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Hi Badder,

I see that you have made a little progress with your work, and from inexperience, it seems appropriate to what you intend to achieve.
There is a feeling of weight in the "bricks" fallen on the wooden beams.
Perhaps because of the position of the "collapse", which is on one side, and not in the center, it is not real, but how about some beam split in half, with ends coming out on both sides of the pile of bricks? correct, I think it would bring a stronger sensation of weight ...
Cheers and TC
FrancisĀ šŸ‘

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11 hours ago, GerryW said:

Unbelievable and incredibly detailed demonstration of just how a true master can reproduce a ruin.Ā :worthy:

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Gerry

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Thanks very much Gerry,

Much appreciated. It's all too easy to stare at something you've been building on andĀ  off for years and think 'it could be better'. So, I've been improving things. There's still stuff I'm not happy with, but I will get there in the end. The rubble and debris I'm working on at the moment is an easy bit! I needed a break from the harder stuff!

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Rearguards,

Badder

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9 hours ago, FrancisGL said:

Perhaps because of the position of the "collapse", which is on one side, and not in the center, it is not real, but how about some beam split in half, with ends coming out on both sides of the pile of bricks? correct, I think it would bring a stronger sensation of weight ...
Cheers and TC
FrancisĀ šŸ‘

Hi Francis,

Always good to hear (read) from you!

There's still a lot more debris to be added.Ā  Some will have fallen outside and some inside. I had to decide how the floor collapsed, whether the floor collapsed BEFORE the side wall, at the same time, or after.

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The thing that swung if for me is the fact that the floor joists would have been weak on the LHS (where the chimney stack goes) because the joists there would not have been slotted into the wall, but propped up by beams affixed to the chimney... a bit of a bodge job by the builders. So, I reckoned that was a weak spot. IfĀ the joists thereĀ gave way at that end nearest the chimney, they could allĀ pull out of the wallĀ opposite, without snapping necessarily.Ā Ā So, IĀ decided to go for the middle choice, with the side wall collapsing outwards and dragging the floorboards, joists and beams part way with it.Ā  The upper dormer window section of the side wall was held back by the roof though and, as the side wall collapsed, that dormer window section was slightly held back by the roof and both the roof and the dormer window ended up falling inside the building, onto the weakened floor boards and caused them to collapse completely.

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That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

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But don't worry, there will be broken beams and rafters in the rubble... because the whole section of roof and tiles will have to come down as well.

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TC mate.

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Rearguards,

Badder

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As the first pile of rubble will be covered with other stuff, some more rubble and debris from the collapsed roof, and a dusting of snow, I decided just to CA the first 'fall' of rubble in place. I also added some fallen wall plaster (bits of paper) beneath the upstair's double window. I didn't bother using glue but used gloss varnish instead. In fact the entire floor, the collapsed floorboards and the rubble got a gloss coat. I then applied a water-plaster dust wash to the varnished areas, let it dry, and then rubbed a lot of it back with a stiff damp brush, to get these effects.....

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I will be applying some green plaster-dust washes as the work continues, but there will be a dusting of snow over this heap of rubble eventually.

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TFL

Badder

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Badder.

So sorry to have missed your progress for the last few months.Ā  But I have now caught upĀ  to date.Ā  My usually pithy and quite urbane statements, hysterical (as I think them to be) are lacking, for this message.Ā  Ā Regardless, though the improvements you have made and the quality of the decay/collapse is of a very high caliber.Ā  The revisions are a very evident improvementĀ  all round.Ā  Glad to to notice you and yours are weathering (yes I went there) the currant pandemic. As always I shall now eagerly await your next missive. Then I can once again lookĀ  transfected by the buildingsĀ  continued destruction / rot/decayĀ  as derived fromĀ  your creative mind

Stay WellĀ Ā Ā šŸ˜·

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On ā€Ž5ā€Ž/ā€Ž4ā€Ž/ā€Ž2020 at 8:13 AM, Prop Duster said:

As always I shall now eagerly await your next missive. Then I can once again lookĀ  transfected by the buildingsĀ  continued destruction / rot/decayĀ  as derived fromĀ  your creative mind

Stay WellĀ Ā Ā šŸ˜·

Hi Steve,

It's good to have you back, even if you are displaying aĀ slight reduction in witticisms! I hope you are well and that your loved ones and friends are too.

