Hi all,

just wanted to toss up a few ideas regarding building dios when you KNOW you have to ship it a considerable distance via transport methods you may or may not be able to trust.

Personally, I'm about to start construction of a dio that I have to ship between Australia and England, so its got a hell of a distance to travel via international post. Not exactly my idea of fun.

Before you take this method on, please ask yourself this question:

Is it worth sacrificing some amount of realism (on the base, specifically) in order to make the diorama easily shippable?

If its not, this method will NOT be for you !!!

In my case, it is worth it, because its going to my grandfather (since it depicts a specific event of his time in WWII) and its not an official display. He certainly won't mind, plus it will enable him to take a closer look at any individual item there-in, since they'll just pop in and out of the base easily.

I'm going to do it as such:

1. Design the dio, how it want it to be, etc.

2a. Build the base. I'll build the base out of two layers of wood - both around 6mm thick (probably use plywood). The first one is just a flat sheet, secured to the frame by the usual methods.

2b. The second sheet will have the dio layout sketched onto it, and then will have the corresponding sections cut out of it, and then be secured directly on top of the first layer. This will leave me with 6mm deep "slots" in the base. The cut out sections then get bevelled edges, and simply placed back into their respective template places.

3. I'll build up the scenic part of the base, making sure that all foliages, patterns, etc all carry along as per normal. This will be painted up, etc. No loose pastels on this one though - that won't work.

4. The models themselves will then be secured to the respective cut-out sections, and then painted.

5. Everything is dropped back into its templated place on the board to complete the dio.

What I end up with is some stand-alone models on scenic bases, which simply drop into the base to become the diorama. Shipping is easy, because any large or more fragile terrain items can be built up in the same way, and then packed individually to secure them from damage. Same goes for any figures, important items, vehicles, etc. It also means that when it gets to the other end, all the person recieving it has to do is to drop the items into their relevent slots, and the scene is complete again.

OK, so realism suffers (all those cuts on the baseboard), but I can assure people who are dubious that its not as bad as it looks. It also means that if anything gets damaged, you just take it out, fix it, and and replace it - no need to try to carefully work around the rest of the scene. It has obvious limitations, but it may give some people a solution to a lingering problem.

Cheers!

Steve.