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Ever evolvin dio. ft. 'THE INDESTRUCTIBLE TREE' as ft. on youtube.


Badder

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When sticking the two halves together, I found super glue works best a little at a time to get the join right. Using the flex as you mentioned to line everything up, then a quick squirt to stick it down.

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6 minutes ago, RichO said:

I have never worked with the MiniArt vacuum buildings.  They actually look like a huge pain in the Dio to work with.  You sure do make the things look good when your done with 'em tho.  keep up the great work!

Thanks Rich.

These two are the first kit buildings I've ever made (those in my Villers Bocage dio were completely scratchbuilt from Plasticard and wooden items)

These two are fairly old kits I believe, and I have to assume their more recent ones are much better (well, I HOPE they are!)

No, they aren't brilliant kits, in fact, they are as you say, a right pain to construct, but I thought they'd come in handy as masters for making moulds. I wanted a source of  walls featuring good brick/stonework and window apertures and also a roof and these two kits seemed ideal for that. I also have another kit waiting in the wings.... Polish Town Buildings, and that should complete my 'library' for moulds.

 

 

ps. If you want to see this building in all its finery, have a look at the Dio RFI, 'Where's Joe?' They did a smashing job!

 

Rearguards

Badder

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7 minutes ago, Ozzy said:

When sticking the two halves together, I found super glue works best a little at a time to get the join right. Using the flex as you mentioned to line everything up, then a quick squirt to stick it down.

Yep, definitely the way to do it Ozzy. I used a few spots of medium CA to 'tack' the two halves together. Being medium there's a small window of opportunity to re-adjust things before it cures, and then I fixed everything by running thin CA into the joins from behind, letting capillary action do all the work. 

Rearguards,

Badder

 

Today

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Today I made the guttering. The sections fit together no problem. How the guttering fits to the building though, is anyone's guess.

The 'brackets', which are spaced all along the guttering at approx 15mm intervals, have arms which I had assumed would fix under the eaves against the exposed rafters. However, they don't. And if they are supposed to fit into little holes in the stonework, there are no holes, and the arms wouldn't reach them even if there were. Well, I could get them to reach, but then the guttering would be completely 'overhung' by the edge of the roof, making the guttering pointless.

So, it looks like I'm going to have to do a bit of modification.

Oh, and that doorway is bugging me, what with it being made for giants. I'll be lowering the height of that in between times.

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

Edited by Badder
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Here's the other corner, with only a tiny bit of scraping back prior to filling and recarving of the stonework pattern. Oh, and as you can see, I've CA'd this building to graph paper as well in advance of adding extensions to the rear.

vi65irE.jpg

 

Below: The guttering laid underneath the eaves to show the completely useless positioning of the bracket 'arms'. I will have to bodge some kind of fixing of the guttering to the building. Lucky then that the area in question will be hidden beneath the roof overhang.

 

lvESrgX.jpg

 

 

But now for the drainpipe. At least that should be easy!

 

TFL

Badder.

Edited by Badder
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Lovely job :thumbsup2:...If you want to make the gutters realistic Badder,use a cheap thin plastic for the brackets that's used in real life then after a couple of months they'll be lying on the ground looking duly knackered....

Edited by Vince1159
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1 hour ago, Vince1159 said:

Lovely job :thumbsup2:...If you want to make the gutters realistic Badder,use a cheap thin plastic for the brackets that's used in real life then after a couple of months they'll be lying on the ground looking duly knackered....

:P  Ha, Vince,

The MiniArt gutters are perfect as they are for British gutters, but need to be upgraded to truly represent the French/Belgiumese styling. I'm going to have to fix the guttering to strips of wood nailed under the eaves. There's probably some architectural name for them, but 'strips of wood nailed under the eaves' will do for me.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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43 minutes ago, FrancisGL said:

Keep up the good work forward ...:popcorn:, cheers Badder

Thanks Francis, nice of you to drop by. I hope you are well,

Rearguards,

Badder

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Update on the subjects for this diorama....As I said, I have a Tamiya Churchill MkVII in the stash with the Eduard PE set to embellish it, and today I purchased Tamiya's Universal Carrier (European Campaign) which comes with 5 figures. I fancy two Churchills and maybe 2 UC's..... we'll see how it goes.

 

TFL

Badder

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5 hours ago, Badder said:

Update on the subjects for this diorama....As I said, I have a Tamiya Churchill MkVII in the stash with the Eduard PE set to embellish it, and today I purchased Tamiya's Universal Carrier (European Campaign) which comes with 5 figures. I fancy two Churchills and maybe 2 UC's..... we'll see how it goes.

 

TFL

Badder

 

It's going to be a full-fledged battlefield ... it reminds me of the diorama models in museums, about battles (for example from the American Civil War)....a lots of work ahead...:D

Cheers Badder

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Hi Francis,

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it won't be a battlefield scene. It'll be  more 'a column of armour passing by a farmhouse'.  I'm hoping to get hold of some good civilian figures and military and have a bit of interaction going on.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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After a lot of messing about with the guttering, trying to figure out how to fix it to the eaves, I finally came to a decision. And that was to remove all of the bracket arms. They just aren't spaced correctly, and don't fit to anything. I was going to have to find some other way. So today I went to my LHS and bought a length of stick.

I cut the stick to length, offered it up to the eaves and marked the positions of the exposed rafters on it. I then cut slots into the stick which accepted those rafters. I didn't bother being to precise as they won't be visible one the guttering is fixed in place. The rear edge of the guttering will be glued directly to the length of stick whilst butting up against the underside of the exposed rafter ends.