All is okay here, in lockdown,Ā with the wife working from homeĀ whichĀ makes me feel safer. It just means I get less time to work on this building.

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And the building is proving itself to be the usualĀ 'pain in the butt'. Yesterday IĀ piled the ground floor of the 'living quarters' with 50 percentĀ of the debris fallen from above and whilst it looksĀ realistic,Ā I've decided it's not the look I want. I am, once again, reconsidering my options. FFS! There is an easy option, and that is to assume that the building was stripped of materials shortly after it was abandoned, so a lot of the wood, and roofing tiles could have been carted away and the building left as an empty shell. Then I could age it massively and turn it into the shell of a building, rather than a building with holes in it.

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I doubt I will be 'advancing' the building much this week, so stay safe and pop back when you can.

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Rearguards,

Badder

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Hi Badder,

Little by little it is looking better, without a doubt, for me, the layer of snow will bring a very real and necessary touch to appear destruction and abandonment.
Cheers and TC
FrancisšŸ‘

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6 minutes ago, FrancisGL said:

Hi Badder,

Little by little it is looking better, without a doubt, for me, the layer of snow will bring a very real and necessary touch to appear destruction and abandonment.
Cheers and TC
FrancisšŸ‘

Hi Francis,,

Thanks mate. I am having my usual 'problems' deciding what to do, but I will get there! I have just taken some photos of the room with more debris added and will post them once my camera battery has charged up a bit. I may take some or all of the debris out again, but that's the kind of guy I am!

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Keep safe my friend,

Rearguards,

Badder

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Yesterday, I thought I may as well add more debris to the pile on the ground floor. I put some 'chunks' of masonry in, mainly chunks of the dormer window blockwork.Ā  And then dropped some of the dormer window roof on top.

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I've not added the rest of the collapsed roofing yet, nor any roofing tiles, as I am contemplating whetherĀ theĀ roof would have been strippedĀ ofĀ roofing tiles and woodworkĀ shortly after the building was abandoned. Originally, I was going to portray this building as having fallen intoĀ misuse andĀ in a state of collapse, but I really like the look of the building without a roof... theĀ triangular topped walls lookingĀ like the vertebrae of a dinosaur. Decisions, decisions,Ā decisions!Ā 

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Anyway, here's what the pile of debris looks like at the moment and also with the collapsed 'front' wall dry-fitted. Be aware that I used a flash so the green is looking a bit bright in places and the wood grainĀ on the floorboards has been 'washed out'.

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TFL

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Badder

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Hi Badder,

That coffered ceiling of sticks, it looks really cool.
I will really like to see how it is for the moment "bird's eye view", because there are many details (such as the chimney column), really achieved.

Cheers

FrancisĀ šŸ‘

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Right, I was just about to put a film on and fall asleep to it (it's 4.25am) when I thought I'd have another look at the building. All day I've been thinking 'I don't like the 'empty chamber' behind the collapsed floorboards. And the pile of debris looks to high. And it's got to get higher still. Would those floorboards, propped up at an angle, hold all that weight stacked upon them? No. So I pressed down on the slanting floorboards and collasped them to the floor... snapping a few as I did so... JUST LIKE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE!

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Now it looks much better, and I'm now happy to leave the debris in there and bung some more on top.

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TFL

Badder

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5 hours ago, Badder said:

So I pressed down on the slanting floorboards and collasped them to the floor... snapping a few as I did so... JUST LIKE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE!

