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Those Last Desperate Days


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To be forewarned. These photos are disjointed. My phone has died and I've only been able to salvage some of the photos from it. The diorama is based around the last actions of 3/115th Siemehsstadt Battalion in 1945 Berlin. They're one of the most successful of the Volkssturm units, drawing on the leadership and experience of both WWI soldiers and WWI officer leadership whose first major engagement began on the 22nd April 1945. From the 770 men of the battalion on the 22nd April only 46 (official records) remained by the 2nd of May 1945, before falling back to reserve positions with the support of both remaining Wehrmacht and Police units.

The manhole cover is a 3d print from my Mono X, roof tiles for one building as well as furnishing will be 3d printed. Work on the buildings (gyprock is your friend, right?) is on going as well as getting photos from my old phone.

 

 

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Oh wow, going to follow this one!! Really like the back story of the volkstrum unit and build so far. The plaster is a good idea as looks more authentic. This is going to interesting.

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A few more photos recovered. Pictures of the gantry crane and I-beam as well as the winching gear and cable pulley that will be mounted on the wall/roof for the building that will be on the left. It is a warehouse, hence the raised floor. The hook on the crane was salvaged from the spares box and I'm pretty sure it is the rear tow hook from a Tamiya Panzer IV, the cable reel for the winch is from a Tamiya Flak 36/37 with some added styrene detail. Cable is from a set of old headphones and a piece of solder. Other than those few parts, the rest was scratch build from styrene, copper and aluminium (0.6 and 0.7mm rivets, so many rivets). The I-beam is made of four styrene angles and three styrene strips and is an accurate representation of how I-beams were constructed before the days of single piece steel extruded I-beams.

 

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The warehouse photos pretty much as it is now. Recovered most of the photos, several of the smaller detail photos are lost, but makes no difference.

 

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Only a minor update. Worked on some more of the internal details and I recovered a picture of the lamp shade and ceiling rose(?), not the best, but it'll do.

 

The second building is/was/will be a dressmakers shop. 3d printed mannequins. Plus many extras for future use, maybe.

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The comfy chair and books for the room on the second floor of the dressmakers shop:

 

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It might be a limitation of the Mono X or my abilities to use it (I'm going with the latter rather than the former), but I couldn't get the buttons to print properly, so I just made new ones from an aluminium can punched up with the 0.6mm rivet maker.

 

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A lick of paint, not overly happy with them, was trying for the Chesterfield leather look. I still may strip the paint and put my rubbish painting skills once more to the test. Only one will be getting used. Always print spares.

 

And the ceiling light shade and ceiling rose(?):

 

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Just made the roof for the warehouse and painted it, old tin roof, but not entirely happy with it. Looks like it is made from cardboard, but I used the foil wrappers from champagne bottles. It's a work in progress. Warehouse door also painted. Photos later.

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Door, gutter (foil from a Milo tin) and down pipe (also from a Milo tin) painted up, I haven't painted the inside of the gutter yet. I'm happy with the corrugated roof paint work on the inside of the building, not happy with the outside so I need to repaint it.

 

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I have started working on the some of the equipment for the three soldiers I will be using. I figured that as this WWI helmet from the ICM WWI German equipment set wasn't going to be worn, rather laying on the ground after getting hit with a bullet, hence the dent I have made in the front, it belonged here. Also, as the Volkssturm were pretty much equipped with hand me downs and left overs, the equipment will be quite varied, well, as varied as I have weapon sets for.

 

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Thanks for looking, now I need to go and repaint the roof.......

 

 

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Absolutely outstanding so far. I love this. The ww1 helmet with hole in a good idea. I like the roof and door weathering too. The grey brick/ red brick creates an interesting contrast. 
  I’m doing a corrugated roof in my dio, so this is a good guide for me.

Edited by Muchmirth
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12 minutes ago, Muchmirth said:

Absolutely outstanding so far. I love this. The ww1 helmet with hole in a good idea. I like the roof and door weathering too. The grey brick/ red brick creates an interesting contrast. 
  I’m doing a corrugated roof in my dio, so this is a good guide for me.

Thank you.

 

I ended up making a set of rollers, first in AutoCAD then 3d printed them, after some tweaks and many print hours, I got a good faultless result with every piece of foil I ran through the rollers. Only pig was waiting the 3 hrs for each tweaked roller set to print before I could try them.

Also watched several videos on youtube about painting scaled corrugated metal sheeting, seems to me, they all forget one thing, corrugated metal sheeting is hot dip galvanised. Zinc coatings aren't perfect leading to a mottled finish, none of the videos I watched took that into account, it could just be me being persnickety, but I felt it important to consider it when painting.

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27 minutes ago, Crayons said:

Thank you.

 

I ended up making a set of rollers, first in AutoCAD then 3d printed them, after some tweaks and many print hours, I got a good faultless result with every piece of foil I ran through the rollers. Only pig was waiting the 3 hrs for each tweaked roller set to print before I could try them.

Also watched several videos on youtube about painting scaled corrugated metal sheeting, seems to me, they all forget one thing, corrugated metal sheeting is hot dip galvanised. Zinc coatings aren't perfect leading to a mottled finish, none of the videos I watched took that into account, it could just be me being persnickety, but I felt it important to consider it when painting.

Unfortunately I dont have a 3d printer, would love one but not very technically minded. I’ve got embossing foil for material for the corrugated roof and I’ll make a jig thing with cocktail sticks or skewers glued to a slab of wood at measured intervals. Then I’ll  press the foil into it. I’ll try that mottelled /galvanised zinc effect with stippled paint and maybe some rust textures (ground chalks). Luckily only have a tiny bit to cover. The only problem for me is the scale and intervals of the bumps in the sheeting. I’m thinking maybe every 2 or 3mm maybe?

