Anglia105E

The whole trestle and abandoned railway scene as part of your diorama has really come together nicely Paul . . . Just like you need HO / OO gauge railway stuff to go with your 1:64 scale format, I am using O gauge railway models with my 1:43 scale format, although strictly speaking the O gauge stuff is 1:48 scale, and not actually 1:43 . . . This is is particularly noticeable with the figures, which look smaller in O gauge. David

Yes Steve, my bungalow is intended to have been built during the 1950's over here, so the room layout might have been more common at that time. David

These 1-2-3 blocks are the most useful tool that I have purchased in many years, and I don't know how I have managed to build anything without them. I agree with you Paul . . . one set is just not enough. One of the most convenient functions that they provide is to hold down the baseboard structure, while I am working on other parts of the building. Simply placing a block inside a couple of the rooms keeps everything from moving around. The same goes for measuring, drawing and cutting foam board pieces, as one block keeps the piece of foam board nice and steady, and both hands free . . . Machining? . . . Oh yes, you could use the blocks for machining. Presumably, that was their original purpose :-} David

As I was laying out the floor plan on the foam board base, I found it it helpful to place objects such as the car, and a figure, and also a greenhouse so that I could visualize the overall proportions of the plot . . . Each wall panel was carefully and precisely drawn, measured and cut to size. The most satisfying part of this process was calculating the position and size of the door and window openings. I have not studied as an architect, so all of this work is just me making it up as I go along . . . The window frames and the main entrance door were ordered from a company in York, and these are laser-cut from 1 mm Rowmark, which is a white plastic material from the United States . . . By cutting out the window openings slightly smaller than the window measurements, the frames fit tightly into the openings and do not require any glue to hold them in place. Using my 1-2-3 blocks the walls and corner joints can be kept straight and true. Although the foam board does warp significantly when painted on one side with the water-based emulsion paint that I am using, the foam board panel straightens out perfectly once emulsion paint is applied on the reverse side. There will be wooden window ledges below each window on the inside of the bungalow, and also clear acetate for the glass. The garage doors have yet to be fabricated out of balsa wood, and they will have working hinges . . . Here are a few more photos to illustrate the above description. David

Well, I suppose it is rather an odd layout, and if the front of the property was facing onto a street, then you wouldn't expect to have the bedrooms there. However, if this bungalow has open land on three sides, for example, then it might make more sense. Imagine there is open land to the rear, also open land to the front and open land to the right hand side. Then there could be trees and bushes to the left hand side, as you look from the front of the property,, providing further space between the nearest property of the next door neighbor . . . This allows the bungalow to have living quarters and kitchen / dining quarters looking out onto the land at the rear, so including a patio and garden area. Here is a photo of the rear of the bungalow, showing the doors from the kitchen to the right, and the doors from the living room to the left . . . David

Cheers Dave, and thank you . . . This will be quite a lengthy project, so probably more than 6 months. During 2024 my builds amounted to just TWO . . . which was the 1:16 scale Rolls-Royce Phantom III at 6 months, and the 1:24 scale Model T Ford at 2 months. David

Thanks Paul, and please allow me to explain . . . The front door as we say in England too, opens into the entrance hallway, which has six interior doors that lead to each individual room. The kitchen at the rear of the bungalow will have French doors opening out onto the rear garden area. Also, the living room at the rear of the property will have French doors, and they too will open out onto the garden area . . . The French doors do not yet have an opening cut of the rear walls, which is probably what is misleading you ? There is also an access door at the rear of the garage . . . David

This new project was started during December 2024, shortly before the Christmas period. For this one I am scratch building a bungalow in 1:43 scale, using mostly foam board and balsa wood . . . The bungalow has three bedrooms, a living room, dining kitchen, bathroom, entrance hall and a garage. There will be the main front entrance door, also six interior doors, two French doors and a door to the rear of the integral garage. Both the kitchen area and the living room area are having French doors, rather than sliding patio doors . . . All of the exterior walls and the interior walls will be painted. with carpets fitted, and some furniture added. I started the build by hand drawing a floor plan onto the A3 size base board, and this floor plan was obtained from a property website. Each of the wall panels has been mounted onto the floor plan, with quilting pins holding them in place . . . Later, when everything is ready, the wall panels will be fixed in place using PVA glue. I was inspired by an Adam Savage video on YouTube to build this structure, in which he was building his childhood home from foam board. Whereas Adam completed the build as a white only foam board architect's model, I decided from the beginning that I was going to fully paint the bungalow. One of my most accurate 1:43 scale diecast model cars is a 1955 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I and this will be inside the finished garage of the building. Here is an unusual approach to the posting of this W.I.P., because I shall show some photos of where the project is now, so nearly six weeks into the build. and then refer back to previous photos of how various parts of the bungalow were assembled . . . I am fully expecting the roof to be the most challenging stage of the build, so I am not thinking too much about that just yet ! Thanks for having a look guys, and all comments welcome as usual. David