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Now it looks much better,

Oh the joys of legal destruction.Ā :clap2:

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Gerry

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Very Interesting.Ā Just so I can grasp the unrivaled genius of your current work. You put debris down, didn't like the arrangement, and after much artistic agony and soul searching, you decided to Crush a previously constructed piece and crash those debris on top of the aforementioned unassuming "prior pile"Ā  and increase both the quality and quantity of debris? Well as we all now know, you have the skill to make a sows ear out of a silk purse,Ā šŸ„“Ā  Ā Ā Ā To which I say "Well Done" "Top Drawer", and any and all relevant expressions of amazement and heartfelt praise.Ā  šŸ˜‰

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19 hours ago, GerryW said:

Oh the joys of legal destruction.Ā :clap2:

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Gerry

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Hi Gerry,

Indeed, it's very cathartic. I built someĀ sections of roofing way back in this thread, more as test pieces than anything. Some had tiles on, others were just the rafters and batons. So it wasn't like I had to go out of my way to make 'roof debris'. I don't know why I collapsed the floor the way I had, with the collapsed section propped up, like it was. I guess I just wanted to show that the collapsed section did actually fit the intact section.Ā  I didn't think to think about how all the rubble on top of it would have weighed so heavily upon the propped up bit and cause it to collapse fully to the ground.

So, a firm push down was all that was required. I had always kind of intended to make the roofs, and the suspended floors fully and then press down on them, anyway,, but I thought I was clever enough not to have to do that with this part of the building and just build it ''broken'. Ho hum....

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Rearguards,

Badder

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16 minutes ago, Prop Duster said:

Very Interesting.Ā Just so I can grasp the unrivaled genius of your current work. You put debris down, didn't like the arrangement, and after much artistic agony and soul searching, you decided to Crush a previously constructed piece and crash those debris on top of the aforementioned unassuming "prior pile"Ā  and increase both the quality and quantity of debris? Well as we all now know, you have the skill to make a sows ear out of a silk purse,Ā šŸ„“Ā  Ā Ā Ā To which I say "Well Done" "Top Drawer", and any and all relevant expressions of amazement and heartfelt praise.Ā  šŸ˜‰

Hi Steve,

You've summed it up nicely! Yes. If I had left things as they were the addition of yet moreĀ collapsed roofing would have meant the pile being way too high for my liking.Ā  Pressing down on that section of collapsed floor and letting some of the original debris spill further back into the room freed up a lot of space.Ā  I am going to go a stage further, and put aĀ fair bit of debris outside of the building as well.Ā That will keep the height of the pile down inside the building, hopefully meaning thatĀ a nosey viewer canĀ lean down and take a peakĀ deeper into the room. The other 'added' bonus is thatĀ one can now see light coming in from the window at the rear of the building and also from theĀ front door.Ā Ā That should make forĀ some nice backlit/silhouette shots.

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Thanks as always for your entertaining thoughts and humbling praise. I'm not sure I always deserve it!

Ā 

Take care,

Reaguards,

Badder

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  • 2 weeks later...

I THINK I might have solved one of the issues I've been struggling with for some time now: the problem of the central section of the building and the stupid asymmetrical roof.

I've raised the height of the front red brick wall. This will incorporate windows for the upper floor, but they will no longer be dormer windows. Instead, I will be adjusting the roof so that it slopes down towards the windows, but then turns into a flat roof. Possibly, I may do this for the entire length of the 'front' wall. It will mean having to increase the height of the lat internal supporting wall, but that is no big issue. In retrospect, it was this shorter wall that was the cause of so much trouble.

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Anyway, here's where I am with the red brick wall, using plaster casts of Tamiya's 'Brick Wall' set.Ā  It's work in progress, but as usual I am taking the opportunity to weather it repeatedly as I go, building up layers and not worrying at all about damaging the actual plaster, or spoiling the paintwork; it all adds to the realism of the finished thing.

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The cracked wall plaster/render is white paper, fixed with lashings of CA which soaks into the paper and turns it 'plastic-like'. Weathering is being carried out with alternating dirty washes and 'rubbing back' with a stiff dry brush and sandpaper. Meanwhile, the brickwork, which starts out as bare white plaster of Paris was coloured with dilute Red Earth acrylic ink with some bricks being picked out with black or red. Weathering has consisted of plaster-dust washes, rubbing back and dirty washes.

