The Final Week

This week has been intense. I have been working constantly hence no blog update till now. I have been in the studio from 08:30 each morning till 21:30 every night apart from Thursday which was impossible as we all got thrown out at 16:30 becuase of the snowy conditions. Luckily Stuart brought his car and I was able to take the whole project back to our house to work on it through the night (below).

I have structured each day to allow me to use the workshop as a priority whilst thinking ahead to what job's I can do once I have the parts from there. That way the majority of evenings were spent assembling and preparing and masking for spraying and or modification the following day.

The Main Model

Assembly of the main model has been quite smooth. I was able to work as a sortof assembly line with the buttress joints on the model, setting one up to dry whilst moving on to another then coming back to the next part (below).

The smaller buttress sections at the front of the building were particularaly difficult to assemble. I suppose this is something I should have considered earlier in the project. Either way I got it done (below)

Time consuming but essential details were mainly made a night such as the ridges that run along the walls and roof line. These were made at cost to my hands! I have never cut myself so many times trying to make something!

The Roof

I have underestimated this element of models I've made in the past and have done it again. The sections of roof I was able to get cut were fine apart from the smaller wings near the existing main entrance. The parts were rush produced with limited material as I only had enough to make each part once. Needless to say when one section split I was gutted (below on the right of the roof). I applied it anyway to get the building together in time but only loosely to allow me to removing in future

This is the main thing I am unhappy with on the model as I didn't have to the time to do it properly. I hope to come back to this element of the model and remake the whole section to a higher standard before handing it over to the architects in January.

Base Work

I knew that in order to be able to understand how well the building was going to fit together it would have to be fully in situe on the base. This made getting the base details finished and the sections sprayed a priority. In heinsight I should have used a lighter green for the green areas and trees. IThe colour really needed to be more light to draw attention away from the grass areas imballance around the building. This decision, which I regret was rushed through as the base was being brought up to condition to recieve the model. Other details were the surrounding low walls with planters, high brick walls and the road area, all of which needed paint consideration (below).

Last weekend I went to several local model shops but was unable to find any trees that I felt were correct for the styling of my model as well as being the correct size. Luckily Paul provided some that were perfect and in stock at the studio which I had no idea about prior to Chris Wood using them on his model. I sprayed these trees in the same green colour I used on the base.

At the last minute I made a minor error in cutting the 45 degree angle of the base Foamaulx cladding on the wrong side! I knew there was a risk this part would go wrong as I only had enough material to cover each side. Paul and Will assured me that is wasnt a big issue as the exposed side had a good finish anyway and my mark would not be affected.

Laser Cutting

Once again I needed to cut new and edited parts within time to allow me to prep and paint them before assembly. Unfortunatly the earliest slot was 1:30 Wednesday afternoon which didn't leave much room for error. I made sure I had all of the drawings I needed by that slot which I expected to take me about an hour and a half. It took 4 and a half! I should have known as with the bricks, the job took about 25minutes to process which really slowed the process down. I prioritised as I went and cut the smaller details to all me to paint them whilst the roof sections were cutting. This saved me alot of hasstle as the paint was dry by the time I finished and I was able to assemble them that evening.

Brass Etching

All of the brass etched details folded togther better than I could have hoped for (below). Several of the chairs had not been etched correctly leaving part of the 'leg section' whole. I can only assume some of the data wasn't carried over during the etching porcess as the drawings were all copied directly from a master net drawing for the chair. This is a minor issue that will most likely never be picked on once all the chairs are in place anyway.

In order to ensure the parts take the paint without flaking I acid etched them all with an etch primer. This effectivly 'eats' into the surface to give the paint a key to bond to before spraying (below).

Case Making

Due to other elements of the project running over their allowed time I decided that the case was less of a priority for the deadline given that I am marked on the quality of the model foremost. I still made an effort to try and get it finished and intend to do so as soon as the project has been assessed. I spoke to Neil and Jeremy in the workshop regarding the use of the router to trim the case overhang as I had done at Technical Models over the summer. They didn't think the router blades they had on stock could deal with the 6mm overhang. In order to be sure of what I needed to use I rang Dave Bateman from Tech Models who told me to buy the standard tungston bearing blades (below) available at the majority of DIY places.

I purchased one from B &Q for about £15 early on Wednesday and went in to route of the edges(below).

As I expected, there are a few bubbles in the Tensol joint I was unable to fill which have become exposed. Once I have to the time post deadline I will fix this issue and polish the case. A technique I'll experiment with which I didn't use at Tech Models was flame polishing. I found a couple of useful guides online which will be very useful when I come to having a go myself.