Thank You all for your comments,
Heres a little update...
Worked on the front door of the house...



I'm adding a little personal touch to the build. The house number is the birthday of my #4 grandchild!
Just born this February 9,2010 [2910] I need all the help I can get when it comes to remembering birthdays!
I used numbers from a sprue of a Dragon kit...
Made a mold using self hardening clay...

This was my first attempt using latex rubber, however I'm not liking it and I'm going to redo it tomorrow.
But the pictures should give you the idea of it.




This is how I make my own wallpaper...
Where I work, we get 50 lb. boxes of rags to use. These rags are old cut up pieces of clothes. Over the years I've collected alot of different patterns that could be used as wallpaper...

I scan the pattern of choose onto my computer.[Microsoft Picture It! Photo 7.0] I resize the pattern to make it look to scale, than duplicate the pattern a few times.



Hope to have more coming soon!
Kirk

The dials on that halftrack are incredible. I can't belive they're 1/35 scale. Can you please tell me who makes them?

Hello Everyone,
Just a small update...

Brian, the dials on the halftrack are "Archer Fine Transfers" No.AR35230 M2/M3 Halftrack Instruments and placards.

Was in the mood to do something different today, so I decided to biuld a piece of furniture for the inside of the first floor.
As I always do, I draw myself a blueprint...

Using styrene sheets, I cut out all the piece first...

Now! I'm not going to bore you with the construction. I'll just show you the out come...



Tomorrow I'll work on the hinges and handles

Kirk

Good work on the details Kirk.

Why not use simply casting ceramic for your house number (if you have some in stock).

Cheers
Claude

this one just gets better and better, great detail and some great tips/ideas, can,t wait for the next update, great work kirk !!

I like your works very much , The perfect , masterpiece works , thank for building techinque , you are cool very much.

Great progress, great tips, great furniture. What more can I say?

Cheers
Stefan

Yo Kirk,

Damn good scratchwork you show here...unbelievble how you weahter you're objects.

Keep up! We follow!

Greetz Nico

holy.....
what the..

why haven't I seen this post before, I must have been comatosed to miss this great build, really fascinating stuff here,you have a totally different way of building your walls, super detail on the doors and latches,damn, you must have eyes of an eagle, fingers of a pigmeé, and patience of an angel

Super stuff, XXX rated for modellers !

greetz

Very good work!

excellent idea of using cloth

One more thought on wallpaper and furnishings like posters, pictures etc.. . . look online for wallpaper images, scale the pattern and print. and you can get tons of frames etc, even period pieces. . . Cut them out with an extra margin of paper and coat with a layer of white pvc glue and let dry to touch. . . Fashion 4 pieces of wire or wood sliver the same size as the frame.

While still pliable, . . form the frame over the wire or wood to give a raised look. A method that works is simply rolling the excess paper under after trimming out the corners onto the wire or slivers. Add more glue as needed, careful to not get it too thick for scale.

Need a lamp? use a bead, some wire and a small cap from a tube. . (of toothpaste or cream) The cap becomes a lampshade, while the bead is the main base part. You can get really innovative and power it using a tiny LED The brass is the foot and holds it all together.

Kirk!

PLEEEEEEEEASE feel free to "bore us" (yeh right!) with the construction details of the furniture!!!

And everything else...believe me, none of this is boring!

Hello Everyone,
Thank you all for your kind comments.
Well, I'm still in the furniture making mode yet. So I started making some chairs.
I started with sculpting the seat out of baking clay...

Made myself a mold so I could make myself some copies...

Did the same for the back support part of the chair...


I use a figure through out the construction, as a guide to getting the size to scale...

Made the legs out of 1.6mm styrene rod, and carefully make the holes with small drill bit...

Finished chair. One down...Three more to go!


Made curtains for second floor window...


One of the finished cellar windows...



That's it for now
Kirk

Wow, this is a really great project. Thanks for sharing so many tips with awesome pics. There's a few things here I'd like to try now. Thanks

Yo Kirk,

Impressive scratchwork...I have to try some mould technics also...looks cool.

Greetz Nico

Hello Everyone,
Been doing some bounceing around, doing a little bit of this and a bit of that!
Worked on the first floor walls...


Put the bathtub in...

Made my gutters and down spout like so...
First, I started by cutting out the bottom of an aluminum tray and worked out the ridges in it...


Used a 1/8 inche styrene square rod as my form. I put a small piece of double sided tape on the rod where the aluminum would go to keep it in place.

Mark your center line on the aluminum and rod and gentle run your finger over it making sure it hasn't moved on you...

Slowly start wrapping the aluminum around, Make sure you cut your aluminum wide enough to over lap in the back.

Gentle slide the tube off the rod. Superglue your seam in the back. And there you have a down spout...

Used same technic for the gutters, except you don't wrap the aluminum all the way around...


Now, I don't want you to think I forgot about the vehjcles in my dio...So here's a little bit of an update on them.
Sherman...




Halftrack, Added exhaust pipe bracket..

Added mud and some snow before the tracks went on...


That's all I've got for now!
Thanks for looking
Kirk

Hi Kirk,

That looks all great!
Maybe you could tear down a bit the wallpaper on the side near the broken wall.

Well done
Claude

Yo Kirk,

Great tip on the gutters! I must remember this one...nice scratchwork.

We follow!

Greetz Nico

Hi All,
I must say, I find it amazing how some of you gentlemen can knock out a diorama in two or three months! Boy, It takes me that long sometimes to get one or two items done.
Anyway, heres a little update...
Did some research on how I wanted to do my rain gutters...


My gutters...


First floor window...

Interior of Sherman...



Hopefully I'll have more pictures in a couple of days
Thanks All
Kirk

Yo Kirk,

Again great work on you're gutters! The color is spot on.

Keep up.

Greetz Nico

You may be slow Kirk but your work is looking awesome!

Kirk,

what did you use for the base boards and "crown" moulding on the interior wall?

looks great.

Bart

Hi Bart,
Thank you and everyone for your commments.

I made the moulding and base board out of "Evergreen" Strip Styrene.
Moulding..
.040"x.040" [1.0x1.0mm] square
.025" [0.64mm] rod
.015" [0.4mm] rod

I don't have the size I used for the baseboard [lost in my mess] but it was a styrene strip with a .030"[0.8mm] quarter round strip.
Hope that helps
Kirk

Hi All,
Things have been a little busy for me lately, so I haven't been able to work on my dio alot. But I do have a small update...

Worked on the front steps today...
Bricks are from "Hudson & Allen" ...

The usual plaster fill in...

Made the slate for the steps from paper of different thickness...

What it looks like so far...


Little details added to the Halftrack...





Now it's ready for painting. Oh Joy!!!

That's it for now...
Kirk

Very good idea with the slate !
If you can replicate that 10000 times for me, i will buy you some for my roofs ! :-)

Cheers
Claude

Great progress m8, i love the effects on the walls.
Cant waint for the rest of the story:))
Roland