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TFL

Badder

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Badder- not much time; the Regimental Buggiler has just sounded "To Horse".Ā  So I much dash. re: your latest brick batsĀ Ā uh,Ā works, may I say brilliant.Ā  It is so good to see that the ol' "Minitruest Extraordinaire "Ā  has once again broken through the barrier of ennui andĀ  begun to once again stride forward into the future.Ā  The bricks look like the real deal and the ideas generated from those changes should be grist for your next adventuer.Ā 

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Ā All hail the conquering hero--------oops too much? Oh well.Ā  Ā šŸ˜‰

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9 hours ago, Prop Duster said:

The bricks look like the real deal and the ideas generated from those changes should be grist for your next adventuer.Ā 

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Ā All hail the conquering hero--------oops too much? Oh well.Ā  Ā šŸ˜‰

Howdy Steve,

My Wisconsin Ā aunt and cousins used to sayĀ 'howdy' a lot 40yrs ago. I don't know if it'sĀ still 'de rigueur', possibly it never was in Californ I ay? Whatever, I hope you and yours are all well, and give my regards to the horse.

Thanks for singing (typing) the praises of my brickwork. The plasterĀ casts doĀ make a pleasant change from the harder work of carving stonework patterns in the FTINFBISS. As you can see, I've tried to rough them up a bit. I am continuing to add more brickwork, extending both left and right and have begun to blend the brickwork into one of the internal supporting walls. The supporting wall on the other side will need raising, and I'm wondering if I should do that using red bricks as well. The mix of hand-hewn brownstone and red bricks is quite quirky, but I like quirky.

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btw, 'I am no conquering hero, but I will not let this build beat me! šŸ™„

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Take care,

Rearguards,

Badder.

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5 hours ago, GerryW said:

Incredible work, and living proof that a true ruin doesn't happen overnight.

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Gerry

Hi Gerry,

Thanks very much.

You're right that a ruin doesn't happen over night. I've said it before, but having worked and stared at this building, in all it's manifestations, for aĀ few of years, , it's hard for me to look at it and think it's anything other than 'Okay'.Ā  Comments like yours and Prop Duster's above do inspire me to do even better where I can. I do think the red brick 'conversion' is the answer to all my problems, so with a bit of luck I will progress more rapidly now. There will be an update in the next day or two.

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Take care,

Rearguards,

Badder

Ā 

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I've continued to continue with the continuation of the front wall. I did consider extending the red brickwork along the entire length of the building, but in the end I decided against it. I did so on theĀ  grounds that I doubted the 'conversion' of the building (at some point during its history) would have required the replacement of all the original brownstone wall down to ground level. But there again, who knows? I may change it yet.

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Anyway, here's stuff dry-fitted. I have still raise the height of the left hand internal supporting wall.

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TFL

Badder

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I can normally tell when I'm happy with something, if I glue it to a larger 'finished' part and so it is with the red brick wall section. That single piece has been hanging around, occasionally dry-fitted, for maybe 2 years now?Ā 

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With the last of the brickwork tidied up, and the wall plaster/render, er.... rendered, I tacked it in place with medium CA then filled in the joints and wall cavities with plaster of paris.Ā  Now that it's in place I can meld the left hand side into the slope of the internal supporting wall.

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I forgot to mention, before fixing the brick section in place, I gave it a heavy plaster-dust wash, like so:

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I then rubbed that back with a greasy finger and fixed the wall in place:EnTZDEd.jpg

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This red brick section requires more in the way of washes and detailing.

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I separated the two 'thirds' of the building for photographic purposes, but I quite like the layout..... and yes, I'm wondering if I should stretch the building to this size:

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Whatever, this view gives a better view as to how I'm going to deal with the roofing on the middle section of the building.

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Here's the fireplace, just for those who are missing it. Oooh it all looks wonky...... but it isn't

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TFL

Badder

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I rubbed the brickwork back a bit more and thought it might look better with some 'mood' lighting.... a dark room with a spotlight.

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I'm not happy with the wall rendering bottom right in the photo below and will probably rework it a bit.

