La Belle Alliance Build Part Two

Hello There! I have made some more progress on the build. The start of the build is here.  After starting to cut out the spaces for the doors and windows I found that the width of the gaps for the doorframes and window frames were too small for the front of the building.

Using the grid on the graph paper I was able to widen them both a standard size. I use a sharp scalpel to cut the openings.

During this I made one cut which while it was 'clean' it was not square so the subsequent door and frame would not have sat correctly. In the picture below the left hand cut on the door is misaligned. You can see the mixed Miliputt on the right to correct this.

Here I have put the miliputt in place and fitted the door frame. I waited for this to set and then glued both in place with gel superglue.

I used an engineers square to get both in the right position.

Concerning the timber for the doors and windows, I used a suede brush and then a wire brush to impress a wood grain into the plastistrut. To make this deeper and more pronounced I then ran the tip of a pointed scalpel along as well. This also gave you less chance of running of the side off the plastistrut as the existing small grooves from the wire brushes provided a guide. 

The grooves along the outside edge of the door frame were made using a pointed scalpel again with the plastistrut placed flat on a cutting board and then run along the edge.

The windows are in two parts. The top part is leaded and the lower part is guarded with iron bars which are held in place by horizontal beams against the transom of the frame. I cut the upper and lower parts of the horizontal beams that the bars will fit into. I cut them the same length and held them together while I drilled holes through them so the vertical bars would be vertical. (I had to do this twice so they were parallel!).

With the window bars fitted I started on the doors. These were also made from plasticard and a wood grain finish was added as before. the uprights were added to two parallel beaks, as seen above.

I then peeled off the surface card on the foam.

With all the doors and windows fitted I began to emboss the bricks onto the surface. This was done with the shaped ferrule of an old paint brush . A six inch steel rule was used to maintain a straight line for the bricks.

In the next part I hope to start the priming and painting.