A WWII scenic diorama

I'm posting this up as although its got nothing to do with railways, it is modelling with a bit of scratch building and I suppose could have techniques that are transferable through all modelling mediums.

I've taken a strong notion to build a WWII scenic diorama. I like to see military layouts ( take a bow Mr Styles ) and thought I could have the drama of the military with the experience and practice of the various structure builds.

Mediums will be in plaster, plastic, balsa wood, scenic scatter materials and various paint and weathering materials. the scale is to !/35th scale.

It has no name as I will be very much making this up as I go along based on other diorama's i have seen on UTube and other sites.

I hope you find it interesting.

I have been working tonight on the element that gives any good diorama / layout its foundation ...... the baseboard.

I'll be back with some pictures and an explanation of where things are going shortly.

cheers

toto

 

and ...... from the start .....

baseboard made of 9mm ply .....

it started off in a rectangular shape but there is no fun in that ..... a bit bland so i decided to cut it to have the scene on the angle.

followed by some high density insulation sheet. a bit like Kingspan but without the price tag. Only £ 5.00 for a sheet which was 450mm wide by about 1200mm long.

its going to have to be two thicknesses deep .........

with enough cuttings to fill in the gap.

Now .... I did say two sheets deep ...... seems a bit thick ..... right .......

no ......

there is a sewer being modelled into the street scene which shall be viewable from the side elevation. i saw this being done on another diorama so can't claim the idea but i thought it was a great touch.

it will go around the height as shown above and the side walls will more or less reach ply level with the floor of the sewer showing concrete benching etc.

So, I have some measuring to do to place the sewer as close as possible to the centre of what will be a cobble stone road, complete with manholes and gullies. there will be a bombed out building running parallel with the sewer towards the rear corner.

The diorama will be viewable from all angles and hopefully I'm going to be able to pull off a detailed bombed out interior.

I wont say much more than that untill I have some more measurements taken and the baseboard layers cut and glued down.

Anyway ....... thats the plan for now.

toto

 

Back in the shed tonight.

and ...... onwards ...

cut some wooden formers which are intended to try and give a uniform curvature for the arched part of the bend. I purposely extended the curve on the cardboard tube with the intention of using wooden formers to slightly push the wall sides out a bit.

then I started to form the rest of the formers which will give the vertical sides....

and ....

and we have this ......

once dry, I will use some plaster of paris to " plaster to the lower sides to finish the former which the actual brickwork shall be shaped to.

the whole of the above structure is sacrificial and shall be tossed once the brick mould sections have been glued around the whol thing to form the actual sewer.

It will become clearer as I go. ..... I hope. The next step was to carve out the " excavation to place the sewer into .

and a trial fit ....

once the sewer has been cast, the formers will be removed and the finished structure placed into the excavation. Before that however, a concrete invert level will be created and a walkway either side cast in concrete.

Then I will need to use the off cuts to cut a lid from to close the excavation. once I'm happy with it, it will be permanently fixed in place and the cobble road build over the top of it. One manhole cover will be placed over the centre line on the road surface and a couple of gutter rain gullies installed.

and there is where I left it. The insulation board was clamped in order to cut through the two sheets at the same time to keep them perfectly aligned with each other. I have a couple of off cuts on test with " titebond " glue and if its cured ok by the time I get back to the shed tomorrow, I'll use it on the main sheets etc.

thats it for now.

cheers

toto

 

It all looks a bit heath Robinson at the moment .... but dont worry ...... it can only get worse.

 

and we continue ...... the sewer former gets it first coat of plaster .....

one side done ......

both done. now to let it go off a bit before starting to sand down to shape.

meanwhile .....

these need glued together .....

with this .....

until we get the above .....

now back to the sewer former for the first sanding .....

looking rough but its still a tad to moist yet ....

and it will eventually go here ....

