I made a couple of mistakes with the runs on the stonework...this is snecked stone, i.e. big stones with smaller "nib" or "snecks" between...and I inadvertently made a few vertical courses above each other. No matter, I can smooth a touch of Das over the offending line, wait for it to dry and then scribe it again.
Via his website Weaver estimates he’s spent over 3,000 hours on the project, and the toothpicks have been sourced from around the world:
"I have used different brands of toothpicks depending on what I am building. I also have many friends and family members that collect toothpicks in their travels for me. For example, some of the trees in Golden Gate Park are made from toothpicks from Kenya, Morocco, Spain, West Germany and Italy. The heart inside the Palace of Fine Arts is made out of toothpicks people threw at our wedding."
Very impressive. My old Dad used to make ships from matchsticks, and as a young lad, I thought those were awesome. Until one day when he had done something to annoy my Mum, and she burnt all five of them on a bonfire in the back garden. Something about the look of fiendish delight in my Mum's face stays with me to this day. I scuttled up to my model railway room when Dad came home from work, thinking it wise to leave the scene...
Scott Weaver's web site here.
3 comments:
Nice work, Iain. I'm scribing the stonework on the buildings for Bron Hebog too. It is very tedious work but worth it for the results.
I'm doing it direct onto styreme after trying to use DAS but not getting on very well with it - I found it just too fibre-y and when I scribed edges of the stones would flake away. What am I doing wrong? Any tips?
The stonework looks great. Das gives a really nice surface texture for this sort of thing. How long does it take to develop an "eye" for the shape of stones to scribe though ?
Rob: Thanks! Yes, it is very tedious work, I agree. I did some models years ago using Das on styrene, and it didn't work...the styrene was so difficult to apply and I didn't have the guts to try and bond it with solvent. I did have success with polyfilla though...using Evo-Stik impact under a stiff mix of polyfilla directly onto .040" sheet which I had roughened up previously. Bits still fell off at the edges though. One thing I would say is that I scribe very gently, going over each stone three times, then brushing out with a stiff hogshair brush.
You could try scribing the clay wet...I've done that with some success, although it generally works better with "Pecoscene" or "pyruma". I'll put up some pics of the direct wet scribing when I can find them.
Phil, thanks very much! I sometimes mark the stones out in pencil on the dry clay....I sand the surface first to get rid of imperfections. For rough coursed or rubble stonework it's pretty easy to get a feel for the way the stones sit, but with the proper snecked style, it's more of a mental challenge! You soon get into the swing of it though.
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