BQHO0Oi.jpg

 

 

Everything looks a bit dusty and messy here.  And for some reason the edge of the roof looks bent, but I can assure you it isn't. I can only assume it's been distorted by the extreme closeness of the camera.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited by Badder
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The drainpipe would have been easy-peasy if it weren't for the fact that the two halves of the bottom 'spout' are riddled with flash and are distorted. The locating pin and hole are rendered useless. Cleaning the two halves up meant removing a lot of excess plastic. Unfortunately the two halves still didn't fit together very well and the exit hole turned out to be more of a diamond shape than an oval. Okay I could have spent a bit of time fixing everything, but then I had a spare top end which could be chopped in half and substituted instead.

Yes, there's a lot of flash on those parts too, but otherwise they are much better than the original parts.

 

For those 'beginners' who don't know what flash is, here's a great example, courtesy of MiniArt's Quality Control Department.

MD6RVxc.jpg

 

 

A simple slice half way along the tubing will produce a much nicer 'spout' than the original parts.

 

TFL

Badder

Edited by Badder
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27 minutes ago, RichO said:

I like the way you have "fixed" the miss alignment problems, looks good.  Nice work with the wood beams.

Thanks Rich,

It would have been better if there were nothing to fix, but then I suppose fixing things improves one's skills.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

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Today I have finished off the drainpipe, offering it up to the building so as to ensure the correct alignment of the angled section at the top, and the 'spout' at the bottom.. The drainpipe has the same bracket 'arms' as the guttering, but this time their spacing is not critical and they can be glued directly into small holes which I will drill into the side wall.

 The guttering and drainpipe won't be fitted in place until the building is constructed, painted and weathered.

I have tidied up the building a bit more: filling in the join between the front and left-hand side wall, and made a start on recarving the stonework pattern.

AND MY KITTEN HAS JUST STOLEN A MOUTHFUL OF MY LASAGNE!!!!!!

Moral: don't mix typing and eating your tea.

HA! Not so keen on garlic are you Molly?

 

 

Construction wise, I have finished the triple door assembly including the hinges, the bottom ones of which have to be squeezed into too small an area for my liking. But they are on and the doors fit nicely into the arch and should look quite good. I'm not sure yet whether to show them fully open, partly open, or closed.

 

Next I'm going to make a start on the window and door frames. These are identical to those that came with the previous building. Hopefully they will fit this building without any need for adjustment!

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

Edited by Badder
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

Having removed the window frames from their sprues I test fitted them in the window apertures in the front and side walls. THEY DON'T FIT!

This is down to me making a mistake during the primary construction of the building.

Or rather, it is down to me for reasonably assuming that the window apertures in the outer and inner pieces should be glued together when the two halves of the walls are glued together.

It turns out that they shouldn't be glued together at the primary stage, rather be left to bend and flex when the window frames are inserted. When pushed in from the rear, the sides of the inner window apertures will flex and allow the window frames to be pushed up tight against the rear of the outer apertures' side walls. THEN glue (thin CA) can be used to fix everything together.

 

So, I've had to break the bonds at the joins between inner and outer window apertures. Luckily I used CA to fix them so careful prodding and flexing broke them apart in most cases. Unfortunately I had added tabs to the inners which made breaking some of the bonds harder than it might have been.

 

Looking back now, perhaps the better option would be to sand down the side walls of the inner apertures by the thickness of the window frames, then sandwich the window frames between the inner and outer forms when the walls are glued together.

 

Of course, the instruction sheet doesn't allude to any of this.

 

I will cut and paste this post to the beginning of this section on the 'Ardennes Building', for those who follow this thread in the future.

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

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Today I've made a fair bit of progress, constructing the window frames and preparing the window apertures for their fixing. This involved a bit of scraping away at the window aperture corners with a scalpel. The windows now fit nice and snug. But I won't be fixing them into place until after they and the window apertures are fully painted and weathered, and after the glazing has been added.

I also constructed the door frame and made a start at scraping away at the surround in order to get it to fit.  For now it is just leaning against the building for photographic purposes.

Finally, I cut out the hatch for under the external stairway. I've scored some very fine 'grain' into the wood with a scalpel, and deeper grain at the bottom edge to show wear and tear and a bit of rotting due to dampness. This should show up nicely once painted.

 

All doors and windows dry fitted:

MFju7RJ.jpg

 

 

Take note of the upper floor door's orientation. The box art and instructions show the door opening right to left. Well, I'd like to see someone exit the building and descend the stairs if the door opened that way. It would block access to the stairs. It would also mean having to step back towards the stairs or and then squeezing around the door when entering. A bit dangerous I'd have thought!  Far more sensible to have it open left to right and rest against the end railings out of the way.

The gap down the left hand side of the hatch under the stairway will be blocked one I've added a post behind it.

 

TFL

Badder

 

 

Edited by Badder
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1 hour ago, Ratch said:

Splendid progress

Thanks Ratch.

There's still a lot to do with this building. Adding the rear will be a job in itself, but hopefully worth it!

Rearguards,

Badder

1 hour ago, Ozzy said:

That does look nice, I do like you scale measure.

Hi Ozzy,

Thanks, and yes I made sure to get the scale in the photo. As you can see the building is exactly 50 percent taller than a Wadworth's 6X can and exactly 4 can widths wide. :D 

Primer coat applied. The building now looks a lot like it does in the photo above, only with a matt finish and no green stains from the putty.

 

Rearguards,

Badder.

 

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