Something a Little Different

SimonT

Western Thunderer
Hopefully another couple of days will see the 'wibble, wibble, bottom fish banana, sponge cake and chips' stage complete.
My next job is to then fill in the mortar which has to fill some rather large gaps, just as in the real thing; in some places it will go over the stone. I have been trying to melt the plasticard as a first attempt - close but no cigar. Whatever I use needs to bond to the plastic as Dyffryn will be going out; this rules out the DIY filler approach, unless someone has managed to bond it to the plastic. Has anyone tried dissolving plastic filler to obtain a runny liquid? At the moment I am trying to avoid having a right index finger that is engrained with grey Humbrol filler ;) .
Suggestions please!
 

SimonT

Western Thunderer
Well progress has felt very slow but this is where I have got to with Prices Row.
IMG_1503.jpgIMG_1504.jpg

The effect I am looking for is a well worn lime wash finish. Looking at suitable buildings around this part of Wild Wales, the last of the was sticks to the lime mortar and there are various fading effects on the masonry. God knows what the staining around the bottom of the walls was but it was there on the prototype cottages until they were gentrified. The yellow is a surprise as it is the stronger colour from the green mixed into the dirt brown colour. The khazis must have been 'interesting' in winter.
Just finishing the glazing and then it is to the roof.
I now realise that the masonry is far too big and good for such a hovel. I will get around this by making people stand six feet away.;)
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Hopefully another couple of days will see the 'wibble, wibble, bottom fish banana, sponge cake and chips' stage complete.
My next job is to then fill in the mortar which has to fill some rather large gaps, just as in the real thing; in some places it will go over the stone. I have been trying to melt the plasticard as a first attempt - close but no cigar. Whatever I use needs to bond to the plastic as Dyffryn will be going out; this rules out the DIY filler approach, unless someone has managed to bond it to the plastic. Has anyone tried dissolving plastic filler to obtain a runny liquid? At the moment I am trying to avoid having a right index finger that is engrained with grey Humbrol filler ;) .
Suggestions please!

Sorry, I missed your question earlier, so the response below that I would have given is too late.

I would be cautious making a very liquid plastic with MEK... That's a lot to evaporate off and some won't for a while, leaving a much increased potential for warping and the structure going a bit soft in all the wrong places. (Speaks from experience...)

To be honest, the filler doesn't have to be solvent based. You can easily use Polyfiller, or similar. I would, however, give it a few days for the solvent used to fix the blocks to clear out before filling the gaps.

What you've done looks great though.
 

SimonT

Western Thunderer
Confession time. I used the Plastic Weld that Squires are selling with Humbrol grey filler. Lets just say it is a good way to get wavy untrue walls. The End wall is made from one layer of 1mm sheet and one layer of 1mm thick 'stones' and is currently in braces being pulled a little more true. I know, I know..... Please stop the Tut-Tuts.:)):))
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
What’s the date you’re setting this? Lime washing or rendering came under ‘regular maintenance’, and would have been frequently renewed. For various reasons (and here our friends Ruskin and The various Gilbert Scotts have much to answer for), removal of this stuff has been fashionable for a century or so.

Here’s an example of the extreme end of that process, the medieval tower of St Peter and St Paul, Tonbridge. You can see that there’s still a fair bit visible 150 odd years after Ewan Christian vastly extended the medieval church.

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The stone is a bit crap, to be honest (though the extension for the battlements and belfry are better), so the tower, for its first five centuries or so would have been white! You can see from the weathering to the stone surface one of the benefits of a lime finish, the stone is suffering from its removal.

IMG_0896.jpeg

Perfectly normal historic finish, so model it.

Adam
 
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SimonT

Western Thunderer
Adam,
it is probably between the wars. It is rural Wales and things change very slowly! The origin of these cottages is a search on the inter-thing that showed up the row of cottages before and after restoration. Judging from the clothes the photos were taken in the last twenty years. There is a house on the Swansea road out of Brecon that has just had the render removed. "Construction" was brash and the odd bit of brick and the removed render looks to have been lime. We saw a lot of this while living near Malmesbury where the Freemen insisted that all the rebuilding/restoration in the High St. was done using the original methods and materials. We knew the contractor from the pub!
Cottages1.jpg
This is the photo that started this and it is used for information only.

Simon
 
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