that pointless defacing tagging.

 

 

 

 

[grahame]

How about a black and white pic? Gives a little grubby period atmosphere . . . . . 

 

[monkeysarefun]

On 11/04/2020 at 03:54, grahame said:

I expect people are getting a bit tired of pics of this building row/block, each with just a little more work on it. So this is it for today. Promise.:

No way, I think these are my favourites so far, hard to choose though when they are all so good, and hard to believe they are 2mm.