Relief Building Progressing

Giving the relief building a proper wooden cladding has progressed to a degree where the lower part of the building is now basically finished. A total of 78 coffee stirrers were cut, distressed with knife and sandpaper, then stained red before being glued in place on the foamboard shell.

The relief building fitted with boards on the lower floor. The large Baguley-Drewry will stil squeeze through the opening!

The basic shape of the building had been prepared earlier this month. As the boards overlap the top of the foundation, I decided to make a coarse representation of a roughly cast concrete foundation before adding the first boards. With the foundation taken care of the process of fitting boards to the building's lower walls could begin. 

The foundation was stippled with wall filler to create some texture. A layer of medium gray paint was brushed on. The building was then ready to receive the board cladding.

A small heap of coffee stirrers were cut to length and stained with red wood staining fluid. I do this before adding the boards to the building. For a start staining doesn't work on surfaces accidentally covered with glue. I also wanted to see if I could obtain a varied colouring of the individual boards. With the building being quite an overwhelming structure on my small layout I hoped the small difference in colour from board to board will help make the building less monolithic.

The boards were then glued onto the foamboard base in two stages. The first layer of boards were glued with a small gap between each board. The next layer was glued over the gap, connecting two neighbouring boards. The process was repeated until full coverage on the lower part of the building was obtained. Not the most entertaing of tasks, but I think the staining and handling of single boards have paid off. At least when I watch the half-finished building.

The first boards have been glued on and are weighted down with jars of glue while the glue sets.

As I have a process worked out, there isn't much doubt how to progress. It's only the design of how to integrate the window frames into the walls I need to figure out.