  Keep up the top work it’s turning into a cracker!!!

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20 hours ago, Muchmirth said:

 I’m thinking maybe every 2 or 3mm maybe?

 

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Measurements as they come out of the rollers;

A: 3mm ridge centre to ridge centre.

B: 1mm ridge to valley.

 

B measurement is correct as it gives a 1/1 scale of 35mm depth. A measurement is not correct as it works out at 105mm. Typically, ridge centre to ridge centre is 80mm at 1/1 scale, but I found the rollers wouldn't mesh properly leading to poorly formed sheets, hence the many tweaks and reprints.

 

Hope this helps with your roof.

Edited by Crayons
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2 hours ago, Crayons said:

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Measurements as they come out of the rollers;

A: 3mm ridge centre to ridge centre.

B: 1mm ridge to valley.

 

B measurement is correct as it gives a 1/1 scale of 35mm depth. A measurement is not correct as it works out at 105mm. Typically, ridge centre to ridge centre is 80mm at 1/1 scale, but I found the rollers wouldn't mesh properly leading to poorly formed sheets, hence the many tweaks and reprints.

 

Hope this helps with your roof.

Oh wow… thank so much. This does indeed help.

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19 minutes ago, Muchmirth said:

Oh wow… thank so much. This does indeed help.

Happy to help.

 

If you're making a press style with a negative and positive former, try reducing the material size to say 0.8 or 0.9mm rods. You'll lose some accuracy in the ridge to valley measurement, but it will close up the ridge centre to ridge centre distance. The thickness of the material you use will also have an impact, you mentioned embossing foil, SWMBO does card making as her hobby, she has embossing foil amongst her material supplies, I thought it to be to fragile structurally wise (as in working with it), scale wise, perfect. Maybe look at kitchen foil. I chose the foil from the top of a champagne bottle as the stuff I've got is twice as thick as kitchen foil, but in a single layer. Milo tin foil didn't work, nor did lead(?) foil from a wine bottle, at least, not in my rollers. The thicker material I used, the more force required to push the material through the rollers, the more they would bind up and deform the material.

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1 hour ago, Crayons said:

Happy to help.

 

If you're making a press style with a negative and positive former, try reducing the material size to say 0.8 or 0.9mm rods. You'll lose some accuracy in the ridge to valley measurement, but it will close up the ridge centre to ridge centre distance. The thickness of the material you use will also have an impact, you mentioned embossing foil, SWMBO does card making as her hobby, she has embossing foil amongst her material supplies, I thought it to be to fragile structurally wise (as in working with it), scale wise, perfect. Maybe look at kitchen foil. I chose the foil from the top of a champagne bottle as the stuff I've got is twice as thick as kitchen foil, but in a single layer. Milo tin foil didn't work, nor did lead(?) foil from a wine bottle, at least, not in my rollers. The thicker material I used, the more force required to push the material through the rollers, the more they would bind up and deform the material.

Yeah this was a bit of an issue when using it for something else. See the pewter foil (champagne cap material) is ideal, it’s more sturdy and malleable where the embossing can tear jagged. I’ll try it with the foil as that’s what I have handy but if looks naff I’ll bin it off for pewter.

thanks. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Work has been keeping me busy, but I have managed some time at my hobby desk. Made a chain hoist from styrene, the hook/s are an S hook from the Tamiya Wespe kit cut in half, the chains from my bits box. Old neck laces I think. Electrical box, and gantry trolley painted up too. The voltage sign was a free hand attempt, hence it's a bit rough.

 

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16 hours ago, Rob G said:

We need more emoticon options - a simple like isn't enough!

 

Top marks on the whole shebang, especially the vintage beams and rigging gear - it looks great!

Thanks Rob.

 

I hate painting, worst part of modelling for me as I am pretty rubbish at it. But, I'm actually having with the paint this time rather than my usual frown in annoyance at the paint.

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5 hours ago, Celestialsphere said:

Hello Crayons.

Really nice work on the diorama. 

 

There is a good YouTube tutorial by LPJModels on painting leather.

It could be useful for your seats.

 

Cheers Andrew 

 

 

 

Thanks Andrew for the link. Very informative. Definitely going to try the technique. These where my references when painting the comfy chairs.

 

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I think my attempt failed horribly. But, I am going to strip the paint and retry.

 

Minor update:

 

Wanted some clutter for the warehouse. I don't have any fuel drums or toolboxes in my spares or kits so I decided to design and print some (I'm now out of translucent green resin). Based the design off of a Luftwaffe drum I found on some militaria website that had it for sale. Designed up some tools to go in the toolbox but due to their small size (my guess) every print failed. Bought the Miniart tool set, just need it to arrive. The cradle for the fuel drum is just some balsa wood left over from the flooring and given various oil washes.

 

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I downloaded the Miniart fuel drum set instructions and used the painting guide as reference for the colours (thank you Miniart). My only criticism is the call out for the Mr. Colour range. The red for the civilian drum in the Mr. Colour range (#03) is way to vivid in my opinion, so I opted for #81 Russet Red instead. Forgive me oh paint chip perfectionists. I didn't bother sanding the drums as I thought the layer lines might give an interesting surface texture, which I think they have.

 

Thanks for looking.

Edited by Crayons
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  • 2 weeks later...

Inside of the warehouse completed. I might make a few minor tweaks, but I'm still undecided. My 3D printed tools ended up working out, finally. I did have a very long talk with a person at work that has a passion for 3D printing, and my settings needed some tweaking. The sledge hammer is from the spares box. I still need to add some dirt and detritus to the floor, but it's time to move on to the outside of the building,

 

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