Thank you guys!

Have a nice weekend all!

Claude

Excuse me. Here again in English.

Hi Claude,.
What is there to say yet. A fascinating and huge Dio with an extreme attention to detail. I admire your work for many years. Absolutely good techniques and unique design.
One of the highlights of the entire model and diorama building scene!
My sincere congratulations on this great work
Many dear greetings
Frank

an English speaking forum is great for our language practice Frank. Unfortunately i have no possibility to ever speak english ( probably like you) so Internet forums (and in my case reading novels exclusively in english) are really a great tool to keep our little knowledge at least a bit up to date.

Hopefully i will be able to do an exposition in Germany once more with my dio. I really would like to show it live to the german community.

Claude

Claude,
As always your work is the best. You are capaturing every detail of all of the building that you do. Keep up the great work. Always look foward to your updates.
Tom T

Thanks Tom! Glad you still like it.

As i have most parts for the module nearly finished , now comes the time to put all this together or do some final detailing and painting first.

The Bike shop was built with the plan to add it right on the Bouvier house, meaning i did not do the right side of the façade and i did not make the roof with some overhang.
(Bouvier is now standing alone)

I caught up on this now.
The facade was easy enough as i only sprinkled an earth mix on the wall.
To overhang the roof i took off some slates and replaced them with longer ones in order to have a 2-3 mm overhang.%%%



One evening was necessary to fix the roof.

Remember the river of Module 7? No, certainly not :-)
I made some waves, added stones and finally the white water


Need a day more but then i can declare the whole 2.2 meter long river finished!

Besides that i am working on the landscape behind House Bouvier. It must be done before i can glue the house on.

A lot to think about now!

Looks fantastic as alwys Claude, so whats next after the river?

Paul

Thanks Paul,

I acknowledge that you all may be lost in my planning, i am nearly myself.

The river runs of course over two modules, i name them 6 and 7.
Module 6 will now get finished over the next 3-4 months. To achieve that, there is some work to do for the bike shop(not a lot), the farm house ( some furniture and the whole hay stuff)and all the backsides of those house, walls and vegetation. A bit of cobblestone street must be done also.

Module 7 (only 0.7 x 0.8m) will only accept one big Villa near the river, but as this one will be a very complicated build i calculate basically a year to do that one.

So that is the plan for the next 16-20 months leading hopefully right to the finish of Dio Clervaux.

Thanks for having the patience

Claude

Let me show you a picture of the whole river , 2.2 meters (7.2 foot for you guys over the pond)long.
I used up nearly the whole gallon of resin for that.


Don't be confused by the picture, the two river modules are turned the wrong way against the village. (I needed better access)

The Styrodur space at the lower right side is the site of the Villa Prüm, the last strucure to be build. It will occupy nearly the whole space and be a mini castle build of it's own!

Next update will probably take a while as it is now official holiday time (two weeks Corsica for those interested) followed by the preparation and execution of the expo in Utrecht.
After that it's already November!

Until then, thanks for still following the build after 7 years+

Claude

Hi Claude,
It has been a long time since I have "stoped by and said, Hello". But have been enjoying your build as always. I wish you a wonderful & FUN vacation in Corsica ! And look forward to your return to Clervaux. As always, thank you for sharing your tips & techniques with us all ! And, your time and patience answering everybodies questions and comments.
Tom

Hi Claude,

I don't comment much here any more, but I can't resist in your thread

And what can I say? Wow! As always I'm amazed by your work and dedication to this project.

Enjoy your vacation!

Rudi

That's particulary nice from both of you two, Tom and Rudi.
Glad i could get you out of your hiding place.

Hope you do well

Claude

Ok, I have two pics more to show you before the break.
I powered ahead during the last days to get as much done as possible so i finished both Bouvier and the bike shop (the backyard of it)
Enyoy (i hope!)




Thanks for your comments.
Otherwise, see you in October!

Claude

Incredable!! Spectacular. You were showing the work on the buildings for so long that I forget how good you are at foliage and groundwork. Really nice Claude,
J

Hey Claude, I like this section best. The buildings came out great. The foliage/leaves at the rivers edge looks real. And of course your river is fantastic. Makes me wish I was sitting there listening to the water go by just daydreaming.

