Gary Pfeil's scratchbuild

Gary Pfeil

Active Member
From another angle. Despite having a dehumidifier running constantly, dampness in the basement is creating havoc with wood swelling, hence the noticable space between the edge of the plywood the corridor tracks are on and the wall. I can not attach them permanently as the whole shebang must be removable for access to the throat of the staging yard. At some point in the near future I will take a series of photos showing the sequence of adding elements from a bare scene to what you see here.
 

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Gary Pfeil

Active Member
Just for giggles. You can see how large that gap is. I figure I'll wait till heating season and see what happens then before I try to solve this problem.
 

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Gary Pfeil

Active Member
In an earlier post I talked about glueing the plaster wall sections together using carpenters glue. Well, I didn't care for that as plaster apparently absorbs the glues moisture too quickly, or else the basements humidity affected the strength of the joints. For the foreground wall, I used 5 minute epoxy, applied on the backside only. This worked great! I then filled in the gaps on the front side using carpenters glue applied with a toothpick. This was easier to do that using the plaster in a hypodermic as I also mentioned earlier. Since I am painting the walls, not staining them, this was ok.
 

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Gary Pfeil

Active Member
Ground cover and a tree to hide the rear wall where it hits the backdrop are next. The tree will be made from this wire. I don't remember where I got it. But the way it has several bundles of fine wire ought to make it possible to make a detailed branch structure. The question is will it be possible for me!
 

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Gary Pfeil

Active Member
Well it's been awhile, I've painted my house this month! Now I'll get back to modelling a bit. Here's the tree after untwisting, retwisting and some soldering. The wire I used sure provided a lot of branches, and a lot of work. I probably have about 5 hours into it so far. It's ready for some trunk material to be applied, and painting. Any ideas on material for a trunk? In the past I've used Durhams rock hard water putty, which looks great but needs care in handling to avoid having it break off when planting the tree. I've tried various tubed material, perm a gasket and similar, but getting any detail was difficult.
 

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spitfire

Active Member
Wow Gary -- outstanding work. Your craftsmanship is always so inspiring!!

For the tree coating, it seems to me that something flexible would solve your flaking problem. Or there's always Squadron Putty.

Val
 

MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
The lightweight patching compound dries to a slightly flexible foam-like texture. I don't know how well it would stick to the solder/wire, but might be work a try. You'll know you have the right stuff when you pick up the container - it seems kinda empty...! ;)

Andrew
 

Jac's Lines

Member
Have you tried milliput or another 2-part epoxy putty? This stuff has the consistency of modelling clay, but will stick really well to almost any surface. It has at least 15 minutes of work time before it sets up and is basically indestructable (and paintable with acrylic craft paint) when fully cured. You can get it through Micro-Mark, and maybe your LHS. The metal miniature wargamers crowd often uses 2-part putty to make masters -- it evidently sticks to the metal armatures and holds up to the heat/pressure of mold making.

By the way, I agree totally with all the positive feedback you've gotten. This project is a real scene stealer.
 

Gary Pfeil

Active Member
Thanks much for the compliments. Andrew, I know the stuff you are talking about, I used it in a spare room I sheetrocked this past winter, and it is great to work with. I hadn't hought of it but think it would have the same problem as teh water putty. Jac, I had forgotten about those two part putties. A friend had brought soem over once, I think that may be just the thing. Last night I painted a heavy coat of acrylic paint on it, using its body to conceal the twisted wire. I think that may be sufficient, I'll be downstairs later to see how it holds up and add more.

I had mentioned a page or two back that the whole scene needed to be removable for access, here are some photos of the corner with the scen removed and the pieces added on by one. I'll post two angles of each step. The first shows a couple pieces of velcro on the backdrop, these hold one end of the Reardon Steel building. The building rests on a strip of wood which also is held by velcro, its supports are jsut out of sight behing that brown shelf, which supports the corridor, but doesn't cover the trackwork beneath. It also would be removable if I needed to actually replace a turnout. It is held by a number of screw which are accesable.
 

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Gary Pfeil

Active Member
Then the corridor is put in place, it just sits there.
 

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Gary Pfeil

Active Member
Then the front wall is put in place between the corridor and its "concrete" base. The landscaping will be brought up to this base.
 

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MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
Great work...

I think you may be right that the lightweight filler might be too inflexible, but your comment about epoxy and glues and acrylic paint got me thinking. My 4 year-old watches "Art Attack" and the host is always mixing up paint and PVC (white) glue to make a sort of papier-maché using "kitchen roll" (paper towel). I wonder if that would work, at least for the larger limbs?

Andrew
 

Gary Pfeil

Active Member
Here's my half foliated tree. I wound up using the Milliput and it works beautifully. Thanks Jac for the suggestion. Andrew, I think your idea could work as well but would be messier to deal with.

I have to say the photo here looks better than the tree in person. I was very disappointed with the foliage, it loses the benefit of all the fine branch structure visable on the unfinished side. I need to do a better job with the polyfiber beneath the leaf material. But the tree does its job of hiding the wires hitting the backdrop.

I leave for vacation Thursday, so I doubt I'll be posting here again prior to my return. Take it easy everybody!
 

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MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
I'm with Jim... It is amazing how little of the stuff you need. A big tree like that might use the amount you can pinch between finger and thumb, stretched out until it is almost falling apart.

Looks great in any case though!

Andrew
 
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