Building display dioramas

nice one Mr Porter

 

Brook's brook

 

This morning the Sun is out and shining brightly flooding the workshop with light, on checking yesterday evenings work I saw the base oil paint for the river bead had dried nicely... surprised as it had been layered on thickly and the plaster form was drying back without any evidence of cracking, still not gone pink yet but give it a couple of days. So with that I gave the river bed a translucent layer of mid brown varnish to add structure and blend the colours together, this seemed to create the effect I want together as a basing for the water resin. Now I don't know if the rivers in Scotland are like this but this is starting to look very much like the River Churnet in it's upper confluence , so maybe there's a bit of the subconscious at play here. Anyway in bright light I took another photo but not before I'd sprinkled a goodly layer of coarse sharp sand and grit onto the wet paint mix. Note also the speed in which L Cut sent me the brick overlay sheets... they have been in my workshop now for two days.

 

Gee thanks Gary for the compliment much appreciated, but can you recommend a realistic water product please I'm getting a bit lost what with the different manufacturers specs? I've been looking at various products but would like to have your take on the matter... thanks tho for an offer to visit you in Sydney... mate you just never know

 

Started to apply the L Cut Creative laminates this evening, starting with the main buttress walls and working outwards towards the wing walls, its a bit like wallpapering getting the patterns to match is similar to lining up the brick courses. I trimmed the edges to a 45 degree angle making a nice snug join then PVA glued the segments in place... a bit fiddly and a sharp craft knife helps, so changing the blade regularly is important. So here we are with results so far.

 

Ha Hmm er yes it was noted ...

 

Big big push in the workshop today shifting this diorama forward, super glue, pva, plaster of paris and spray paint all over my fingers as I surged to beat the loss of daylight. So right now the brick laminates from L Cut Creative have been cut and glued to the mdf bridge form, the stone masonry plinth carrying the bridge deck beams has been fitted which involved a small amount of sculpting with a craft knife and some two pack Isopon. The brick laminates have been spray painted to waterproof the fibres and this was followed with a wet pour of plaster of paris on the river banks, I am now going to leave this to dry out thoroughly over the next few days before I move onto basing the ground and adding the nature along with a small culvert opening which I haven't done yet.

With daylight fading fast here is the bridge now in a base coating of Matt Black.

I've yet to fashion the wing wall cap stones but have added a deep level land drain pipe for interest, the story goes that further up the line as the railway crosses into hilly ground vast amounts of surface water accrue along the cess edges and have to be dirrected into the river lower down.

Looks like snow but in fact its the newly formed terrain of the river bank in plaster of paris.

 

Now in usual style here is the fun part... for new Platform 1 members we often have a fun part in these build threads where we play with our work... so here is some playtime. Yes Stoke 5D shed's very own 75030 (an engine which has not featured on here for ages and is far from completed) crosses over the bridge light engine on its way to somewhere on the Churnet Valley line.

And if the shot looked like that in real life then with a bit of flair we can make a model look the same too... enjoy.

Work starts on the girders tomorrow.

 

Oh I forgot to mention about those Gary. Yes on the Churnet Valley line which went from North Rode Junction near Macclesfield to Uttoxeter the line crosses the River Churnet many times, now in my travels and also from my time working on the railway I noticed that all the main river bridges had a series of wooden piles driven into the bed in parallel lines, particularly the bridges at Consal, Froghall and Oakamoor, the bridge lower down still at Crumpwood had twin pairs of these piles as this bridge was considerably larger. Now I believe these were set in place by the railway (LMS) civil engineers so as to construct temporary wooden platforms above the water line whenever major maintenance was called for underneath the bridge deck.

 

Oh thanks for the kind comment on this build Gary , yes I have a picture of what I mean showing these temporary baulks positioned in a flowing river, the picture shows the replacement of bridge 31 just to the north of Oakamoor tunnel in 1932. The steel girder bridge is still there as good as the day it was installed, it replaced an earlier wooden trestle bridge on the same site which dated from the construction of the line in 1852. I'll upload this picture later tonight for folk to see.