Hello fellow modellers all over the world,

I want to give you some information and a few pics of my ongoing Dio-project.
I am planning to model the events in and around the City of Clervaux in Luxembourg on Dec17 1944 , the second day of the Battle of the Bulge.
I am planning a dio of some 2.5m x 3.3m (appr. 10 x 10 foot), where the main piece is going to be the castle of clervaux. It was held by some 100 GI’s in an heroic defense against the attacking German 2. Panzerdivision.
All in all the dio will have around 10 buildings plus the castle. I estimate that I will have a dozen vehicles and some 150 figures at least, in 1/35 scale.
As I am only in the hobby since 2 years, and never build a solid building, I wanted to start on some “minor” buildings to gain experience while building.
So I started with a hotel from which I had some reference photos.



The Hotel is entirely scratch with the exception of the Entrance door. It’s a plaster builing, windows partly Evergreen strips, partly Resin copies. The roof is layed with 4000 individual Slates. The outside stairs and surroundings will be added later.
The photos I took are not optimal, I will do better later on.



I just finished two more buildings I build entirely scratch. It is the Garage (Parking) of the Hotel, and a building I was unable to determine the exact use of it at the pre-war time. I think due to the construction type that it was some sort of farmhouse (sorry for my missing english words). I decided to convert it to a Texaco-petrol station. At that time there was such a station in Clervaux, but not on a location falling in my dio. The signs and pumpstation are still missing.
I decided to try the partly destroyed roof technique here, as later on, I need to that on the castle. The walls are build with the cardboard and foamboard technique. Some 1600 Slates are laid on the roof.





Here is a overall picture of Clervaux shortly after the war, with the castle I intend to model partly.


You can see the Hotel Central at the lower right sight.

So, enough for now, the project is really big, there is a lot more to say and there may be some more questions I am glad to answer if you forgive my poor english.

Greetings from Luxembourg

Claude

Thank looks incredible Claude, your scratch building is awesome. I stayed in Clervaux in 1989 when I was on holiday, and it's nice to see some pic's of the place. If I place it correctly, in the bottom photo the river is in the foreground?

Please keep posting your progress pic's Claude.

Cheers
Henk

Yes Henk,

the River is in the foreground and surrounding the castle and will also be part of the dio.

Claude

Off course I can't find it anymore, but I had a photo of me sat on the barrel of the Panther which is displayed in Clervaux. As I'm working from memory here, I might get this completly wrong.. :-) . Is the road in front of the Castle the road which climbs up and out of the town towards the south (left in the photo) ? Is the Panther located to the left of the castle in the photo, on the right side of the road? Stupidly enough, I don't recall the Castle , is it still there?

I dread to ask this, as I think I can see a piece of floor in the 5th photo, but will you be doing the interiors aswel? This is a massive projekt you have started, but it looks like you have the skills to pull it off.

Good luck
Henk

I think you have a great start and I can already see your honing your skills. I applaud your work, you must have great ambition and a lot of space! There are tons of questions, but for now I shall only ask for more info on the direction you are headed? What are your personal goals that you are going for with this huge diorama?

Claude,
When I ead about the size of your intended project and the number of vehicles and figs you were going to include i thought it sounded too ambitious for a first timer...

Then I saw the pics of your amazing buildings. They are simply superb!!

I can't wait to see the finished model - I think it will be very exciting!

Awesome,!!!!
really one of the most professional look that I have seen here. Here in Armorama have a buch of people really interested in architecture for dioramas

I hope seen the entire dio done

Hi Henk,
I think you really need to visit the site again :-)

You probably sat on the barrel of a Sherman who was destroyed on Dec17 while firing from behind the house on the right with the high white front (on the overall view pic). It was towed some 15 years later in the court of the castle where it stands now
http://bulgebattle.free.fr/Clervaux%20N10.JPG
together with a German Pak.
The castle is still here, beautifully restored, incorporating a little Battle of the Bulge Museum and the famous "Family of the Man" Photo Expo.
http://80.92.64.147/upload/divers/129%20clervaux%20chateau%201%20vue%20globale_5.jpg


To answer your question about interiors.
As i made walls in the hotel to simulate the ind. rooms, and to avoid the possibility to see through the hotel, the rooms are absolutely dark, you need a Maglite to see something inside. I made some basic interior with wallpaper and some pictures if someone really needs to look inside.
I made also some basic interior for the Café, chairs, tables and comptoir.
The Garage and the other house have interiors in the basement. I plan to add a Civilcar (i have already a DES-Kit Mercedes) immobilized in the Garage.
The Petrol Station basement will receive some sort of auto repair stuff and accesoires.
As i suspected it to be a former barn (i looked up the word on babelfish) i made a ladder going upstairs, and there is actually already a german soldier climbing up to ckeck if the upper level is clear from US Soldiers.
I did not forget to put a lot of destroyed slates and wood on this floor.

Cheers

I must admit, this was exactly my reaction as well. However, seeing the work you have done on the first buildings is awesome - particularly the hotel. This is a huge project and i'm sure I echo the thoughts of the others here, any help you need - just ask!!...Jim

Egg on face time....

I was thinking of Houffalize, when I thought of the Panther and lack of Castle... . I traveled around the area with my (Then) girlfriend on a pair of mopeds, and mixed up a few of the places we stayed... Thanks for bringing back some memories, I really have to try to find those photo's, but they might be at my parents house.. (in The Netherlands) .

