king derelict

I made some progress with the keep and the ramp. Quite relaxing after the outer walls although the keep windows are fiddly. I spent quite a bit of time puzzling out the next moves; the lighting and the build up of the main towers. I have some cheap 2V yellow flickering leds from Amazon which I have been playing around with. I'm a little nervous of using them in this model being a bit unsure of their quality so I ordered a$50 worth of 3V flickering warm white ones from Evans Design and hopefully they will be a higher quality. The kit guide would have you build up the walls of the tower before fitting the roof but I am reluctant to do that. It is possible to slightly distort the walls as teh blocks go up and then the roof is not going to fit well. I am also trying to work out what parts of the upper structures should be lit and need wiring. This is the roof with the layout of the next levels. I think I am going to try building up the cardboard formers to see what I have up there and then sort out the lighting and wiring before adding the roof and starting the blockwork. Thanks for looking in and all the help and support Alan

Very interesting stuff and it is probably pertinent to remember that Pythagoras and Euclid were around a long time ago too Alan

Interesting stuff Craig It sort of reminds me of many, many years ago when I worked construction out in the Arabian Gulf. The engineer on site was the only person who could read a drawing and he gave the dimensions to the foreman who was the only other person who could read a tape measure. He would then hunt around for a stick of the right length and the gang would be told "that deep" Alan

Thank you very much EG. That is really helpful. 18 inches is less than 0.1 inches at scale so I think I will use the Woodland Scenics yellow turf. and some bushes. The landscaping is going to be a fun part of the build and I appreciate your help. Alan

In spite of planning to take a break I am still enjoying this project so much and with the morale boost of completing the curtail wall I decided to carry on while the spirit is strong. I am adding the blocks to the keep and the causeway to the main towers. I then have to stop and think about the lighting. There will be plenty of room to run the wiring under the landscape but I need to work out how many leds will be needed and how to mount them in the towers. I don't think they get hot so maybe i can place them on foam blocks. This will be a bit more of an adventure compared with shaping and adding blocks Thanks for all the support and comments alan

Thank you Craig. Its slow but now it feels like I am making progress and I am enjoying watching it unfold. The medieval builders must have been masters of the basic mechanics of engineering and understood levers, fulcrums and mechanical advantages in things like pulley systems. I suppose they had plumb bobs and maybe some sort of level but they certainly did great things and left us some wonderful buildings to marvel over. The cathedrals of Salisbury, Chartres and Cologne are marvels as are the English Castles of Edward in Wales. Alan

I had a quick look to see if there was a weight given on the box but unfortunately not. Its going to be heavy though. As for where it will be situated when finished. I'm trying not to think about that. Its too wide to sit on a shelf somewhere. I really have no ides. Its a recurring problem for me. I'm wondering why on earth I bought a 1/48 Lancaster kit too! Alan

Thanks Andrew. The ends of the curtain wall look nice and square but that might be modern restoration work. at the end near the main towers the ground is distinctly difficult for a major assault which would be squeezed between the wall and the towers. At the other end the ground is easier but a force coming round the wall would find themselves caught between the wall, the keep and the cliffs under the main tower. It may just have not been finished as you noted. Like Beaumarais castle on Anglesey. Alan

Thank you very much OC. I think I can see holes in the curtain wall that may have held the inner ends of beams supporting wooden galleries. I had thought about trying to make some up but I'm not sure I can make the detail fine enough for 1/200. Maybe wire ladders painted to look like wood. I'll see how things look as I get to teh finish line. Alan

Thank you very much EG. There is some great reading material there and a lot of good ideas and techniques. I think this is going to end up as a mix of techniques. I think I will use foam board as the basic structure (and to help out those cardboard piers) and mesh and hydrocal. I think I may invest in a hot wire cutter for the foam board shaping. I'm thinking about ground cover too. The green flock provided in the kit will be ditched along with the blue (not even any water in this one). The landscape is more arid and needs to be yellow green anyway. I'm wondering about static grass but would that be too tall for a 1/200 landscape.? I liked the Woodlands Scenic shaker of grass that I used with the WW1 diorama so I may get another in a yellow colour. Thanks again Alan

Thanks Jack I have some spare screen mesh in the garage. I hadn't thought of using it but thats a great idea Alan

I have a lot of affection for the Harrier family. You did a marvelous job of this one. The panel lines are really neat.I Somewhere in the build line I want to attempt the X-32B, F-35B, AV-8B and Sea Harrier. My STOVL family as it were and three STOVL concepts Alan

The individual models are beautifully detailed but the diorama is spectacular. So many interesting elements and all well drawn together Alan

This is a nice video of Loarre Castle which illustrates some of the simplifications of the kit. The base should really be sloping over its entirety but I think its a reasonable interpretation. There are a few elements about the castle itself that I'm curious about. The outer wall and turrets don't have battlements of walkways. I wonder if they originally had wooden galleries with ladders and platforms within the towers. The other curiosity is that the outer walls don't fully enclose the towers yet the ground on one side seems to be easy terrain for the enemy to wander around the end of the wall I may have to try modelling the two rock pinnacles as part of the base

