Adam Baker Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 I decided to start a new topic for this, separate from the build thread I had on the Kugelblitz that will go on this base. To see the Kugelblitz, look at this thread. I'm using MiniArts 1/35 "The Corner" diorama base. This is about how I plan on displaying my Kugelblitz on this base. Unfortunately the model hangs off the base quite a bit more than I expected, so I've decided to remove the street portion of the base, and I'm going to create a new street using Dow blue foam insulation. I've been working on this for a couple of weeks, and the last real progress I had made was getting the 2 wall panels cut apart, and then glued together. The kit looks like its all vacu-form, and I had to trim the walls loose. I did this by taking a grinding bit to the backs of the panel, and removed material until I had a very thin skin of plastic left and then cut loose the parts from there. This was how it looked a couple weeks ago. The 2 walls were assembled, but not glued to each other or the base. Now that things are up to date, the progress I've made the last couple of weeks. I've been able to clean the join seams up pretty decent, and I laid down a coat of primer last week to see what needed more work. I've spent the last few days working over the problem areas, and tonight I decided things were far enough along to glue the panels together. I started by gluing the inside portion which has the large mating surface, and then I started working my way down from the top on the outside. The biggest issue I'm looking at now, is that the plastic on the outside at the very bottom was really thin to begin with, and its leaving pretty much no gluing surface. So the plan is to use some .1" square stock that I have, to reinforce the joint and give me an area to lay down the glue. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Holeshot Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Those Miniart kits are fun, and they are vacforms. Most of them include a sprue or two of injected parts for window frames, doors, etc. I've found that the newer ones definitely fit better than the older ones. Even if you've never built a vacform, they're relatively easy builds. Most of the cuts you have to make are straight lines, so it doesn't take much to scribe through the excess and cuts the parts loose. I usually use CA glue and baking soda to put them together--glue & fill all in one shot. My only complaint is that the diorama bases are generally too small for anything bigger than a Jeep as you've discovered! Some of them you might be able to fit a small WW2 tank, but forget about a Tiger or any modern MBT. If you're going to make your own base, just get the building sets, they don't come with the base portion. They do have a few larger diorama bases that have two base sheets instead of the one; they're somewhat better for bigger subjects. I like to make a frame around the base sheet with the largest Plastruct 90deg. angle stock I can find (usually about 3/8"), that helps to give it some additional rigidity, especially on the ones with the larger bases. Curtis Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) Unfortunately I didnt realize how small the base portion was until after I got this kit from a friend, but I decided to just make my own street, so not a big deal. I have looked at the other sets, and they have some very nice ones, and a lot of them seem to be interchangeable, so it opens up even more possibilities. This set did come w/ the sprues of extra parts, and I'm thinking they'll be useful for this base. I've gotten some of the stuff needed to build a floor for the 2nd floor area, that I'll pose like its come loose from the wall, and lying at an angle, to help give it a dilapidated war torn look. My plan is to put this on a large 11"x14" oval base, but I'm still trying to figure out what to use to trim the foam that the street will be made of. Probably something I'll figure out as I progress. Edited February 19, 2012 by Adam Baker Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 More progress! I think this might be the first time I've posted updates 2 days in a row on this project, haha. Got home from some family stuff this afternoon, and pulled the walls out and started working on it again. Last night, one of the things I noticed after they were glued together, was a mismatch in the brick pattern at the corner joint. At the top, the mortar joints align pretty nicely, but as you get lower on the wall, the joints start to move apart, and by the time you get to the bottom of the wall, its off by almost half a brick. Here's what it looked like. At first I thought I could fix it by just carefully working the joints w/ an x-acto blade and one of my razor saw blades, but after awhile I realized this just wasn't possible, as you can see in the picture above. So I started thinking about my options for fixing it. One thought I had, was to fill the mortar joints in w/ superglue, and then re-scribe the the joints, but I really didn't like that idea. I've never done much scribing, so I figured it wouldn't come out real good, plus its pretty tight in the opening, only about .225" wide, so not a lot of room to work w/. So I started thinking about just covering up the bricks. I've seen architecture where there are concrete or stone at the corner, so I started looking for images last night, and came up w/ this one, and it was exactly what i had in mind. You can see how all the corner joints are stone/concrete w/ the rest of the wall being brick. Incidentally, a friend informed me this morning, after much painful searching last night, that the term for this is Quoin (pronounced Coin), which thus yielded all kinda of wonderful examples of what I was looking for, haha. Its amazing what you can find, when you know what something is called. So anyway, the plan is to cover the mismatched brick pattern w/ sheet styrene, and then I'll paint the whole corner up to look like brick. I started by measuring the openings and pulled out my Chopper II and cut several strips that were close to what I needed, but ended up being slightly over-sized, which I think worked out for the best. What this let me do, is fine tune each strip for the opening it would be used in. I found that the openings weren't all the same size, so I pulled out an Emory file and sanded each one till they fit. I then glued each one in place, and cut short the extra material. The plan is to let the glue dry overnight, and then tomorrow (a paid holiday I have to add ) I'll carefully trim the extra plastic off and then sand it flush, and I'll repeat the process on the second side. I think that for the side opposite the corner, I'm going to add a small amount of Mr. Surfacer 500 instead of trying to add a very narrow strip of plastic that may, or may not, work how I would like it to. Also tonight, I was able to finish gluing the wall. As mentioned last night, I cut the bottom of the wall panel, to give access to the inside of the joint at the bottom. Once this was done, I measured the length of the faces, and then cut a piece of the .1" square rod I had, and carefully glued it to the first face. After a couple of minutes, I then applied glue along the rod and the 2nd face, and it seems to have worked quite well. The corner feels tight, and it doesn't move at all. Now I just need a little bit of putty, and no one will ever know that there was a problem w/ this corner joint. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Adam Baker Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 Worked on this for awhile today, and made some decent progress. I trimmed all the tabs from the first side I glued on last night, then I glued all the tabs on for the 2nd side. I let the glue dry for a couple of hours, and then finished it all up. I have to say for a total & complete wag, Im pretty happy so far w/ the results. I have a few places I'm going to have to use some putty, most likely I'll use the Mr. Surfacer 500 that I've got. I might actually manage to get some color on it this week. Just have to figure out what colors to use, and see whether I actually have any. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
arnobiz Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Very nice save! This vacuform buildign looks like a lot of fun to build, tempting me to get back to 1/35 stuff :) Arnaud Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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