Under pressure

Another 12 hour day today, this time spent wrestling with clear acrylic!

I am now prioritising things that absolutely need to be finished on time. This basically means the Iron Building at the front of the 'blob'. I want to have the core of the building finished so that when the brass etching arrives, it should just be a case of spraying it and slapping it on...


...but before I get to that, I also had to make a couple of other alterations.

As it stands now..

The viewing platform needs a groove in the blob to sit in so that was the first thing done. I used the same parcel tape/ body filler technique as I did for the pedestals yesterday. This time it was just a case of creating a long, thin former (I left the former in the workshop so no pictures I am afraid!) and wrapping it in parcel tape. I then roughly gouged out the groove in the side of the blob with a dremel and filled it generously with body filler. The former is then pushed in and held to the correct angle and height whilst the filler sets and the excess is trimmed away...

Next up, detailing the pedestals.

One cladded pedestal...

The large rear pedestal has a faceted outer layer which I tried to recreate by scoring thin styrene and then wrapping it around. It is then trimmed and you're left with a nice, white, textured pedestal ready for painting.

2 more left to go!

Unfortunately it ends there as my attention turned to more pressing issues...

Nasty texture...

...namely that of what to do with the Iron building and the viewing platform. After consulting my tutors, I tried vacforming the viewing tower. The shape was cut out of chemi-wood (but to a much larger height - this is to prevent webbing of the plastic...which happened anyway) and thrown in the vacformer. The pictures show that not-so-good outcome of the experiment and it's back to the drawing board.

....and even nastier clarity!

Tomorrow I will try the clear block of Acrylic which I have used for the iron building. This has nicer clarity and should be simpler to construct.

From the photos you will see the iron building has been started. The two sides not receiving brass etched detailing have been cladded in 1mm styrene and more layers of detail will be added to the sides and roof tomorrow.

I hope to have this building finished early next week so I can concentrate on the trees, water, viewing platform and the glass wrapping around the lower parts of the blob next week...lots to do!