Gday all
Made some progress today... Have most of a base cobbled together (pun intended ) and the basic layout sorted... This pic shows the return wall and the courtyard walls which I built today, and the parkbench and gate also...
Bear in mind the footpath has not been installed, so the whole structure will be raised by approx. 6mm...
My original idea of a dirt road has been shelved in favour of cobblestones, as I forgot that I am to include a sewer cover (Generously donated by AndyD! ) that will be situated out from the curb , right on the bend...

Here is my park bench. It is styrene uprights with Northeastern scale lumber strips for the planks...



All comments appreciated
Cheers
Brad

Very nice!
Particularly the benches...

Brad this looks great mate, gotta say it's all looking really crisp so far. Love the way your cafe has come on and the bench is a fantastic touch.


Make sure we get PLENTY of pics on this one mate


All the best
Jon

Shaping up very nicely..
That bench is impressive - I will definately be doing something similar in the future.
Where did you get the lumber strips from?

Gday Andy
The timber is from Northeastern Scale Lumber Co. (U.S. I think...) The local model railroad shop sells them, in differing sizes...
Give us a yell if you need some... I'd be happy to reciprocate

Everything is looking pretty amazing so far. You have made some great progress. I really like your park bench, and you made it sound like its pretty simple to make..maybe a tutorial on that? Can't wait to see more progress.

Thanks Mary
I'll do it now for anyone interested...
~I had a piece of styrene approx. 1mm thickness.
~Did an internet search on parkbenches, until a suitable image is found.
~Drew a rough side-view of the seat, using a 1/35 figure for scale, and myself standing and sitting to know what the height should be to comfortably seat someone.
~Re-drew accurately.
~Carefully cut with a hobby blade. Used as a template to draw opposite piece exactly the same.
~Sanded smooth. I used sandpaper which I folded so a 'loop' was formed, and then fitted into curves to smooth.
*At this point the bench can still be as long as necessary, based on the timber about to be used.
~My constraints were the width of the wall it is placed against in the 1st pic, which is a comfortable size for two figures (plus room for a thermos and Vegemite sangas)
~ Use 2 clothes pegs to hold the sides upright, then with the timber strips cut uniformly to length, carefully apply the timber, spaced to cover the horizontal sitting part of the seat. I used CA glue for the wood to plastic, as it sets quickly. I'm sure 2 part epoxy would be just as good.
~Once the vertical backrest timbers are in place, I used a pin to simulate screw/bolt holes.
~ The feet were cut to suit and then attached with liquid cement.
My bench isn't terribly ornate, but now having built one I feel I have the confidence to go overboard on another!!
Cheers again
Brad

Looking amazing Brad, the bench is a real ripper, slightly off topic to the progress shown, but how many figs ya hopin to get into this one?
Cheers, keep em comin.

Hi
It is really lookin nice Bradthe bench is also very nice

Thanks for the SBS on the park bench..I'll definately save your instructions for later use

Brad, that's looking good! Can't wait to see it finished!

Mighty fine delicate work there Brad. Adds a whole new level of detail to the Cafe Honeycut.

Nice job on the park bench Brad, the build is also coming along nicely.
The cafe must have imported the bench from Ireland, cause it looks like paddy -o - furniture, patio furniture.
Sorry it's 5 am and I've not had my morning cup of liquid speed.
I'm very interested in the roadway. In a past post you mentioned how you are going to lay the road blocks, with an aged - like depression on the curbside areas, for run off. I want to do that on something I'm working on and depress the areas in the roadway also where wagons, carts and vechs. most commonly ride. This would also look nice on your build and have some nice depressions for puddle areas from rain run off etc. and add a nice dimension to the build.
This is coming along great and I would like to see more pics.
Also [ without me having to back search ], what type of vechs. are you going for in the road ?
Cheyenne

Nice work, good layout too. I'd also like to add my thanks for the SBS on the bench.
I think we're going to see these park benches cropping up in a lot of dios from now on. Pity you won't get royalties. :-)

Says Pat, with an evil chuckle...:-)
That's what a modelling community is for, right?:) Giacomo, BigJon, Sebastian, Karl, CK etc. thanks fer looking
Oh and Cheyenne, I thought about the aged road, but the road here has a fair camber to it, running into each spooned gutter... To add two wheel rut lines would have made it too up and down... Will still do it though, on a different dio without such deep gutters... Can still do a bit of puddle work at the curbs though... I'm going to go crazy and put a (wait for it) SHERMAN on board! It will be at the left end, facing right, leaving the big action area in front on the bend...

these are simply evergreen sheetstyrene tiles, in a size I thought usable. Only problemo is that they are in a grid, not interlocking as I needed... So I separated them individually and used white glue to place on a smoothed woodputty base...

