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Alma Terrace, an A4 diorama


Spotlc
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Thanks again four your encouragement, Kevin, much appreciated!

 

Now, made a bit more progress; I decided on the sunken roof and parapet, which I made up as a separate item yesterday, here it's just lodged in position before I assemble it to the two buildings:

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All from 1mm thick card with paper coverings, and you see what I mean by funny angles! - the next thing will be finally marrying the three bits together!

 

Cheers,  Mike

 

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Some incredibly tidy card modelling there, sir! If I tried that it would have gaps and rough edges everywhere... 

 

I love watching you build these A4-scenes, especially your use of height to get the most out of the small area - something many tend to forget about, it seems. I can't wait to see this one finished!

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14 hours ago, TechnicArrow said:

Some incredibly tidy card modelling there, sir! If I tried that it would have gaps and rough edges everywhere... 

 

I love watching you build these A4-scenes, especially your use of height to get the most out of the small area - something many tend to forget about, it seems. I can't wait to see this one finished!

Hi TA, many thanks for your kind words!  I've always enjoyed making card models, but 3mm scale is quite small for the aged mitts, so I often make blunders which then need ages to repair, which just slows things down!

Cheers, Mike

 

11 hours ago, Kevin Johnson said:

Really nice card modelling Mike, it’s all starting to come together nicely.

Thanks again, Kevin, I think I am getting close to a "stage" with this, but it seems to be taking some time for such a tiny model!

Cheers,  Mike

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4 hours ago, Jerry1975 said:

It's surprising how much time even a tiny diorama can take, yours is looking great,  keep up the good work.

Hi Jerry,  many thanks for your encouragement!

Cheers, Mike

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The two parts of the building were first glued together, back face down on the suface plate, then the support ribs behind were added. 

 

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 To make sure everthing was properly lined up, the roof section was joined to the base in-situ,  and to prevent  the whole thing ending up stuck to the frame panels, I used the old trick of  kitchen clingfilm as a mask, which is only a few microns thick, and forms the perfect barrier to almost any kind of adhesive.

 

 

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 This shot "across the rooftops"  gives an idea of what the finished thing might look like - still a lot to do - weathering, lighting, painting, and so on, but for now I'm reasonably happy!  I'll have a little break from the new build now, and instead show a few pics of building the houses, which I did last year.

 

Cheers, Mike

 

 

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On 09/10/2020 at 16:18, Kevin Johnson said:

Mike I would be more than happy with the diorama you are modelling. Looking forward to seeing the lighting and weathering.:good:

 

Thanks again, Kevin!   Still a long way to go, but I'm still enjoying the challenges of "Tiny"!!

Cheers,  Mike

 

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Bob the Builder.  A Diversion!

 

I apologise again to the railway enthusiasts here, because this diversion is about model buildings rather than railways, but since buildings are often part of micro layouts and dioramas, I hope I am forgiven.

 

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I had already made the row of terraced houses, which are from an old, now discontinued Scalescenes download, again reduced to 1/100.   I used a similar foam core technique that I had played about with in New Prospect Lane, but modified to take account of the smaller 3mm scale.  This poor photo is the only pic I have of them when first built, but there are some better photos I took whilst I was putting them together.

 

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The foam cores were made from 30mm thick high density foam glued up to make 60mm blocks, then cut out on the bandsaw in batches.  I found out the hard way that transparent windows against a solid background  will not work, so these have two full height 15x10mm recesses cut where the windows and doors are on the front face. These recesses were cut out on a bench router, but the whole thing could have just as well  been done with a hot wire foam cutter with far less noise and mess!

 

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The gable ends and party walls were cut out of 3mm MDF, a bit over scale thickness for 1/100, but not too noticeable, and then the paper covers stuck on with Prittstick.

 

 An aside now,  nothing to do with the model  but just for interest, an  explanation of the origin of this particular design -  the use of party walls rising above the roof line dates back to Victorian times, when unscrupulous builders would often omit the party wall above the second floor bedroom on the grounds of economy,  leaving the loft space of the entire terrace  as a huge fire corridor, threatening all the houses, even if only one of the houses caught fire.  Legislation was eventually passed to stop this practice, pioneerered in part, I think, by the London Fire Brigade, and this style of terraced house with a visible party wall was the result.

