The Broken/Mended Drum
The Broken/Mended Drum
 |
None violent entertainment at the Drum?
My intention was to use the Drum as a display base for the Watch figures I had made at the time. It was therefore built in the relief style of the The Drum plaque as illustrated in a Clarecraft catalogue. I had not seen an example of the plaque and my design was done purely from the illustration. I measured the drawing and scaled it up to create a front elevation. From this I made a plan and then adjusted this to work with the 5mm foamboard that was used in the construction.
I cut a piece of foamboard to the outline of the building, including the chimneys to use as the back wall. Always use a new sharpe blade when cutting foamboard otherwise you risk tearing out some of the foam. Also think about the finish to go on the final construction, if one side has to be flat it may affect the side you joint butts onto. In this model the front facing walls were cut to the correct sizes and the side walls were cut to fit between these and the back wall. I planned to either cover the joints with timber framing or filler.
The over hangs typical of this wooden type of building were made by sandwiching layers of foamboard together. Except for the Gable at the Left hand side the rest of the front of the house is simply 6 layers of foamboard one on top of the other. This front wall was glued to the base an inch from the back wall. When dry measurements were taken and the walls to the stables/river and the right hand end were cut and glued in place as were a number of pieces to add support within the structure. The front of the left hand gable is 3 layers of foamboard which were glued in place and the side walls cut afterwards.
Other than where there was to be a butt joint all cuts were made freehand with some purposely not square which adds to the old character of the building.
While the building was drying out over night I cut a number of lengths from 1/16" obeche wood sheeting in various widths and stained it with a thinned dark brown paint. Wood glue prevents staining so this has to be done before fixing. Without using a steel ruler as a guide a knife is likely to follow the grain of the wood if you try to cut it freehand. I therefore didn't measure the widths but just cut what looked right. 1/16" square strip wood was also used for the window and door frames
The corner frames were fitted first by butting two pieces of wood together and trimming and cutting to length. Cut edges were painted before both were stuck in place. The joins are not visable on the finished model and look convincing as solid squares of timber. The rest of the framing and window frames was marked out in pencil on the building and then the wood was cut, painted and glued in place. The wood for the door at the top of the steps and the hoist was thinned down with sandpaper so that it is recessed into the frame.
The wooden extention above the hoist is a box of foamcard with overlapping wood strips up the sides. The strips were precut to the length on each side which left a space at the two corners were a piece of square strip wood made a neat finish.
The bricks were cut from plastic card, glued in place and painted. The stone work was made by gluing irregular shapes cut out of cereal card board on the walls. When they were dry small lumps of self hardening clay "Das" were pressed on to some of the stones to give a more uneven surface. All the stone areas were then given a coat of thinned filler to provide a textured finish. The outside steps are just roughly cut pieces of foamboard glued one on the other also with the Das and filler treatment. An even thinner coat of filler, more of a wash, was painted over the plaster parts of the building. This also acted as a filler between the timber frames and the walls.
The chimneys were fatten out with additional layers of foamboard and the various roofs cut from thin card. Because of the odd shapes most were done by trial and error. As the box was now fully enclosed I glued strips of paper over the joins in the roof to give extra support. The chimneys were given a thin layer of Das and the stone work scribed in with a cocktail stick. The roof tiles are all individually cut from card. A hole punch was used for the half round ones. The thatch is the main problem with this building. I knew no one who had ever done thatch and had to resort to reading model railway books at the local library. They all suggested similar methods using a thick wool soaked in PVA glue. It didn't work for me but by the time I realised it would have caused to much damage to remove and start again.
The Drum sign is based on the illustration in The Colour of Magic graphic novel, the main door is based on the Clarecraft model and has all the iron work and discarded weapons, the pavement is slabs of cardboard and the cobble street is a type of bird seed that I found in the local pet shop when buying budgie grit.
Besides the thatch the other big errors were the windows and the main door. The windows I painted and then used a number of gloss varnish coat for the glass and it looks all wrong. The main door is perfect for human customers but even Clarecraft's version of Detritus would struggle to get through. My own version has no chance.