I brushed on matte craft varnish which seals the blocks and the mortar mix. It also seems to bring out the colours of the blocks and suddenly the whole thing seems rather better than in its raw state. Suddenly I'm quite pleased with it although the camera picks out a few places that need a bit of further attention. I built up the cardboard piers that the towers will stand on. I've added them to the baseboard but I'm thinking of adding some more support. Aedes Ars have a lot more confidence in the loadbearing capability of cardboard than I do. I might stack a few heavy books on the piers and see how they do for a few days. I added the cardboard formers for the main towers and the keep to get some idea of what is still to do. Some way to go but its getting time to plan the lighting and start thinking about the appropriate media for the landscaping. I'm thinking foam blocks roughly shaped and then covered with hydrocal or Sculptamold as a start. Embed some plaster cast rocks to get the cliff faces. Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments Alan

Thank you Mike. Its starting to feel like progress. They have kits out there with 13000 blocks compared to the meagre 8600 in this one Alan

Looks spectacular on the water. Great build. Congratulations Alan

This sounds like a very challenging build Craig. I had read a little about the Pocher kits and thought "machine screw assembly - what could possibly go wrong" . I'm sure you will pull off a magnificent result but it's going to cost quite a lot of 2023D quota of patience Alan

So here we are. A milestone. The last blocks have been added to the outer walls and some preliminary shaping has started. I think I am going to leave a little roughness in the walls rather than sand them to a completely smooth finish. Looking at photos and videos shows some texture to the walls. Smoothing the inside of the towers is not easy even with the "Socket Sanders" (tm). Luckily they will not be easy to view once the model is complete. At this point I think I'm 2/3 of the way through the blocks so that's 5500 blocks shaped and glued onto the formers. I had a full bottle of Weldbond with a broken nozzle that needed using so that was my initial adhesive. That is now exhausted and I'm halfway down the first bottle of the kit adhesive which I like better. It is a thinner consistency and dries faster than the Weldbond. It seemed a bit like Elmers so I made a small trial with a few blocks and it seems to work well so I may move to that when the kit glue runs out. I may be a bit heavy handed with the glue but AA don't really seem to give you enough. I ran out early in the Rochelle Towers build too. The only other flaw (at least to me and I may be missing something) is the concept of building on a cardboard base. Maybe if you don't move it all around during the build then the completed model has enough integral strength to hold itself together but that seems a risky prospect especially with this one where the parts are distributed over a large area. There are few builds out there to reference so I am happier using a sheet of plywood. I hope to finish the shaping tomorrow and add a coat of matte sealant to bring up the colour a little and seal the block surfaces. I am going to take a short break after that and work on a couple of short plastic builds which means I can move out of the garage and back under air conditioning. I was miserable out there this afternoon. That may be an issue with airbrushing out there too. Thank you all for teh support and the likes and comments Alan

Thank you very much OC. Your Waterloo build is an inspiration. The stone look is one of the strong points of the Aedes Ars models even is some of the details are simplified and the blocks are really too big for the scale. Once finished I don't think it will be too obvious and this one doesn't have fiddly battlements which would look out of scale. I think figures are going to be a must. To add colour and a sense of scale. I have enough figures from Pendraken so a skirmish is definitely possible. I'm looking at a lot of photos trying to get a sense of how it looked in the medieval period. Alan

I guess that's going to stay on the unfulfilled teenage dream list them. Alan

I've managed to spend a bit more time adding blacks and suddenly I seem to be getting close to the end of the outer walls. I've really only got the upper half of the last tower and the wall to be done - and then lots of sanding and filing to get final shapes and smooth the walls down. I'm trying to decide how rough to leave the walls. It's an 11th century construction so a perfect smooth finish seems inappropriate. I had a peek at the instructions (well more of a simple guide really) and it shows the last wall covered in blocks all the way to the base. I had already started on mirroring the outside by then and I confirmed the hill contours are the same on the inside of the walls as the outside so it just seems a waste of blocks. Maybe it adds a bit of stability to the card former but I had been thinking of adding a support along the bottom of the wall from scrap wood or foam anyway. I hope the next photos will show the finished walls and then a clean up of the bench is in order. The remaining stock of blocks is looking a bit better than I thought so I'm hopeful I'm not going to run out. Thanks for looking in and the comments and likes Have a great weekend all Alan

The GT40 was very beautiful. A huge favourite of my youth along with the Renault Alpine Alan

Thanks Craig Crawling down the aluminium inlet ducts in the afternoon dressed in a Tyvek bunny suit to do fan inspections has been a bit of a trial lately. It will be great to not be doing it in August. I'm definitely enjoying being back at the work bench and with the end of the walls in sight the enthusiasm is high. Alan

Thanks Andy May have to add another kit to the pile Alan