Cheers
Henk

Paul,

You are absolutely right about the size of the project for a newbie.
I made a few smaller dios and looked for a new one.
As a Luxembourg citizen i quickly turned to local history during the BoB (Clervaux is 60 km away from me).
So one came after the other. From all the stories of the Bulge it was the most dramatic, dense , and due the beautiful location of the site (castle surrounded by village, river, wood) i choose do do it.
So i read a lot to see what to model from the whole action. It got bigger and bigger until this stage.
You are aking about a personal goal. I don't know. it seems that this way of working is part of my character.
Few years ago i muted form a simple sportsman to a
4 times finisher of a full distance Ironman-triathlon.
The training for this took me a lot of hours a day.
So it seems that i like it big.
I will model it in the style of the model-railroader technique of modules. So it will be transportable. It will be a logistical nightmare but doable.
Later on, who knows, if the Endresult is correct, maybe i can put it to display in the castle.
Until that, it's simply a hobby.

Cheers

Claude, that is a beautiful build, where are you going to put a 10' x 10' dio ?
Also your English is good, anything misunderstood is clearly represented in your pics.
Simply amazing work.
Please keep us posted with progress pics.
Cheyenne

I think that is amazing......
I wish you a lot of luck on this project...
Keep us posted, so we can continue to offer encouragement to carry it through.
Amazing..... simply Amazing.....

What a Super project! Lewis Pruneau and Bob Letterman would be proud! How many figs are you going to paint?

Looking great Claude!

My wife and I are planning a weeks vacation in Luxembourg in the next three weeks, and I have an extra thing to visit now.....Clervaux!!
I've been in Luxembourg more than 25 times now, but all these visits were concentrated in the Pitit Suisse region, you know , like Beaufort, Grundhof, Berdorf and so on. You see we like hiking a lot!
But when I see this, it might be just time to convert this trip into a Battle of the Bulge tour!
If you have any tips fot me, I would be obliged...

Greetings, and keep up the magnificent work!!

John.

Wow, what a reception !
Thank you for your cheerleading :-).

I estimate the need for at least 150-200 figures. I have already 150 in stock (to put myself under building pressure).
The problem will be that there may be only a few i can build out of the box. All the others need to be adjusted accordingly to the scene or heavily modified.
Because not many scenes are planned i need to wait some more time before i can start on figures. Also you can't touch painted figs to much anymore, this has to be the last step of the dio.
I also start to scratch the figures. For example i started to figure to put in the barn's upper opening (window) to give a sign down that the building is clear.


John,
i am pleased that Luxembourg is your destination of choice for so many years.
If you want to have good information about the BOB in Luxembourg (especially around Clervaux and Wiltz)i recommand the book from Robert Phillips "To save Bastogne".
Did you never leave the Mullerthal ? You need absolutely to visit the castle and town of Vianden, the National Military Museum in Diekirch (really worth it for a modeller), Clervaux with his castle (includes the World Heritage Fotoexpo "Family of man", a maquette museum of all Lux. castles, and a little BoB museum ), all within 30 km from Mullerthal.
Th BOB tour continues through Wiltz and direction Bastogne.
If i can help you further don't hesitate to ask.
So much for a little tourist tour of Luxembourg.

Cheers

Claude:

That is fricking amazing. Looks great. I like the busted up roof. The tiles on the roof make it look very realistic. Keep up the good work.

Brian

Wich materials did you use for the building?

Impressive!

Claude, this is an outstanding work!!!

thats all i can say...

keep us posted on the progress!!!

Mirko

Claude,

Absolutely beautiful work, the buildings are fantastic. I applaud your ambition and desire to create a huge diorama, regardless of the time modeling; obviously quality is not always a measure of the quantity of modeling experience. I look forward to seeing this work progressing.

Jay

your hotel looks incredible Claude! iam anxious to see everything finished!

frank

Thank you all for the comments,

Quinten, as i wrote in the first post the Hotel is a Plaster building. I will never do one again !! To heavy, to dangerous if you let it fall.
I tried the method described in "Model Building Masterclass", the method with a mould of plastillin , where all the details are impressed and the window openings are left out. Obviously my work was not exact enough. Ii had different dephts and misaligned windows etc.
Here i made the error to not simply trow away the walls and start over again. I tried to fix it first by scribing here and there but was not satisfied. So i sanded the whole thing to level and redid the stones around the window with straight pieces of thin cardboard and covered this with plaster again.
This was then covered with a coat of coloured Acrylic Paste
So i can tell you, this was learning by doing the hard way.

The side entrance of the hotel and the other buildings are made with the method used by Bob Letterman, cardboard and mattboard glued together and covered with Acrylic Paste. This works a lot better , easier and the buildings are not so heavy.

Cheers

Claude

Claude, Simply magnificent!! I am a fan of larger dios and this is huge. You have a lot of talent and
I look forward to seeing your progress. Cheers Kevin

This is huge indeed. What an exciting project you started !




Well, I'm a fan of smaller dioramas, but I must admit that this one looks so promissing... I'll follow the progress. I expect it to end as another masterpiece.

Wonderful work. Please keep us posted onthe progress!

just WoW WOW