Thank you guys! Glad you like it.

I just covered the module to protect from dust during the next 6-7 weeks as, i probably repeat myself, after the holiday i need to focus for a few weeks on the expo in Utrecht before i can get go back to the build and finish this module.

Over and out for this summer!

Claude

Ok guys, two months is long enough for you to get some respite from Dio Clervaux, so let's do a small update again.

Here is a picture i took during the expo in Utrecht (NL)
It was a very succesfull expo for me, the railroad modelers were very interested in my techniques and enjoyed seeing something else for a change. With an estimated 25 000 visitors ober three days, my display was often very crowded

To inform the mostly netherland speaking visitors about the work, i fabricated a display and created some A1 posters, my text translated to netherlands beforehand of course. Glad i took this initiative because it was very well used


A bit of modeling now.

Here is a picture of a christmas tree i will put in the farm house.
It was Dec 17, so a Christmas tree was absoluty possible and i thought it would be a nice item to add. The tree is 3 cm high only! Th Lametta is done with alu foil and got straightened meanwhile.

The radio is scratched also.

First thing to do after my return from the expo was to take two modules together in order to redraw the roads route on the right one and build it on the left one.

I ripped out an already finished street part and the adjacent hard surface and over the course of the last ten days redid it completely, including new side-walks, gutters and walls.
Front left is the space where the farm house will come
This was the last part of the cobblestone street of the whole dio, so i wanted to recalculate approximatively how many pieces of cork i put in this dio.

I have an overall 4 meters of cobblestone street (13.1 feet) with an average wide of 17 cm (6.7 inch) and having an average of 250 pieces per 10x10 cm area, i realized that there are around 17000 (seventeen thousand) pieces of cork on this dio, each one cut, sanded, picked up and glued down individually!
Do you want to call me crazy? Just go ahead, i concur.

To celebrate that i nominated this piece of cork the 17000th

and put him down as last one during a small ceremony.




Uff, consider that done!

Grouting and painting the street comes next, then finishing the farm house and starting my motocycle rider.
I may also finally put my two towers on the bridge and do some work on the fountain monument.

Claude

Claude,

Congratulations on reaching that 17,000th piece of cork!!

You may be right and you are mad but I can think of nobody better to attempt such a feat!

Paul

wow 17.000 pieces of cork i had only 3 pieces of cork this weekend hahaha
great job
henk

Moien Claude,

congratulations on a successful presentation in Utrecht!

Felicitations also for the 17.000th cobble stone!
Quite an achievement ......but the most stunning element in this saga is the fact that you are still able to improve on your techniques!!
Hard to believe, but true!!!

Simply super!!!!!!!!

Alles Gudds

Romain

I simply love this dio. Thank you for sharing this with us.

17.000th cobble stone! Wow you are really crazy ,but great respect for your diorama! It's just amazing!

cheers!

Claude- your dedication to this awesome piece of art is truly inspiring- congratulations on the 17,000th cobblestone!

Hi Claude
Thank you for posting your upgrades wich are really inspiring.
By the way, did you invited the Major of the towm of Clervaux at the ceremony!?!

I would like to ask a question:

How do you make the walls of your houses? particulary the walls broken, where you see the internal fittings.
I ask this because I use chipboard covered with plaster, though I am not so satisfied as the thin thickness of the plaster is very very delicate and can broke very easily.
Cheers
Alessandro

Thanks everyone
I'm glad you are still with me.

Hey, i am a bit disapointed that nobody mentionned the Christmas tree. Ok, my fault probably as i put so much weight on the cobbles. I also admit that it looks strange with the Lametta hanging sideways, but this is fixed meanwhile and i sincerly hope that the tree is somewhat ok with you guys

Alessandro, let me simply ask a counter question:
Why use plaster for the walls in the first place?
The inside walls can be simply painted or you can add an acrylic paste. All my outside facades are made with sand or earth. The only thing who will need plaster is the cut itself where you may want to simulate stonework. Hope this answers your question, otherwise please rephrase.

Claude

I think that I can say that this is the most realistic 1/35 dio that I have ever seen.
You ARE a madman...but in a good way! And that Christmas tree is superb brother,
J