iL Dottore Posted August 14, 2011 Share Posted August 14, 2011 One of the features of the Old Blue Last, the Shoreditch prototype for the Mr Brunel's Hat pub project, is the intricate stucco work on the building. As seen here: There is an intricate geometric frieze (in white in the photo) and elaborate stucco detailing with a plant motif used to the separate brick upper floors from the rendered (ground floor) part of the pub. This was quite a challenge and I went through about 8 versions of the geometric frieze, before I had a master that I considered acceptable. Although I tried to follow the original pattern, it proved impossible to copy in 4mm (at least in terms of creating a plasticard master, perhaps an etch or a laser cut strip might work), so instead of having a complex pattern like here: it ended up somewhat simplified as below. The strip was constructed asymetrically to allow for trimming and fitting to the building The plant "strip" was somewhat easier to create and was a loose interpretation of the original. This one only went through 2 incarnations before having a decent final master. The most tedious part was slicing the Noch and Faller plants in half... In comparison, the window surrounds and window arch and pillar decorations were fairly simple. Once completed, the masters were mounted in a black plasticad box ready for pouring the RTV (room temperature vulcanisation) silicon rubber. A pretty straightforward task and I used MicroMark's 2-part RTV silicon rubber - an easy 50:50 mix and pour Once I had my moulds, I started making my resin copies... I tried out all three types of two-part resin that I have in stock, before settling on a golden coloured resin which when set has a nice tan colour to it. The advantage of this particular resin is that it mixes well, even in small (10mL in total) quantities, it sets rapidly - even for very thin items and, a plus found through trial and error, as the "pot life" is only two minutes when it starts setting it first becomes jelly like which allows me to smooth off the back of the casting, leaving me with less clean up to do on the finished item. This resin also hardens off, very very quickly, thus allowing me to make two sets of castings/day (one I do before work, the orther upon my return). Unfortunately, despite using cheap brushes to brush in the liquid resin to eliminate air bubbles before the pour, there have been some rejects (so I'll be making enough castings for the number of items needed + 50% overage to allow for breakage and QC rejection) In the picture above are some cleaned up castings, but - and again found through trial and error - as the resin sands down very easily and very quickly and as the cleaned up items are very fragile, I've decided to clean up castings on an "only as needed" basis. So only a few dozen more casting sessions to go and then it's adding the facades to the plasticard shell (Episode 4: Mr Brunel Gets Dressed.) As always, comments and critques welcomed... F Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iL Dottore Posted August 17, 2011 Author Share Posted August 17, 2011 A postscript: I am really not happy with the way the geometric frieze has turned out. Despite making a second silicon mould, the resulting castings still lack crispness, unlike the other castings, and given the fragility of the cleaned up and thinned down casting there's not much improvement I can make on the finished item. I'm now wondering if I should completely abandon the geometric frieze and replace with plain plastic strip, or find something that will look adequately geometric and then build the whole strip as one piece. Youre answers on a postcard, please Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Holliday Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 One idea I have tucked away to reproduce this sort of effect is the use of pre-cut sticker strips as used by card makers etc. I picked up some bargain packs which had Greek key patterns etc., probably from somewhere like Poundland, but I will have to hunt to find them, to see what size they are. I have looked through the Hobby Craft website and all I can come up with is a lace design - code 280561 in gold, but I am sure there must be a source out there somewhere, but I don't know if it would be small enough for your purpose, as your frieze looks to be around 15 inches deep, requiring a 4mm high strip. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady_Ava_Hay Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 I have not had to do this but looking at the photo I would be tempted to concentrate on the shape of the jutting top and bottom edges and use the photo to produce a dark grey print of the shadows in the frieze. The theory is that if you shone a bright light directly onto the frieze it would disappear anyway and your moulding will require a touch of grey paint just to show up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisf Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 That you do not like the way the frieze has turned out shows once again that you set yourself high standards. Not enough of us do this! Remind me how long the frieze will be when fixed to the building. I was wondering whether you could get the right effect by making the geometric shapes not from resin but from microstrip cut to even length with a mini guillotine and fitted together with the aid of graph paper. "You haven't tried this yourself, have you?" asked iL Dottore and chrisf had to agree. Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iL Dottore Posted August 18, 2011 Author Share Posted August 18, 2011 ...I was wondering whether you could get the right effect by making the geometric shapes not from resin but from microstrip cut to even length with a mini guillotine and fitted together with the aid of graph paper.... Hah! (he laughs, derisively), the first thing that I tried. It probably would work in 7mm, but in 4mm cutting multiple pieces of plastic strip to the degree of accuracy needed (i.e. < 0.01mm variance) is far beyond my skills. Even with a jig, there was still too much variability in the cut pieces. Not by much, maybe 0.05mm or so, but still too much for the pieces needed to assemble the frieze which is only 4mm high. Hence a master, cut from strip and hollow square rod, was made in the hope that a decent master (which took about 6 or 7 tries just to get acceptable) could be replicated in resin... The result, as shown above, is just about acceptable, but not good enough for the MBH. However, like any clinician facing a difficult case, I have called in a specialised consultant More of which later... F Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chubber Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 I'd go for Dave's suggestion and concentrate on a good upper and lower 'line' and work up a good imitation print-out, over scale, finally reducing its size to fit between the boundaries. By working oversize in say, MS Photo draw [other drawing programmes are available, texts will be charged at your standard net work....] you can apply shadow effects to conform with your layouts standard weathering shadow direction. That you do not like the way the frieze has turned out shows once again that you set yourself high standards. Not enough of us do this! Well said, Chris, this is deffo high-end modelling. Doug Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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