So .... I need to install the concrete foundation ;layer for the sewer .....

using this .... DAS clay ..... easy as I can install it quickly by rolling it to width and depth using this .....

a couple of balsa strips providing a width and depth guide from which to roll out the DAS clay ..... with a rolling pin.

and drop it in as above.

looking good .....

now its back for another sanding attempt ... this time using my black and decker mouse ....

much much better but still another go tomorrow as its still a tad damp.

I will sand it a tad more and then brush on a slurry plaster coating to just achieve a slightly more level coating to take the finished brickwork. after the slurry is applied, there will be another final sanding before wrapping the whole structure in cling film and starting to apply the brick courses. the cling film will prevent the plaster cast brick courses from sticking to the sacrificial former.

more on that as it happens ....... it will become clearer.

one the brick work is applied ( and final dimensions on the sewer base are available ) the sewers invert base level will be ready to cast in yet more DAS clay to enable the completed sewer to be seated into it. ..... Not much to do then ....... and thats before I start the brick moulds ..... Never mind, if all goes well, it will be worth it as an exercise in using all the various materials alone as well as hopefully the finished result.

cheers for now

toto

 

Hi Kimbo,

The mould will have cling film wrapped around it and will simply be pulled out of the bottom of the structure. In theory. I can break the mould out if necessary. I'll need to pack out the bottom edges on both sides a bit yet as they turn in. I still have a bit more plastering to do to get the walls vertical to ensure the moulds will drop out.

The invert / floor level does not go in until the mould is released either. I saw this done on a video on the net. In saying that the guy did not show the mould coming out but it worked for him. .......... you got me worried now.

Fingers crossed.

Toto

 

I'd rather keep my potential failures to myself thanks and save a bit face with a si ple explanation of why it potentially did not work as opposed to a full frontal humility.

Fingers crossed it works ...... if not ..... I'll try again. Releasing from the mould is probably the biggest potential issue. It will happen but I need to make sure the vertical edges are vertical and not drifting inwards ( like at present ) otherwise it will not release. I need to add more plaster to get the side walls vertical and flat.

Should e doable.

Cheers

Toto

 

That's an idea. .... question is ...... do I have any ..... I'll check.

Cheers

Toto

 

Now ..... a step backwards tonight. i plastered up the former to try and straighten out the sides but it was more bother than what it was worth. So, I started another version and ....... what a breeze.

I'll spare you the slow build up and get straight to the point here. I used a cardboard former as before and took a little more time to get the sides straight from the off this time. Once I jad that done .... I gave it a coat of MODROC plaster bandage to bring the whole thing together.

here are the results.

much better sides.

and the nlast one

so, the sides are much straighter and generally uniform. I just need to let the plaster bandage cure ( until tomorrow ) and then give it a light sanding just to take the very slight edges off.

Then its cling film ....... I still have to cast the brickwork casts / moulds and that will probably be another nights work as it will take a fair few mould sections to get the number of casts that I need to complete it.

It is a shame really as you see very little of it once its in place and mainly covered but I think its worth the effort.

back to it tomorrow night.

cheers

toto

 

As I said, a small step back but caught up already.

I need to get myself into casting mode. There is a ton load of casts between brick walls, cobbles, lintel, cills, doors, window openings, manhole covers ...... it goes on and kn.

The first is the brick moulds for the sewer though so I'll be breaking into that over the next couple of days.

A bit of light sanding then wrap in cling film and it's ready to accept the casts. I dont know whether to use pigment dyes or paint to colour the casting plaster. Undecided as yet.

The second sewer mould is about 4 inches short of the length it needs to be. It was not a mistake but intentional to get me out of my comfort zone. I will now have to introduce a blast hole in the road to allow for modelling a damaged sewer.

That will break up the clean length of road and test my imagination a bit further. Dont know quite how I am going to do it yet. That's for later once the main set section has been cast and ready to drop in.

Nothing like a challenge but the good thing is ........ I get to play with plaster. I love the stuff.

More tomorrow ..... I need to go and find my video reference on utube again. It's a pain to find it.

Cheers

Toto