So, I figured I needed some change-as-a-rest time. I'd checked that I had enough South Eastern Finecast brick sheet. I had, but it was English Bond! The garage workshop is stretcher bond! Heavily painted and very faintly mortared, but noticeable nonetheless.
I'm not in any way a patient man, so I decided to make my own brick sheet. I have all this layout card after all. It turned out that a sheet was just long enough to do the main front wall of the workshop, so I set the digital callipers to the right measurement for a brick course, locked them and pushed their sharp little teeth all the way down the sheet, both ends, then with a slightly blunt scriber, part of a cheap Lidl tool kit, in the craft knife handle, ran the courses through with it against a nice steel edged wooden straight edge I found at a Sunday market. At the right distance down the sheet (62mm) I stopped and using the desk lamp to shine through the card when it was held against the structure, already cut out, I marked the card and cut it out. Impressing the card with the scriber and the vertical joint "chisel" is tedious, so I only do it where I have to, hence marking out the windows, doors and even where I know large adverts will be placed on the face of the wall. Why do more than you need to?
This should show the impressions so far. Little bit left on the front and one end wall to do. The other end and back, like the office, already made are rendered. That will take advantage of the fact that the workshop was the first thing I made from Foamex. I can impress a patch of wall lower than the surface, then impress a little brickwork into that and bingo!...brick showing through render, which has spalled off in the damp/frost cycle that ruins render everywhere.
Here's a closer look at the card with the stretcher bond pressed in.
The workshop is to be painted a lightish, washed out grey and from any distance, it's difficult to see the brick bond at all.
This is layout board, by the way. I have packs and packs of it!
This side is shiny which might have a use, I haven't decided yet! But it does make a great surface for spray glue, which is how it'll get attached to the structure.
Also had a wee play with Foamex as a base for the church model. Very promising and Valejo paints cover very well (and I hate acrylics), but I'm sure I shall also experiment with gouache, my particular favourite paint for arty stuff, like painting lots of sightly different lumps of stone.
Checking my pictures of the church walls, it looks like I'll have to impress the smaller stones much more deeply and striate them with more vigour and definition, but I do think Foamex is the answer. Painting it all will be a much more sensitive, complex job than actually building it!
All looking very promising, Martin. I remember pasting up on that board at a couple of agencies I worked at in the eighties. The bad old days of cow gum and spray mount! And things falling off on the way to the printers...Yes, I agree, painting will make or break the church, but you're the man!
ReplyDeleteAh, cut and paste, Cow Gum, Spray Mount. I didn't realise that had been part of your past too, Iaian. We used to do service manuals for Ford in 19 languages. Have you ever tried proof reading Portugese? We had a guy who was very quick at paste ups, but he simply sprayed the air, didn't use a box, so we used to stick to his desk area. We called it Botchilism corner! Happy days at Hockley Design. Thanks for the kind words. I suppose I'd better do the paying jobs today! Dammit.
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