Here are the pavers I have in place at the moment.





A close up of the yard gate. Not sure if I'm happy with the shape yet... Suggestions? The black shapes are a tree and is a temp reaching almost twice the wall height... But then in thinking (it does happen;) I am going for a 1st floor on top of the cafe which would give some height to the diorama... So therefore the tree could be much higher than the current one to compensate...Maybe?

Hi Brad,
It's really starting to get some form mate.The scratchbuilding of the parkbench(and side gate) are very nicely done,however it would do it more justice if you did a "how to" feature with pics hint hint..
As for the tree,i think a little more height would be ok.
Have you thought about adding vines to the c'yard wall?
One thing that would look nice for extra detail if you scratch some electrical cables and add them to the outside wall of the cafe.Alot of the buildings pre 1940's all had cables on the outside of the walls,and these are generally never depicted in dio's.As a house painter in Belgium,i've seen my fair share of buildings!Might be worth a go?!
Anyways,a bit of inspiration for you mate...







These pics i found for you,in regards to the cables,and vines and possible colours for Cafe a 'le Honeycut.
Keep up the good work digger,
Bonsoir,Shay

Gday Shay they are grouse pics! Thanks a lot... Might even use the last pic for a new build if this building bug bites deep... They will be put to good use...
Cheers and gnite
Brad

It's still lookin good

Ola Bradley

Sweet:) bring us more pictures, more, more... (a few seconds to settle down...)

The bench looks good, it's simple but it will work well. Those two last photos in this topic should give you some inspiration for painting the walls, a lot of greenish and partially wet and dirty wall sections should be fine. So what will you use for your windows? I asked last time, but I guess you missed my question.

Cheers,
dsc.

Gday Tom
The picture I'm working from shows the windows crudely boarded up with timber planks... I guess this was in anticipation of Allied bombing to signal the start of Operation Cobra... So basically there should be glass, and I have some clear plastic sheet to suit...
Have had a change of heart on the road also... I'm reverting to a standard curbside gutter (sloped back into the curb) as I believe the dirt road would be more suited at a later date in conjuction with the spoon style gutters...
Cheers
Brad

Great work i would like to give you a little idea you can put al soldier trying to sleep in the bench or simply lying in it looking for a moment of relax.

Gday all thanks for your input!
Well here are another couple of pics. I got my hands on a Kancali brickroad section, which because it is made of latex can flex to cover the angles of the roadway... Great stuff! The 'missing' edges are going to be the revised curbing channels which I will construct next...
The sewer cover as you can see is in place, and although you cannot tell from the aerial pic, it is slightly raised above the brickwork to show how the road would slowly sink around it...


this shot is clearly of the interior, showing the room I have to spruce up with some furnishings etc.on this and the unbuilt second level...

Thanks for having a butcher's
Cheers
Brad

Beautiful Brad! Have not seen this project until now and I see that I have clearly missed something sweet. Your eye for detail is great! Looking forward to see the progress!

Bradley here is a photo of the interior of my Pharmacy for Carentan. You see the wainscoting, the wood paneling that goes about half way up the wall. This is one solution, with wallpaper or painted above. The other is I could send you some wallpaper that is period style. Now that I have a more clear picture of you interior, you don't really have much to detail up. You could scratch some simple furniture, a small two person type table, maybe a chair or two....

Andreas~ Glad du lik den! This is going to take me some time to get done, even though it isn't the size or scope of say a certain "Russian" diorama
Paul~ The wainscoting is a corker! That would work perfect... Is your pattern specific, or does wainscoting refer to the general idea of the timber veneer? Simple timber chairs and table set do you think? Wrought iron would be an outdoors thing methinks... What about upstairs? Would that be lodgings? Maybe a bed shoved in the largest section there...
Cheers for the help
Brad