 

Cheers,  Mike

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Always good to see what others are doing on the Scalescenes front.  3mm does seem to be thick for 1/100 but in the photo they look good.

 

For my 7mm buildings I use 3.5mm foamcore in place of 3.5mm card (Heavy card when scaled up).  Foamcore is so much easier to cut than card and easier on blades too.

 

John

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2 hours ago, brossard said:

Always good to see what others are doing on the Scalescenes front.  3mm does seem to be thick for 1/100 but in the photo they look good.

 Hi John,  yes, you are right, they are a bit meaty for 3mm scale,  - for all sorts of reasons I ran out of 2mm MDF,  but I'll pretend they were built to a high standard, and had 13" party walls!  I wanted to compare cutting them out on the bandsaw with cutting out in card - dimensional accuracy, surface finish, etc,  so I pressed on regardless!

 

I have used 3mm foamboard for 1/76th models, and again you are right, about it being far easier to cut than thick card.  I did have some issues with the open cut edges showing through the paper cover sheet sometimes, and the idea of these foam cores is to allow, as far as possible, the use of 1mm, or less card for the facades, but the jury is still out!

 

Cheers, Mike

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712138801_pic29.JPG.336f1c45be61b03112e57289f3da6882.JPG

 

Here is one way of making realistic windows any size you want - the frames are first printed on self adhesive label paper, which is then stuck to a thin transparent plastic, - can be anything that comes to hand as long as it is flat and can be cut.   Then comes the hard bit - each "pane" is carefully cut out with a scalpel, then the tiny piece of paper lifted with the tweezers, leaving the glazed frame intact ready to be fixed inside the window aperture.   I set out of the graphics in Inkscape, using a layer taken from the original wall template, and here I have printed the whole set for two houses at one go.

 

I should emphasise that  I learned this technique by reading articles and threads  by Doug Dickson ("Chubber"), a brilliant  architectural modeller, in the Card Modelling forum here on RMWeb, and that the forum is a showcase of inspirational work for anyone interested in making more varied buildings than commercial offerings can provide, although I often feel rather inadequate when I see some of the great stuff on there!

 

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Just for comparison, these are the panels cut to size, the one on the left is ready to glue up, the one on the right has yet to have the "glazing" revealed.

 

Cheers,  Mike

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Do you buy Shellac ready to use or mix your own?

Shellac is a time-proven  traditional material made from insect secretions dissolved in alcohol and deserves a bit of study.

.Please tell us more about your knowledge and recommendations for Shellac.

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That's a good method for making windows Mike, assuming your hand is steady enough to make accurate cuts.  I have tried it but I've never been any good at that.

 

If I were making Scalescenes in 4mm, I would go for the Brassmasters windows and doors.

 

My method for windows and doors is to use Evergreen strip in layers.  I'm doing 7mm of course:

 

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This is the front wall of my Stationmasters house. 

 

This is:  http://shop.finescalebuildings.com/product/station-masters-house

 

There's some nice kits but the range is a bit limited.  There's a free download.

 

John

 

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Pandora said:

Do you buy Shellac ready to use or mix your own?

Shellac is a time-proven  traditional material made from insect secretions dissolved in alcohol and deserves a bit of study.

.Please tell us more about your knowledge and recommendations for Shellac.

Hi Pandora,  thanks for your interest.   I've always mixed my own, but you can buy it ready made in UK as "Button Polish", French Polish", or "Sanding Sealer"  I'm sure there are other suppliers, but in UK I always bought shellac flakes from either Fiddes in Cardiff, or Industrial Plasters in Chippenham. Rough proportions are 100g of flakes to 1 litre of alcohol for a light lacquer, 200 g/litre for medium and 300g/litre for a heavy brew!  Crush the flakes before dissolving in alcohol, which takes a few hours - and best left overnight.  Any transparent alcohol will do - methylated spirits or iso-propyl alcohol, but needs to be 90% or more, and the proportions are not critical for model making. Either brush or dip, the medium brew will transform card into an almost plastic like material, and prevent ragged edges etc. Curiously, although called French polish it is extremely hard to find in France!

