Part 5 Working On A Dream: The O Scale Bond's Funeral Home Diorama Project
Working On A Dream: The O Scale Bond's Funeral Home Diorama Project
Part Five: Further Erecting The 1st Floor
Sorry for how long it has been since the last update. I have had some serious problems with my leg again. But I am back at it again because I am having real fun with this project and loving the results. So here we go!
When we last left you, we were erecting the walls on the 1st floor. With all the main walls up, we have to make and install some of the detailed walls on it. We have the round greenhouse wall on the lower level to build and install and some other details to do before applying the stone.
The greenhouse wall is made with a very bendable Crescent watercolor board. Watercolor board is a great stock to use because it is so moisture friendly.. Also a great quality is that it is very bendable. So with that we lay the pattern we made on the graph paper and trace it on to the board, then carefully cut out the wall and windows.
Because the windows are one such a severe curve, we came up with a way that they would look very good. For the window grills are made using .020? aviation wire. They were glued into place using flexible CA glue. The glue is flexible enough for when we make the wall curve that the wire will bend and not loosen. But for a safety step, we soaked a piece of thin masking tape and taped the ends of the wires all away around the insides on the windows. (Figure 1)
We made a false top for the top of the greenhouse wall to help guild it into place and keep the wall round for attaching. To the main structure. When set we glued it in place securely in place and check it with a square (Figure 2)
We made some adjustments to a few areas where Don wanted something that we had to take out during the "Selective Compression" phase of the build so at this stage we made the changes.
We then applied the raised stone bordering trim to the areas of the stone that have them. These were made with extra pieces of board cut into strips and the stone sheets glued to it. These will be painted later.
We then square the Plastruct stone sheets because all you that have worked with Plastruct know they are never square for the most part. Then applying a coat of GE Silicone & CA Glue in spots to the sheets, we apply them to the walls, pressing firmly and clamping where we can. (Figure 3 & 4)
Setting it aside to dry thoroughly. it is workable in 8 hours but 24 to cure.. We took some of the texture paint we used on the stone sheets as filler for any noticeable gaps and the inside and outside corners of the walls. Now this is a bit nerve-wracking, cutting the windows and doors out. Very carefully with a sharp X-acto knife, we cut out all the covered window openings. Some of these take time and do require using the Dremel on them because of the smallness in size. (Figure 5)
After the Plastruct stone sheets were applied we painted it the base color of the actual stone. Don brought us samples on his visit to the NJ Hi-Railers open house for OGR Forum members last January. And remember we applied a rough texture to the sheets before. We mixed acrylics to match the colors of the stone on Bonds and applied it on the sheets. We also painted the border stone reddish as the accent color of the actual border. After they dried, taking a light tan color to the stone itself and wiping it quickly to give it the mortar affect. Then after everything is all dry (A good 48 hours after using acrylics to Plastruct so it bonds better) we take the good old Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear Flat Spray (Krylon # 53530) them spray the whole area and let set. (Figures 6 & 7)
Now we are ready for the next stage in the next installment.
Hope you liked our latest installment the next installment will be on the window trim and block trim of Bond?s. AND THERE WILL BE A GREAT TUTORIAL ON HOW WE MADE THE CLAPBOARD SIDING ON THE BUILDING UPGRADING ISSUE PROCEDURE THAT WAS USED IN AN OLD JAPAN TRADE MAGAZINE! I promise the next update will be sooner. I am still having a lot of problems with my left and with that and working on this (on a portable workbench in bed while Maria works on it from the main table) it gets kind of hard LOL. Hope you enjoy: Mark
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