Punkawallah
Veteran
And where will the ‘privvy’ go? Or is it going to be ‘au naturel’?
Andy's Modelmaking Misadventures
- Thread starter Andy in Germany
- Start date
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Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
There should be a public urinal in the town square - a la Clochemerle!
Have you forgotten the existence of the Ascension Island Tramway, Electric Light, and Vacuum Evacuating Toilet Co. Ltd?
Punkawallah
Veteran
That would be a fair walk with crossed legs ;-)
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
Oh no, the Ascension Island Tramway, Electric Light, and Vacuum Evacuating Toilet Co. Ltd will connect your home or business to their system with their revolutionary new boring system that will be ready next year,
They're calling it the "Hyperloo"...
Punkawallah
Veteran
What could possibly go wrong . . . .
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
It appears I’ve gone and cornered myself, as it were, with corners.
It’s one thing to make nice flat walls and cover them with clay, but as can be seen above, this leaves a thumping big gap on the corners. This can be avoided by making the model as a box, something I’ve done before; in fact the first clay/ card model I built for my model railway worked exactly like this but on this model I wanted an interior for my little lead figures to play in, which meant interior walls, which I thought would be easier if I just make the walls as a unit, and… never mind. I was here now, and I had to deal with this big gap in the walls.
My “plan” to deal with this, “plan” being a nice description of a vague idea mixed with hope, was to build the walls as the aforementioned units with interior and exterior walls, windows et c, assemble the lot, then fill the outside corners with more clay, and score them to make the brickwork match. Assuming it did, of course…
Now I’ve got all the windows and doors printed out, the inside walls are cut, and I’ve run out of excuses to find out if all this is wishful thinking, or if I can make it work…
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
I know it sounds daft my saying so, but might it not have been better to start with an actual box? 
That said, what you've come up with looks rather dilapidated warehouse-ish. In a very good way. I can see something like that in some industrial estate in the Docklands that they haven't tarted up yet.
That said, what you've come up with looks rather dilapidated warehouse-ish. In a very good way. I can see something like that in some industrial estate in the Docklands that they haven't tarted up yet.
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
I know it sounds daft my saying so, but might it not have been better to start with an actual box?
I thought about that, but I couldn't work out how to score the bricks accurately on a completed box, let alone a three sided box like this one.
Thank you.
Even pre-gentrification Docklands would be posh compared to this building though...
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
When I left you last time, it was with a certain apprehension whether the corners on this warehouse would work.
Well, it turns out that they did, mostly: don’t look too closely at the mortar lines in the picture above -I said don’t… stop zooming in… okay, fine, they’re a bit out at the top: I guess that’s where the down spout will be going.
I’m pretty pleased about this result because this was also a test for future projects: apart from making buildings for the model railway, I’ve got a vague idea for a scenario in the same world as Ascension, but based in south Germany, and both of those will mean a lot of stone built houses with mortar lines…
Of course, this assumes I can now successfully blend in the corners with the colours for the rest of the building, but I think that should work.
If not, there’s always weathering; weathering solves everything…
Punkawallah
Veteran
Random plant growth - covers a multitude of sins ;-)
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
It seemed so simple in my head: the building should look like it had been abandoned by a previous unsuccessful business, then was taken over by the current “owner” who had expanded and altered it to suit. This meant that the “original” tiled roof would still be over the “old” part of the building, while the “new" part of the building would be roofed in the same cheap corrugated metal as the walls.
Unfortunately, this meant I had to make all those tiles. Frankly, by the time I was finished, I was entirely in sympathy with the “Use corrugated metal” school of architecture.
The builders of the new section were also very much of the “Stamp on it until it fits, then smack nails into it until it doesn’t come off again” persuasion: subtlety and aesthetics clearly aren’t part of the equation. Apparently neither is waterproofing, judging by the multiple “repairs” that have since been added. I’ll paint them soon, honest.
The extension also has a replacement delivery door, presumably the better to access whatever will be inside, but I suspect also so that deliveries can come and go without being quite as obvious to anyone watching the building…
Punkawallah
Veteran
A triumph! Do we have a sign in mind? ‘Trotters Independent Trading’?
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Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
Thank you.
There will certainly be a sign. The proprietor is sort of like Delboy, in that he's a dodgy trader, but where Delboy is a lovable rogue, this chap is a proper moustache twirling, venal little twerp; sort of charmless Delboy meets Al Capone meets particularly nasty gamekeeper. His "league" will be a similar bunch of characters...
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
A bit like Terry-Thomas, you mean...