workbench update

Rock progress

Been a bit quiet here in Utrainia for the last month or so. With good reason however, as my CNC machine has been taking up all my time. I am hoping that once I have ironed out the bugs it will be both accurate and powerful enough to help make many of my models. I can design them upstairs in comfort, and then "print" them out on the machine, which will then carve them out before my very eyes. Currently there is still a bit of work to do on it, and I'm waiting on a few final components.

In the meantime, I have resumed work on my canyon scene. I have finally finished carving all the rocks, after a couple of additional weekends work carving away. Now it is time to move on to more exciting stages, as I stain all the rocks.

Gone camping

One of my favourite ways to escape for a weekend has always been camping by the sea. Since I was on my own this weekend, and it's been a while, I decided to spend a night under the stars. So I dug out my camping gear, loaded up the wagon, and set off for Utrainia's Coastal Highway.

I found a good spot to pull off, parked the car and gathered up my gear. After half an hour or so of clambering around the coastline I arrived at a nice quiet wee spot. I found a nice sheltered spot and pitched my tent. And as luck would have it I was right next to the mainline!

I fell asleep listening to the waves crashing into the shore, occasionally interspersed by clickety clacking as a train went past.

The next morning I rose bright and early to the fresh sea air. After breakfast I grabbed my book and camera and found a nice spot where I could comfortably read and watch the ...

Rockfall shelter progress

I did more rock carving on Sunday, but soon got a bit bored of that. It's a pretty slow and tedious process, although it's really starting to look the part now.

I decided instead to tackle the rock shelter. My masters had dried by now and were ready to be turned into molds.

Step one is to attach the masters to a smooth base, and build a fence around them. I'm making these molds upside-down, so the flat surface at the bottom will become the top where I pour in the resin. These are just simple one-piece molds.

The fences are cardboard, hot glued in position. As long as it's water tight that is all that matters.

Step 2 is to mix up some silicone. I have some highly accurate jeweler's scales which I use to measure out the precise ratios, and a 100 pa...

Rocking rocks

Well the queen of Utrainia is away for the weekend, which means it's back to bachelor living for me and the cat, and the bulk of the weekend has been spent in the garage, bag of plaster in one hand, empty pizza boxes in the other!

During the week I went on a collection trip up the road to get some suitable soil. I tried to turn this soil into a clay-coloured paste to cover the raw polystyrene, but instead I just made mud. Mistake #1!

Correcting this mistake, I made a new paste consisting of: "Deck and Pave Grip" (very very fine sand), acrylic modeling paste, water. Mixing these together made a nice gritty paste that I used to cover the polystyrene and blend the rocks into the scene. This worked well.

I then glued the first tunnel into position and filled behind it with boulders. The boulders were easily made: take one zip lock bag, some old plaster castings and a hammer. Put plaster in bag, seal, bash. When done you should have a good variety of plaster rocks.

Making Rocks

A canyon requires rocks, and so rocks I've been making.

For the steep cuttings near the track I made a latex mold of a rock in the garden. This was a fairly smooth-faced rock and so hopefully will represent where the railroad has blasted and excavated away the rock.

After applying 3 layers of latex to the rock I peeled off the mold and prepared it for casting. To cast it I supported the mold on some card and spooned in some plaster. From the same batch of plaster I applied some to the vertical polystyrene surface where it was to go.

I kept a careful eye on the plaster, and as soon as it was no longer liquid (but still quite soft), I transported it to the site. Using the cardboard to support the mold I bent it to shape and pressed it onto the wall. I left the mold in place till it was dry, then peeled it off.

This worked very well for get...

Canyon progress

Progress on the Thompson River Canyon has been steady this week. Last Sunday I only had a couple of blocks of polystyrene, but over the last few evenings I've fleshed this out into many layers of sculpted polystyrene, and added some tracks.

Working closely from reference photos of the area, I used a saw and craft knife to roughly shape the foam, then a SurForm tool to grind off the rough edges. Then I worked the foam with a knife, breaking off chunks to form rock faces. I used the saw blade to scrape over the surface and add more texture. By the end of the second night I had this:

The last couple of days I have been fillin in the joins between layers with some lightweight spackling compound (Red Devil brand). I have no idea what spackle is, or what it is mad...