Projects, Projects, Projects....! I don't know what happened but this past couple of weeks has seen me get way over my head with things to do. A few weeks ago I said that I'd be posting a little less so that I can concentrate on scanning the gazillion photos around here. Then the scanner broke! So then I rummaged around The Cave and pulled out my bagged Civil War sets, finding way more than I thought I had. Then I started building a Civil War diorama. And this weekend I took some days off of work to work in the backyard. The sprinkler system in the backyard needs a total re-vamp and I'm digging ditches and re-laying all the pipes, and boy am I hurting! I'm gettin' too old for that junk.
But for now let's take a look at this Civil War thing I'm workin' on. I hesitate to call it a diorama. The word 'diorama' evokes a static, fixed, unchanging scene but this board is meant to display just about anything I want and swap toys around at will. The whole thing started when the guys at work dis-assembled and re-purposed the components of a large crate and left behind this one end piece. There were two choices: throw it in the garbage, or use it for something. 'Use it for something' seemed a much better choice. At 41" (104.1cm) x 33 3/4" (85.7cm) it's not huge, but it's heavy because of all the 1x4 framing underneath.
The first step was to remove a couple of pesky nails still sticking out of it. Here's the board sans nails.
Next, I glued on a couple sheets of thin Styrofoam. These had been sitting in The Cave for years and were used as packing material for sumthin-or-other. They are a tad bit oversized and the excess needed to be cut off once the glue dried. I generally use Elmer's Wood Glue because it comes in a large bottle and does not harm the Styrofoam. Their white glue would work just as well. Normally weight is added to hold down the Styrofoam pieces, but I carefully turned the board over and used the weight of the wood to hold things down. General rule of thumb, for me, is to allow 24hrs drying /set-up time
Next time around, we'll look at how the main components will get laid out.
Enjoy!
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