A Welsh Warehouse

[Campaman]

Yep that helps, I like to scratchbuild as much as I can as I don't like parting with my Cider vouchers.

 

I have been using 1 and 2mm wire, bbq skewers, cocktail sticks, toothpicks and plastic sprue for downpipes and using thin strips of tape for joins, the straws for hoppers is great info, as I have a box in the shed that I got as I knew there would be a use for them at some point.

 

 

Its the actual guttering I have been struggling with, at the moment I am sneaking cotton buds out of the bathroom removing the two ends and slicing the hollow shafts in two.

 

Thanks for the info, will be giving your methods a try.

[Chubber]

Yep that helps, I like to scratchbuild as much as I can as I don't like parting with my Cider vouchers.

 

I have been using 1 and 2mm wire, bbq skewers, cocktail sticks, toothpicks and plastic sprue for downpipes and using thin strips of tape for joins, the straws for hoppers is great info, as I have a box in the shed that I got as I knew there would be a use for them at some point.

 

 

Its the actual guttering I have been struggling with, at the moment I am sneaking cotton buds out of the bathroom removing the two ends and slicing the hollow shafts in two.

 

Thanks for the info, will be giving your methods a try.

 

 

Hi C'man,

 

 

Yep that helps, I like to scratchbuild as much as I can as I don't like parting with my Cider vouchers.

 

 

If you are as determined as I am to keep the profits of Messrs Peco as small as possible you may consider the following, if you have access to a grinding wheel and some old all-hard hacksaw blades. Grind some ends up to scrape the shape in the edge of some 40th plasticard.

 

 

Three tools, L to R Cut-off tool, back curve and inside/outside radius scraper

 

 

 

 

 

In practice it is necessary only to undercut the first 1/2" of each visible end, if hidden behind woodwork it is unnecessary. Cut off with sufficient plain material to glue straight to the wall under the eaves.

 

Something to think about?

 

It's one of the few occasions I use plastic,

 

Doug

[matto21]

Wow - another fabulous building. Looks awesome

[Campaman]

Hi Doug

 

Very inetersting method on your guttering, I have a cutter from an old blade already ground up that I already use, can't remember where that tip came from, but works great for cutting plastic by removing material.

 

I have a bench grinder as well as air grinders right out side my office door, and our engineers get through a dozen hacksaw blades a week sometimes, will be doing some grinding in the morning.

 

Cheers

[Chubber]

Hi Doug

 

Very inetersting method on your guttering, I have a cutter from an old blade already ground up that I already use, can't remember where that tip came from, but works great for cutting plastic by removing material.

 

I have a bench grinder as well as air grinders right out side my office door, and our engineers get through a dozen hacksaw blades a week sometimes, will be doing some grinding in the morning.

 

Cheers

 

Does it look like this? This gets through plastic very quickly, I used to cut perspex for boat windows with one, following an aluminium pattern.

 

 

 

Doug

[Campaman]

Yep thats the design, maybe it was you that had posted it up somewhere before.

[Scalescenes]

If you would like to see this model or Doug's other superb Ahern based Harbour office both will be proudly on display at my Warley stand (F05). Many thanks Doug for the loan of these models, I completely agree with Shortliner, Mr Ahern would have been very happy with both!!!

 

Really like the downpipes and leader heads, I'll have to give that guttering a try too... how do you keep coming up with these great methods!!

[Chubber]

I'm very flattered that this picture, posted in the 'How realistic......' thread has been named as picture of the week. Thank you to those with the business of choosing, just shows what Scalescenes papers can do when you use your imagination a bit!

 

Thanks again

 

Doug

 

[steve22]

Doug, that really is excellent, a superb piece of work and a worthy picture of the week. No wonder the lovely little doggy looks so happy.

Steve.

[Benbow]

Well done! A great boost for us Scalescenes users.

Roger

[hymek2]

Fantastic. I've been without internet for nearly 2 weeks, the first thing I find on return is this. Great inspiration. I printed out some of Scalescenes sheets and "kits" a while ago and have been wondering if the lack of relief in them compared to plasticard would look ok. I'm off to find my card sheets and tool box. Its obviously not a problem at all. Keep posting updates/new buildings.

[Coombe Barton]

In reality the relief in mortar between bricks is about 1/4 -1/3 inch - about 0.1mm in 4mm. Most embossed sheets are much too pronounced in their embossing. If they did it to scale no-one would buy then as it would be scarcely be noticeable. A slight texture on the paper, if you can print it, is all that's needed to be in scale for Scalescenes. Whether it then looks the job is up to the skills of the modeller, as this doubtless demonstrates.

[Chubber]

Years ago I saw some stuff on this site by that very fine and knowledgeable modeller, Miss Prism, in plastic card and it looked first class, not exaggerated at all. On reading her text she described sanding away part of the surface of the brick sheet to lessen the relief.

 

I did buy a couple of sheets and try it, but didn't get on very well. I suspect the problem I had was my comparing my work with hers!

 

Gently depressing the surface of card textures here and there fools the mind into thinking the whole surface has been worked over.

 

Doug

 

PS I heard from John Wiffen today, he arrived safely in UK, thankfully his A380 Airbus stayed in one piece! He'll be at Warley, luckily the Harbour office and the warehouse arrived unscathed, too....Phew!

[Will Vale]

It's an excellent building and very well-deserved pic of the week. 

 

On the subject of mortar relief, I take the point about scale relief being tiny, but what about the different level of shine on mortar vs. bricks? Are there any tricks for replicating that with Scalescenes? I did some bridge abutments using Scalescenes blue brick recently, and I wondered about running a knife along the mortar courses and working weathering powders into them. At the time I decided against it, since it was my first go with the papers and I didn't want to make things too complicated, but that gloss/matt contrast really interests me.

