Ola People

I started a little side project to get the courage and guts to do the big surgery on the groundworks of my PAK dio. Juul (zerocool) gave me the dimensions of the little observation bunker and I made them into a little diagram wich is shown below. The dimensions are in CM.
The whole Bunker is made in Styrofoam simply because it is light, easy to work with, Because I work with it for a couple of years and because I still have a huge supply of it. Ok up to the pics

De Bunker that is shown in the pics below was constructed in less then an hour and is completely made out of Styrofoam.
Overview

Front

and back


Ok the building stages are more or less finished now and the next stage is making the concrete of the bunker complete with the planking pattern often seen on those bunkers. This is simply done with Wallspackle. You apply it on one side of the bunker wait for 2 minutes and then you push all sorts of balsastrips on the spackle wait a bit and then pull it off what you get is these stripey things on the sides of the bunker.
Ok Up to the pics of the Spackled and planked bunker also in this stage I have added the "eyes" that they have made in the concrete roof to lift it on top of the bunker itself.



Close up of the planking pattern

First pic of the figure I want with the bunker


Ok that`s all for thge unpainted version now up to the painted version.The bunker is only sprayed in a lightgrey color and is not wetahered yet





And to close this serie off I`ll show you a digital sketch of what the dio setting will be and what kind of ambiance it needs to show


Ok people all feedback is welcome. Next steps are: Weathering, The interior of the Bunker, painting of the figure and the buildup of the groundwork.

Faust

That bunker is outstanding! I can't wait to see the complete diorama. Great job.

Harry

That is really nicely done. I'm envious since my bunker project does not look anywhere close to that. I failed miserably with the 'planking effect'.
How thick of a layer of wall spackle did you use? Put anything on the wood strips to make it non-stick?

Very cool bunker,

Thanks for including the drawing.

Hut

Ola Herr Blokker,
your bunker looks great. I see cutting it from styrofoam and covering it with wall spackle makes it more realistic than a plaster made bunker. also a good surgery on this old italeri figure. i am willing to see it finished before the UK visit .

That's a very well done job. Congrats. And thanks for the diagram. Hope to see it finished

Looking good Bob, looking good! cheers

Looks great !
Just missing more details and may be a camo net !

Love your Black and White picture

Simple approach and very Effective results from paper to "stone". Thanks for including the dimensions, great reference whenI get back into the WWII building mode. Were the most of the bunkers of that design and dimensions?

The mood on your digital sketch is equally impressive. Can't wait to see the dio for it really captures "the calm before the storm".

nice bunker,
what kind of Styrofoam did you use (and where did you get it?).
love to see the finished dio
good luck

Another Faust special!

My only suggestion and its a personal preference/taste is to tone down the 'pour' lines in the roof section. They're just a bit big for me as compared to the ones on the base (which are nicely done).

Faust,

this is an very good idea...

I have just one remark:

In real life concretework on that bunker would be considered very very sloppy workmanship. As far as I know, this type of bunker was more or less prefab, as it consisted of standardized elements. Therefor, the molds probably would have been of a decent quality, and when released would leave quite a smooth surface. Concrete in this state would probably not have been accepted, as this type of texture suggests it is bad, therefor would not be able to do its job.

Ofcourse on the edges one could distinguish mold-seams, or after a while it would slightly crumble...


This is in no way intended as an attempt to put you down... as your work is an inspiration (and target) for me.

Cheers,

Harm

joel reckons:
i do not have an objective towards poor work man ship in dioramas. As in wartime why would they be of good qualitythey were likely to be rushed and sloppy. all my dios with scratch built objects as bunkers etc. reflect poor work man ship ( not overly) though i believe it adds truthfulness its like building an afv and not weathering it.
this comment was in no way ment to correct or offend any one it is my just my opinion !

Ola People

Well it took me a while to reply but here it is

Phantommajor


Well Since it is an Observation bunker the inside will contain binoculars maps, Maybe a light machinegun, Rangefinder, a table, radio etc. And I will add a propaganda poster to the wall. The dio will show a part of a dune and a section of trenchsystem.

Peacemaker


Actually the layer of Spackle is not that thick and no I didn`t use something to make the wood non-stick I just waited long enough untill I could put on the planking without ripping your plasterwork apart

Piwi


More details will be added soon. not sure about the camonet will think about that.

Beachbum:


Actually no. There is a huge variety of bunkers and all have another purpose. Look up this site Belgian Bunkersite and ask a pasword for the typology section of that site and learn about the diversity and different purposes of Bunkers

Jan Willem:


The styrofoam I use is just ordinary green Styrofoam and can be bought in the DIY shop

Slodder & Dutchbird




Many people pointed me on the Concrete work and I will do some restorations to make it more smooth.

Thanks for the time you guys spend to give me feedback

Great bunker, never made one, gonna try.
What is styrofoam in Dutch???

Piepschuim, tempex, the stuf used for packing CD players, video equipment etc. Or you can use insulation foam, the green stuff used in housing. It is much less coarse than "piepschuim".

Cheers,

Pascal

I was at the Danish westcoast this summer. There are still a lot of bunkers there. I have taken a lot of pictures. If needed I could put them in my gallery.
German bunkers of ww2 was of very high quality. They are still there after more than 60 years.
The surfice of the bunkers is quite smooth.

Great little project Faust ! Line drawing plans is very cool. Neat use of an Italeri figure, is that a Honet head on him, or a Dragon one ?

Cant wait to see how you make out with the groundwork

PROST !!

Alpen

To a certain degree; I agree with the above. But if the concrete detail was to scale, it would almost be invisible. I prefer to exaggerate the detail so it can be seen. When this is painted up and weathered, I have a feeling it will look the part.
Great work Mr. Blokker .... and a great and useful explanation of how it was done. Im sure a lot of folks will be saving your scetches for furutre reference!

Ola People

I never thought this thread would return

Komet
Hut answered the question quite good although I would go for the Insulation foam simply because it is easier to sand and cut. No little white balls all over the place.

Jesper.
Through the German bunkers were of high quality but this was a little experiment. I said I wanted to do some restoring business and sadly due to business the bunker got a place on the shelves and haven`t done much to it. But now I got quite a cool idea for a dio underground wich is going to be much more interesting then the "Eve of D-day" Thingy. The new title will be: "A Sunny day at The Beach"

Robert (Alpenflage)
Thanks for the kind words. Indeed that is the old Italeri tanker/Commander/Officer They used the same body for several figs. The head is just a normal DML head wich I still had lying around in the scratchbox. Pics of the Sunny Day at the beach will follow very soon (I hope)

James (PhantomMajor)
I hope the technique I showed you will prove usefull. It`s easy as pie to do this believe me.

Frank (Mr Glackin )
You know me better then that. Call me Robert
I too like to exagerate the scale of certain things. This way you see you are dealing with Concrete and it has the concrete feeling over it.. And thanks for the kind words.