The Blog about Diorama Clervaux

I hope you all started the year well. Thank you very much for still visiting my page.I sincerly hope that this year we can conclude Module No.6.

Gillebauer , that's the name this old farm house had in Clervaux. Unfortunately, the owner died only three years ago when i did not yet know that i would build his home. Now, i am fishing completely in the dark. Based on the picture a few Blog entries below, i have a hard time figuring the layout of the interior, not knowing what was stable(except of course the obvious left side) and what was living area. Add to that that i desperately am short of display surface and would love to have a few more centimetres to get everything in. But i don't have them. I even, so let's start with that, am steeling land from the former finished embankment and am adding a surface here to rest the house on. It will then be placed at half a meter only from the shore. That is common in Clervaux, but a bit strange to handle right now.

In a hurry, while the earth was still not dried, i pushed the wall in using pieces of plaster. I am pretty sure that once it gets a nice weathering and plants it will be ok. I am not sure anymore if i can put the weeping birch on the other shore as planned as it nearly reaches this side and will eventually block to much any view. I will see that later. No problemo to put the birch anywhere else,

Another really challenging element is the fact that this house is going to be seen from the outside and the inside. So no cheating at all, no one sided beams for the timber framed part, no one sided doors and windows and no one sided chimney, just to cite a few examples.

As i finally saw no hope any more in getting this house sketched in advance completely, i started with the timber frame, remaining throughout the whole time in complete improvisation mode. That costs me already some unnecessary work, but i needed to start with anything to get the house developed bit by bit. To solve the double view issue with the timber frame i used a piece of plastic card and glued beams on both sides, mirrored of course and only half the thickness , so that the overall thickness equals a normal wall. As the house is made of slate, i glued pieces of my slate copies made from the castle mould into the empty spaces between the beams

The ends are filled with saw dust to give the impression of a whole beam. Same procedure as for some other build already. Windows and doors drawn on and cut out of the styro architect stuff i can't remember the name even after 6 years.

With my usual tools i am glueing the wall on the board, windows and doors cut out with the Dremel. Doors are framed with beams and some of the windows get a plastic card frame to make a nice and clean opening.

As i have finally something visual to work on i am slowly developing this build in my mind, with nothing marked on paper.

I will do a kitchen on the left side, a little farm servant's (Knecht) room in the middle (just enough space to put in a bed), with openings to the stable on the right side. The complete upper levels will be the attic for hay storage and such. That's it for now.

By the was, Eurospoor expo in Utrecht in October is confirmed, 20000 visitors in three days are expected there. I am trying to find a few exposition panels to display my DinA0 posters on (after i translated them in dutch of course), as informing 20000 people with my silly info maps is out of question. Not sure if i should ask the authorities in Clervaux or perhaps other officials.

Not only had i a few health issues prohibiting me any work in the unheated working rooms, but my trip to the rural museum of Peppange (at 10 km distance only) was also a miss. Having checked for the winter opening hours some days ago and planned it for this Sunday, they probably updated the page in the meantime and announced closure for renovation until February and from .... last week on. Tata! That was a fast trip!

I wanted reference picture for the upcoming build of the "Gillebauer" (farmer Gillen's house) , mainly pictures of local furniture and maybe also ideas regarding the layout of such old houses. As a reminder, here is what i am going to do next (together with the roofing of the bike shop)

The backside will be opened. means a ot of work ahead.

Here is a picture of the Harley (proof that indeed i am doing it myself). The picture does of course show only the later Olive Drab parts, Bags and front screen kept off because they get another colour. Also the handlebar and wheel is not attached as i am not sure yet where i will display the Harley and i eventually need to inflect the wheel to the left to mark a curve.

Also this picture was taken just before all the PE on the front wheel fell off because i "just" wanted to add some other detailing. Grrrrr :-( . I left it like that before braking everything and will fix it after i calmed down. I also did some wiring!

Here is a picture of some of the interior i build for the bike shop, some bikes and a scratched tricycle

With all that and the bike wear plus some posters, i will get this shop window well decorated!