 

Maybe some kind of printed overlay, or a trick like I saw mentioned about making pale window frames by rubbing powders into toner fresh from a laser printer, would work?

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[Modelling Mike]

It's great to see such work being done with Scalescenes papers. I've been using them for a couple of years now and I agree that given imagination (and skill!) they can rival any other medium, as your well deserved "pic of the week" testifies. Inspiring stuff.

 

Mike

[Steve Taylor]

Doug, now that is rather tasty. Thanks for sharing that with us and my apologies for being late in catching up with this. I think i may give card a go after all - just need to find a really weird bond pattern. If i get ot Warley thi year i shall certainly wander over for a looksee.

Cheers

Steve

[Walter Otter]

Your piece is very interesting and I sent it to David Kitchiner who was responsible for the rebuilding of the Madder Valley at Pendon some 30 years ago. He has taken a great interest in John Ahern and continues to carry out work on the Madder Valley still and has a book in preparation on John Ahern.

 

You may like to know that John Ahern's model of the warehouse is to appear in a new Interpretation Gallery to be formed at Pendon and will open early in 2011.

 

The prototype is on the northside of Porthmadoc Harbour and was recently photographed by someone from Pendon. It was converted to residentiaentl use some 40 - 50 years ago.

 

John Ahern's model dates from 1938/9 and his sketch is said to be a very accurate representation of the building at that time.

[Chubber]

Thank you very much for that post, W.O., I've never been to Pendon, although I did contact them by telephone from here in France two years ago to ask for assistance in learning more about John Ahern. I'm sorry to say they were rather unhelpful and my subsequent e-mail remained unanswered. Perhaps I got them on an 'off' day.

 

Your information about the site of the prototype has solved at least one 'mystery' debated on YMR, thanks again,

 

Doug

[Chubber]

It's an excellent building and very well-deserved pic of the week.

 

On the subject of mortar relief, I take the point about scale relief being tiny, but what about the different level of shine on mortar vs. bricks? Are there any tricks for replicating that with Scalescenes? I did some bridge abutments using Scalescenes blue brick recently, and I wondered about running a knife along the mortar courses and working weathering powders into them. At the time I decided against it, since it was my first go with the papers and I didn't want to make things too complicated, but that gloss/matt contrast really interests me.

 

Maybe some kind of printed overlay, or a trick like I saw mentioned about making pale window frames by rubbing powders into toner fresh from a laser printer, would work?

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

 

 

Sorry, Will, missed this post...

 

I'm intrigued with this idea of 'gloss' on the mortar courses, I'm not too sure what you mean, but I have occasionally run a letter opener knife [i.e. blunt] along one or two courses of bricks just to add a little texture at a point that catches the eye, my idea being to just press into the card underneath.

 

I generally tr to texture as little as 5% of a surfae, the human eye sees it subconsciously and then imagines it all over. On a factory LR model ages ago someone wrote me saying it must have taken a great deal of patience to 'cut out all those missing/damaged bricks'. It prompted me to have a count-up, less than a dozen in six square inches!

 

Re the powder on the printer ink window print-outs, I've only done it successfully with a bubble-jet printer using Imperial Leather talc, as I have never bought weathering powders. I did try scraping artists pastel, but it wouldn't scrape finely enough.

 

Best wishes,

 

 

Doug

[Will Vale]

Hi Doug,

 

Thanks for the tip about the mind filling in the other 95% - I'm sure you're right, and it makes some unapproachable tasks approachable.

 

I maybe didn't explain very well, but what I was trying to get at was that when you look at a brick wall where the light's hitting it at an angle, you get lots of shine off the bricks, but almost none off the mortar - assuming the bricks aren't all crumbly of course It'd be nice to get this in a model, but more difficult with brick papers than with plastic sheets. Your pic of the week is a good example of why this matters - the reflected light from the windows makes it clear that they're a different material, and really lifts the look as a result.

 

This is doable with plastic sheet, since you can fill in the mortar grooves with something powdery and dull, but it's harder with the papers - unless anyone has any good ideas?

 

Hope this makes more sense!

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[autocoach]

Incredible work.

 

Amongst my more treasured books is a copy of Miniature Building Construction bought by the original purchaser in June, 1947. I found it about 25 years ago in a collection of books a local hobby store had bought from an estate. If only John Ahern had had Scale Scenics building papers to work with.....

[John P]

I was so inspired by this thread that I found a copy of Miniature Building Construction by John Ahern on ebay for only 20 dollars US. It's a great read with great ideas that still apply today. I'll be needing some background flats for my Southern terminal I've recently started and gives me a boot to the head with ideas

[George Hudson]

I'm very flattered that this picture, posted in the 'How realistic......' thread has been named as picture of the week. Thank you to those with the business of choosing, just shows what Scalescenes papers can do when you use your imagination a bit!

 

Thanks again

 

Doug

 

 

Well deserved recognition for a top class model!

 

(BTW: My wife wondered where I was surfing when I said out loud "Oh that's nice!" on seeing the harbour office model.)

 

Andrew

[kandc_au]

Well deserved recognition for a top class model!

 

(BTW: My wife wondered where I was surfing when I said out loud "Oh that's nice!" on seeing the harbour office model.)

 

Andrew

 

Yep, Women think we only have a one track mind....

 

Khris

[PaternosterRow]

Hi Doug

 

Another incredible build. The tools are ace - very resourceful. I too cook up on a tight budget so your description of how to do very effective (and dare I say better than what's commercially available) gutters and down pipes is brilliant. Thank you for sharing.

 

Regards

 

Mike