Very nice scene Bob. Obviously no Health and safety in Barchester, with an open blade, and quite right too! Where did you get the figures from? Making good progress on my first scratchbuilt model. Will post pictures soon, having a few technical difficulties uploading them to the lap top at present.
The figures come from Dapol and Airfix keekster.
Perhaps I should have put a couple of dabs of red paint in the saw dust pile under the table? Anyway, what's a couple of fingers or so to the stalwarts of Barchester? Nothing that a plate of pie and chips won't cure.
Looking forward to some pictures too.
Picked up some weather powders yesterday, or rather 50p coloured chalks from a local art shop. So cheap and available in various dirty colours, just a scrape with a blade and you have loads of powder. I suspect the trick is not to get too carried away. An experiment with a scrap piece of card slowed a little goes a long way. I've even got some green to create some moss on the roof and gutters. Photos to follow
Great stuff keekster. You are quite right about a little going a long way and you are also right to practice first. I try never to put anything new to a finished model until I am pretty sure of what the effect is going to be.
Hi Bob
Managed to upload some pictures. Made slight blunder with roof tile sheet slightly out of alignment and small gap between them. Hoping weathering will disguise it!
Work in progress:
Roof on, and painted detailing to follow
and
Be gentle with the comments please, its my first attempt at scratchbuilding in card!
There's no doubt that you have looked, listened and learned keester. So much so in fact that by the time you have added your gutters, drain pipes, maybe a couple of advertising posters, doors etc you will have a very presentable model that is unique to you. I also think that you should open a thread of your own devoted to your progress in scratch building and include the above pictures to start it off so that other beginners can see for themselves that when more experienced modellers say 'you too can produce good results' they can see the proof of the pudding as it were.
Let's have more pictures as you progress.
Thanks Bob, much appreciated. I have actually fitted doors, which are fitted in the open position, and painted green. You can just see a bit of them above. I did a finer 3mm scrib on them. I'm still trying to figure out the gutters. I've folder some cut card (postcards) as suggesed, and they will need some small spacers, but not sure whether to paint them (black) before fitting. It will be hard to paint them once fitted, without getting paint on the roof edge or walls. But they are a little flimsy to paint prior to fitting, so am struggling to make my mind up! Down pipes are easy. I paint first, and prop up using a couple of clothes pegs at the base, then when dry, cut to length at the bottom end.
My fault here about the guttering keekster. I should have said earlier that I have several small sheets of card, including post cards and file cards that I paint in advance of cutting out so that any delicate bits, like the guttering is already coloured before scribing and folding. Sorry about that.
Bob, I think I've mentioned before that until you started this thread I'd never worked in card.
Thanks to you I have been encouraged to have a go. I started with some Metcalfe kits, to "get the feel" of things without having to worry about design. So far I've completed four of these. My standard must have been OK because a friend asked me to try and improve on a made up kit he had been given, which had been put together badly.
To say badly might be an understatement, because I'm now in the process of taking badly built bits off a Metcalfe station, adjusting the fit, cleaning off glue that looks like it was put on with a 2" paintbrush and reassembling.
Now it might well be easier to set fire to this abomination and buy a new kit for him, but the point is I'm learning a tremendous amount by having a go. This kit may never be of any use on a layout, but it will do wonders for my confidence in working with card. The motto to all this ?? Well I think it enforces the point you have been making for some time --- You'll never be any good at something new until you get off your a
se and try.
So thanks for your encouragement and keep the tutorial going -- it's proving invaluable.
PS Any tips for removing excess glue as thick as icing sugar, without doing too much damage to the card ?
I too have picked up a lot of experience over the years through building kits and seeing how they are made. I couldn't be more chuffed that there are at least three of you having a go with card as a new modelling medium, new to you that is.
As for removing old chunks of glue I keep a pack of safety razor blades handy and use one of those. If you lie the blade flat on the card in front of the glue blob and then slide it along it should take off a fair amount. Much depends on the type of glue as some of them set as hard as rock. I always use neat PVA in small quantities and, in buildings for example, once it has become handleable, I run a fillet of PVA down all joins.
Accidently, I have dicovered that a folded-up item like 15 x 15 mm chimney stack ( made in 3"-4" lengths ) in card set like hardwood if runny super glue is poured/run along the folds. It's like the model version of epoxy resin. The whole 'stick' of chimney former goes iron-stiff and can be cut to length with a razor saw.
PS Cee Dee, camera still "hors de combat", ;cheapo' cheqer plate still out standing. Keep up the good (Card) work!!!!!!!
Seen one of these? Picked it up at an art suppliers in Perigeuex, for €6-95. Works very well, better if you do thick card from both sides. The packet says 'Beware, Blade very sharp!' What it should say is 'Silly old g^ts should not try it out resting on their desk using only two thin layers of card...'
Didn't know they existed, can't wait to try it out for real.
Hi Again, Cee Dee, and all who try to model with free/cheap materials, piccy below of piece of plastic cut from an old VHS video cassette, it's an acceptable sustitute for engineering brick or industrial surfaces if painted silver perhaps? I intend to cut a narrow strip to try and edge a bit of goods shed platform on which to mount a crane. It's about 7.5 inches long.
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