So, for once, i can give you an brand new update, in fact, the resin is certainly still hot downstairs in my working room :-)

As an intro, i must tell you that in order to use up my resin in the one year shelf live time frame, i already made the ground work of the last module, No. 7. This one gets another 80 cm river part, along with somw vegetation and a prestigious Villa. This picture shows you the river bed with the first coat of resin and hopefully the highlight of this part, the fallen evergreen. I added this one, a) to put some more interesting stuff in there and, b) to hide the joint to module 6, at least regarding potential photos.

Just now i added a second layer of resin who will fix also the tree. You will notice that i added cones, made from clay.

I will do the waves and ripples after that and probably put it aside for a year or so until i finished module 6

Hope you like it

Claude

The last expo of the season is done. It was in Walferdange for the Expo Trains 2011. I think it was a great success for everyone, the organisation and myself.

Here are two impressions

My dio in the midst of all the railroaders

I also presented my recently started module with the river

Unfortunately the Sheman got damaged quiet a bit and will need a few hours of work to be redone to the former state.

Thanks again for everyone who took the time to visit me (some came especially to the expo to see the dio) and all those who bought my book. Hope you like it!

No Sedan as och elo déi Bieleser Expo scho Geschicht, 3 down, one to go fir dëst Joër also.

Merci un all déi wou do waren an ech bei méngem Dio begréisse konnt.

A ganze Koup Biller sin hei ze gesinn

http://www.modellboard.net/index.php?topic=37381.0

an och méi einfacher op RTL.lu

http://news.rtl.lu/fotogalerien/renescho/9069/overview/

Sorry, ech brengen et einfach net faerdeg op deem Blog hei en aktive Link anzefügen , also Copy/Paste :-)

Bis dann zu Walfer an zwou Wochen!

The second week of the expo i moved to another spot, more central. This was really worth it. I had as much visitors in an hour as in a whole day last week. So let's quickly forget that episode.

The positives of week 2 have been so many that it is hard to count them all. Let's summarize it by saying that besides enthusiastic visitors of the dio, with a few exceptions non-modellers, who all marvelled about the possibilities of model making and the life like look of my dio. I was obviously proud to hear that. I even don't count all the great comments i overheard while the people were not aware of my presence or status as builder :-).

I think i completely forgot the start of the sentence above and did not finish it correctly. LOL, i will not start anew. So i also made great contacts to officials who gave me great assurance that the dio will find a place in a Clervaux museum in a few years.

Perhaps the most worthy visits were those of a few eyewitnesses! Standing out from those was the visit (after seing an ad of the expo in a newspaper) of this young Lady, pictured with me,

who happened to live in the tower (marked with an arrow) as a child until 1943. It was through this little window she looked over Clervaux during all this pre war and early war years.Her grand parents happened to be the persons who run the Hotel Restaurant inside the castle! Wow, that was probably the ultimate eye witness i could still encounter.

Superbe week overall!

Having completed the river (the first ever water work i did, remember) and the tower (very time consuming and mind consuming) i feel a bit like a soufflé who just collapsed. This took me 6 months to make! Adding to that i must arrange the whole dio for the upcoming expositions, means transporting from the "transit" room in my garage, repairing some damage from former expos and transports, taking pictures (again and again) and preparing everything else. When i finally start thinking about the next steps to build i am always set back by the lack of reference pictures and a bit of lack of motivation to start right now. 10 days holiday break is in sight (Asturia and Cantabria in Spain will be the destination), 4 expos are in sight also with the whole preparation work in between, so this is not like modelling takes a break with me, but the kick to start the new houses fails to come in, yet.

Here is , from the next one to build, the only reference picture i have. I can't read the signs on the facade except the name of the owner. As anyway the german occupant forbid all french sounding names, i need to improvise here.

Hear from me soon!

At least i consider them done, some weathering left to do, but after two months and many many hours i finally finished it. Not entirely satisfied, not when i look through magnifying enses, but not bad after all.

My first test (in march) have been like this

Beginning of June it looked like that

Don't laugh, i see myself how this looks :-)

Here is the first one finished


and the other one

Set in place

Here you notice what i don't like , the welding line on the roof, but i couldn't avoid that unfortunately. In normal diorama conditions, this will not be seen as clearly by the viewers.

Here you can see the result of some of my efforts for the tower work. Moulds, old ones and improved ones, and all the now worthless pours i made from moulds i later changed to better ones.

I hope it was worth it!