Nice job on the trestle assembly Paul, and the flickering fire for the two guys under the trestle really adds warmth to this scene . . . Well done ! David

This is an interesting topic guys . . . I was building kits between 1960 and 1970, and these were almost entirely Airfix kits, mostly cars but also aircraft, ships, military vehicles and the miniature soldiers for wargaming . . . I did some Scalextric slot car racing, also racing diecast cars along a garden pathway. I seem to remember dabbling in control line RC aircraft and glow-plug aircraft engines. All of my pocket money from my parents was clutched in my hot little hand at the age of around 10 years, as I walked to the nearest newsagents where they sold a few kits(not many) . . . Glue, paints and paint brushes were hard to come by, especially when nearly all of my money had been spent on a kit for that week . . . As I reached my teenage years, I attempted things such as soldering brass tubes together to make a chassis for a 1:32 scale slot car, which had a clear plastic body that could be painted from the inside. Happy days eh guys ? David Watson ( England )

Great idea for the abandoned railway line Paul . . . Shortly I shall be posting a new topic in the W.I.P. Dioramas section, as I have started building a 1:43 scale bungalow from foam board, which is entirely scratch built . . . David

Well Ken, having just completed my build of a 1:24 scale ICM Model T Roadster, your build of this one as a snowmobile is very interesting indeed . . . Let me say, that your build skills are far superior to mine, and I can see that from your photos. Also, as Pierre mentioned, your painting is excellent. I hadn't realised that Ford produced a snowmobile version of the Model T, even during my extensive research on this iconic car. We are expecting heavy snow tonight here in England, so I might need the use of a snowmobile ! David

The guy who supplied me with the Pontiac resin body kit is Pedro, and he is based in Chicago, United States . . . David

Thanks Craig . . . I managed to source the 4 door resin body from a guy in Brazil or Mexico, and I will try to find his contact details for you . . . I am just setting off for a hospital appointment, so I shall have a look later today. The Pontiac body is very good, and price was good too . . . David

Great choice of interior and exterior paint colours David . . . Some nice bits of good humour in there with the mittens comments ! Hope you enjoyed a good Christmas, and Happy New Year to you and yours . . . Outside temperatures are dropping to -2°C here tomorrow morning, and rising to no higher than 2°C during Thursday. Good luck with this Cord build, and I shall surprise you shortly with my current ongoing project . . . David W.

Congratulations David G., and what an excellent result . . . These older London Taxi Cabs are much more interesting than the modern ones. David W.

Good work on the door glass David G., and I like those tyres . . . Always tricky with clear plastic parts, as we have found previously ! I saw your photo that shows the old barn building, and I know what you mean about the similarity with the barn roof and the Model T bonnet . . . David W.

Those were my thoughts exactly, regarding the first photo . . . Being slightly out of focus was accidental and careless, but the resulting image does blend together with the backgound. My light source does match the direction of the sunlight and shadows in the background photo, and that was intentional, so not accidental ! The Henry Ford figure is from the set of three figures by ICM, and all three of those figures are really good . . . When you say ' barn roof ' do you mean the canvas top, or the hood / bonnet ? David W.

Nice progress on the Cord build David G., and that is a good choice of colour with the blue . . . Very interesting video about the Cord transmission from Bill, which was really advanced tech for 1936 . . . Good luck with the Aoshima London Taxi Cab ! David W.

Tidying up those recent photos, and fitted the second spark plug lead in the engine bay . . . The tyres need to be glued to the wheel rims, as they tend to come off while I am handling the model. The bonnet panels / hood panels are slightly raised in the centre, so they need to be adjusted to fit better . . . David

Thanks Csaba . . . The figure work was challenging for sure, but I got there in the end! . . . I do appreciate your comment about my photography, thanks. David

As you say, not a lot of chrome on the taxi cab, so minimal BMF work to do . . . Nice work on the door cards, and I agree, loads better than bare plastic. Those four exterior door handles look a bit tricky for BMF . . . David W.

Thank you kindly Noel . . . This is the oldest model car that I have built so far, the ' Brass ' era of motor cars . . . David

Thanks a lot Bob . . . This does seem to have turned out reasonably well ! David

Cheers David G., . . . The most important area of the small diorama is where the base meets the background, which at the moment is the background image standing vertically on the surface of the MDF workbench . . . It will be necessary to set up a short grey baseboard in the immediate foreground, whereby the colour and texture matches the colour and texture of the actual road surface in the picture. Possibly I could edit out the joining line in my photos, which many people would refer to as ' Photoshop ' the image, but I don't like cheating in that way, unless I have to of course . . . David