 

Cheers,  Mike

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6 hours ago, brossard said:

If I were making Scalescenes in 4mm, I would go for the Brassmasters windows and doors.

Thanks for your encouragement, John!  Yes the Brassmasters  windows are very good and ideal for 4mm, but sadly they don't exist for 3mm!   To be honest, this is a fairly tedious way of doing it, but the results are very satisfying, and it beats the pants off printing black windows on OHT film! Oh for a printer with a white ink cartridge, which would make this almost redundant!

 

Your 7mm building looks lovely - I've always been afraid of 7mm - it would show up my failings to easily!

 

Cheers,  Mike

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Oh, I forgot you were doing 3mm, you're in the same boat as me wrt windows and doors then.  Yes, making windows and doors from scratch is tedious but we all suffer for our hobby.

 

I did 4mm for 30 years and made a number of Scalescenes buildings for the club layout.  These are still going after at least 10 years.

 

7mm has been a revelation for me, nearly 5 years now. I don't think my work is flawless but you do learn by doing.

 

Keep doing and learning.  :clapping:

 

John

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1212618026_pic31.JPG.b7319bc7b25208a2540ccddbaec9ce8a.JPG

 

This gives an idea of how the terrace is assembled - the foam cores are glued between the walls, a strip of pastel coloured paper is glued into the window recesses, and then the front wall, complete with glazing, door, curtains, blinds, etc is glued in position as a single unit. On the right are base wall templates cut out, ready for the printed brick covering to be stuck on, and the window sills to be fitted.

 

I used Prittstick, or similar glue stick, for a long time  to stick the cover sheets on but I am increasingly printing the cover layers on the self adhesive paper that is sold for postage labels.  You can get this in A4 size, a bit more expensive than ordinary inkjet paper, but far, far easier to align with the base sheet.   It sometimes needs a bit of extra adhesive when folded behind a recess, especially if the return fold is narrow, but this applies to glue sticks as well.  Other advantages are that the adhesive layer is very thin, and far more evenly applied than I have ever managed with a glue stick, and it doesn't make your fingers sticky either! 

 

Cheers,  Mike

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On 23/10/2020 at 16:00, Kevin Johnson said:

Mike I like the way you have made the terraced houses, great modelling.:D

Hi Kevin, thanks again for your kind words!   I started do do these because although I love the Scalescenes designs, It isn't always necessary to have all the elaborate detail of the building's interior, so I have tried to combine the  best of the facades and roofs with a quickly made support core.  In fact, it's not that quick, and I need to do a bit more work to get it right, but worth going on with, as my Dad used to say!

 

Cheers,  Mike

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On 07/10/2020 at 15:34, Spotlc said:

Thanks again four your encouragement, Kevin, much appreciated!

 

Now, made a bit more progress; I decided on the sunken roof and parapet, which I made up as a separate item yesterday, here it's just lodged in position before I assemble it to the two buildings:

2057206347_pic24.JPG.a9ec5219c7e98de0ab1038b352a466f7.JPG

 

All from 1mm thick card with paper coverings, and you see what I mean by funny angles! - the next thing will be finally marrying the three bits together!

 

Cheers,  Mike

 


Hi Mike, afraid I’ve been a bit behind reading up on this one, but this photo stood out for me - to get the different parts and unusual angles to fit so well is really good.  The parapet also has a good depth - especially important as we see far more of roofs on models than in real life!
 

I had a go at a simple straight one in last year’s Cakebox challenge, which is how I know how good yours is!

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Hi Keith, 

thanks again for your encouragement!   You are too kind - it looks better in the pic than it actually is, and you don't want to know how long I really spent faffing about with it!  Your effort for the Cakebox challenge looks excellent, and I'm enjoying your revival of Union Station.

 

Cheers,  Mike

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