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mRQHmNL.jpg

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TFL

Badder

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On 5/22/2020 at 8:11 AM, Badder said:

Howdy Steve,

My Wisconsin Ā aunt and cousins used to sayĀ 'howdy' a lot 40 yrs ago. I don't know if it'sĀ still 'de rigueur', possibly it never was in Californ I ay? Whatever, I hope you and yours are all well, and give my regards to the horse.

Howdy rightĀ back at you Badder.

Ā  Ā  YesĀ "howdy" isĀ  still heard .Ā Ā Though usually relegated more to the "midwest" areas of the country. That being any area between the Eastern Seaboard and the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian to Mexican borders.Ā  Its usage is less prominentĀ  among theĀ our local SoCal "native" populationĀ  (which, truth be told, Ā are emigrants from all parts of the U.S. and the entire rest of the world.) OnlyĀ a tiny percentage were actuallyĀ born here; making the term "native"a totally subjective one.Ā Ā  However,Ā  as a "native" one must be everĀ vigilant toĀ  instantly switching to the very latest trends, styles, moods, newest gadgets, most popular of anything, etc., etc,Ā  ad nauseum. ThisĀ  could possibly occurĀ  several times aĀ  day.Ā Ā All overshadowed by the really, really important issues of how to stay young, viberant, with it,Ā  cool, and fashion forward, "trending"Ā  on the social media.Ā  Ā sigh- I'm so lacking. But I have learned to feign indifference as I don't want give much thought to it at all.Ā 

Ā  Ā Regardless, as to your current progress.Ā  It is mind boggling and very impressive. I think the thing that strikes me is, the ever evolving nature and scope of the project.Ā  IĀ congratulate you on theĀ  fine progression.Ā Ā 

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Ā  Ā We are all well, hale and hearty.šŸ˜·Ā  Hope this finds you and yoursĀ  the same.Ā Ā 

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Hi Badder. I hope you and yours a well. As usual I am so impressed by your awesome scenic modelling skills. :worthy:

Your project seems to be progressing beautifully.

Take care and stay well.

Kind regards,

Stix

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On 5/26/2020 at 9:50 AM, Prop Duster said:

Ā Regardless, as to your current progress.Ā  It is mind boggling and very impressive. I think the thing that strikes me is, the ever evolving nature and scope of the project.Ā  IĀ congratulate you on theĀ  fine progression.Ā Ā 

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Ā  Ā We are all well, hale and hearty.šŸ˜·Ā  Hope this finds you and yoursĀ  the same.Ā Ā 

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On 5/26/2020 at 7:24 PM, PlaStix said:

As usual I am so impressed by your awesome scenic modelling skills. :worthy:

Your project seems to be progressing beautifully.

Take care and stay well.

Kind regards,

Stix

Hi Chaps,

Thanks very much for your best wishes.Ā 

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My wife has been working from home since before the 'lockdown' because I'm high risk.Ā  I'm still unfit for work, so the lockdown has been easy for me.Ā  The wife's been my only contact with the outside world. We've been self-isolating from each other within the house, not so difficult as it sounds as I am rarely able to sleep at night due to my pains, and only really get bouts of sleep during the day when, she's working from her 'office'.Ā  So it was a bit of a surprise when she confessed to having had the virus a few weeks ago, bad enough to go to a 'hot clinic' to see if she would have to be admitted to hospital. She was borderline, so they sent her back with anti-biotics which luckily did the trick of preventing pneumonia and she's made a full recovery.Ā  It's possible that I may have caught it too, but if I did the symptoms were very mild. I did have a flare-up of arthritis, and a 24hr dry cough, and a bit of breathlessness, but that might have been due to smoking a lot! We are continuing as if I haven't caught it. This is the stupidity of there not being widespread antibody testing!

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On the modelling front, progress has been slow but steady. I am now in the process of raising that supporting wall in the upper middle room, so I can put a roof on, or the remains of one. I suspect I'm going to stretch the main living quarters even further and really open that up, so the interior can be seen whilst STILL having a couple of sections of roof left in place. Then it'll be on to the far end of the building, which will be more or less flattened.

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Stat safe.

Thanks again,

Rearguards,

Badder

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