Two cities layout.

[Random]

Thanks.

The stone retaining wall and portals were made the same way I made the wall sections for the station build, but I used a different method for the concrete retaining wall with the plank style.

First I made a frame in which to poor a master casting from sheet and strip wood.




Then I roughed up and cut a supply of scale 12" wide planks.




I glued the planks into the form in a patter to represent the temporary cribbing (as see from the bank's side).



After the planking had dried I poured in hydrocal to the desired thickness and allowed it to set up for about a day.

When I removed the wall section most of the planking came off of the frame with the wall.




I carefully removed the planks with a pick.  Here is the finished master.




And I was left with a supply of 12" planks lightly coated on one side with hydrocal.  I kept the planks to use later in a construction scene.






For a change of pace I camped out last night in front of a couple of episodes of MST3K and cut 510+ curtains for the hotel from 7/8 inch wide woven ripped ribbon.  The the texture makes it look like the folds of drapes though the glazing.  And it comes in many many colors to suit the tastes of your hotel's interior decorator.  Mine went with taupe.




Cheers!

[Random]

I wanted to test my curtains so I decided to tackle one of the small walls.

I ran a bead of canopy glue across the top and bottom of each window and positioned a piece of ribbon on each side of the window.  For a few I used one wider piece of ribbon placed between two windows such that it was visible in each.  The glue grabbed very quickly so I was able to flip the piece over and shift them to make sure no curtain extended across the middle of the window.




This makes  some pretty convincing heavy hotel curtains.




48 windows down, 207 to go.

Cheers!

[Random]

So, I built this cradle for my bottle of Gesso last night....





More on that later.....


Cheers

[Dave K.]

Continuing to enjoy your thread!!!

[postalkarl]

Hey Random:

Looks great. Do you think that stuff would work for corrugated roofing?

Let ,e know. If so where did you get it?

Thanks:

Karl

[Random]

Karl,  The ribbon is woven and frays very easily when cut.  I don't know if it would work for roofing.  Maybe if you coated one side with white glue before cutting.  I got this roll at Walmart.  They carry it at most of the craft stores and any large sewing store should have it.




So, the cradle was not actually to hold the Gesso bottle.  It just happened to be the right diameter to hold the curved sheet in place while drying.  This form is to make the master for the tunnel roof.  I used my smallest stones in a simple running pattern. 




It took a lot of canopy glue to fill the voids between the stones but it went together fairly quickly.




After the glue dried over night I sanded the ends and bottoms (tops?) of the walls and then used a very thin slurry of plaster to fill in the gaps and give it a heavily mortared look.




This will yield a section of tunnel roof 2 1/4 inch long.  It is designed to work with my auto tunnel portal.  The lower portions of the walls will use sections of the matching retaining wall.


I also finished putting curtains in the rest of the hotel.  That only took 3 hours.   

Well, that's enough for tonight.

Cheers!

[postalkarl]

Hey Roger:

You are moving right along. Thanks for the info on the ribbon.

Karl

[postalkarl]

Hey Roger:

Tunnel roof looks great too.

Karl

[Random]

You're welcome Karl, and thanks.


That's a lot of curtains!




The brick side wall has a couple of simple shades implying some sort of service space rather than a room.  One of the reinforcements started coming loose so they got a bit more glue.





With the depth of the tunnel liner I opted for a molding box rather than casting around all sides.  The finish mold will be flipped in placed in the same box to cast copies.




One side is designed to be easily removed.  There are also a few filler plates from styrene sheet and a locking pin.





Three more masters set up for molding.  From left to right we have the cornice from the express building, the tunnel liner, and the plywood form concrete wall.




Two pots of molding compound, a drum solo (on the counter to work bubbles out), and half an hour of popping bubbles on the surface to make sure the back of the mold is smooth and we have molds ready to set over night.  (Fingers crossed)




Cheers!

[Random]

I de-molded the masters and poured testing castings.  They look good.




I only need 6 of the tunnel liners for the current project.

Cheers!

[Mark Dalrymple]

Great stuff!

Cheers, Mark.

[S&S RR]

Very nicely done.

[Dennis Bourey]

I agree!!!!! Very nicely done.......Dennis

[sdrees]

What else can I say, Very nicely done!

[ACL1504]

This thread just keeps getting better with each posting. Fantastic job.

Tom