Monday, July 12, 2010

Carving cardboard

Slabs and doorTexture matters I think. Sometimes you want lovely smooth surfaces like locomotive paintwork or the hull of a fibreglass floating Gin Place. Other times you need a bit of rough (oh er missus).

The sliding doors on my warehouse should be made of wood. The paving slabs in the platform should be concrete. Both aren't really rough, more not smooth.

Therefore I've used unadorned Daler Board for them. I suppose the doors could have been wood but the card is easier to work. With a bit of care the surface can be scored with the back of a scalpel blade (don't push on the sharp bit when working the tool upside down !) and the result is a good clean line.

The only problem is you can't hit the undo button so a bit of careful marking out is called for or the slabs can get out of sync with each other. I had the same problem when I tried to do some Pendon style brickwork, the horizontals went fine but the verticals, well I missed one and ended up ruining their courses.

Painting will be with Humbrol enamel which doesn't seem to lift the fibres too much is applied reasonably thick (well, not thinned) as it dries fast enough to stop the card swelling.

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