Ground Work and Diorama Bases
At our last meeting night, Jorge asked if I would start a conversation about ground work. There are so many people with different experiences in our club, so I will get this started and see if others can throw in their ideas. I know that I have learned some tricks from others.
The fist item is the base. Most of us use a wood platform. There are expensive hardwoods. If you have the means to cut and polish your own, are a good woodcrafter, that is a great start. Knowing how to trim, sand and seal wood is important.
I have had bad experiences with the simple and cheap Pine bases that you find at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. I like to trim the base with a squared basswood. This helps me hold the groundwork in place. The trick with gluing that on, is that you have to be sure you sand off all of the glue smears before you try to stain the wood. This is a lot of work unless you are just going to use paint instead of sanding.
You also need to be sure that you have sealed the inside of the trim completely with an enamal paint or varnish. This will help prevent the wood base from absorbing the moisture of the Celluclay or Sculptamold and warping.
I am going to leave it there and see who else can add to this part of the discussion.
At our last meeting night, Jorge asked if I would start a conversation about ground work. There are so many people with different experiences in our club, so I will get this started and see if others can throw in their ideas. I know that I have learned some tricks from others.
The fist item is the base. Most of us use a wood platform. There are expensive hardwoods. If you have the means to cut and polish your own, are a good woodcrafter, that is a great start. Knowing how to trim, sand and seal wood is important.
I have had bad experiences with the simple and cheap Pine bases that you find at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. I like to trim the base with a squared basswood. This helps me hold the groundwork in place. The trick with gluing that on, is that you have to be sure you sand off all of the glue smears before you try to stain the wood. This is a lot of work unless you are just going to use paint instead of sanding.
You also need to be sure that you have sealed the inside of the trim completely with an enamal paint or varnish. This will help prevent the wood base from absorbing the moisture of the Celluclay or Sculptamold and warping.
I am going to leave it there and see who else can add to this part of the discussion.
2 comments:
When it comes to dirt and rocks for dioramas, kitty litter and the very fine sand and silt that accumulates at curbs, around your driveway, sidewalks, what ever, are cheap, easy to use and genearlly to scale.
As in any othe woodworking project alot of the quality is in the buying. It seems the quality of the pine bases at vareity stores has improved greatly. Still LOOK at the base you are going to buy for warp,cupping, cracks, rough surface (caused by pushing the piece through the tooling resulting in more sanding time). If you are going to just stain or clear coat the wood look for any interesting figure in the wood. Any color contrast in the grain will be brought out when finishrd. Also take a little extra time and sand the piece before applying varnish or stain. This makes for a nice presentation. Now granted it's good to match the finish of a base with the theme or mood of whats going on it but a nice model can be detracted from by a lousy looking base.If you don't want to wait for a clear coat to dry try carnuba car wax. Take a damp cloth wipe on the wax and wipe it off. Real simple,real fast and nice looking.
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