I saw a post with some photos of cobblestones made from lentils and they looked quite convincing. I'm just curious what one might treat them with to preserve them from deteriorating and to make them less appetizing to wee beasties.

Michael

I don't know, to be honest. I painted mine with acrylics, sealed them with three coat of Testors Dullcoat and something still ate them when the finished diorama was in the basement...

Shaun

Well now. That's discouraging. I wonder if soaking them first in some sort of varnish or resin or some such thing might do it.

http://armorama.co.uk//features/690&page=3

These lentils the culprit?

Yep. Those are the ones. I wonder how they've stood up to the passage of time.

I've never done this, and I have almost zero dio XP, but I suggest that you make a few sections of cobbles using the lentils, then make a mold of them, and just recast in resin/clay/whatever and then you have easy to make roadway sections without having to go through the whole process of recover the lentils with plaster.

That's a good idea Steven. I've never done that kind of casting but it's something I've intended to try sooner or later so I suppose this would be as good a project to start with as any.

I used lentils in my RMG Campaign entry.

They have held up over the time since the campaign. As you can see, I believe I put too much white glue in my ground work mix and it pulled up around the edges as it dried. Otherwise, the lentils did just fine.

Patrick

I've tried using lentils as well. I gave it a coat of varnish when they were glued to the base. After that I gave them a thin mix of plaster and water and brushed the mix on so that the tops of the "cobblestones" were visible - that worked fine. I don't know if it'll hold forever.

Been there , done that,..
first of all, the scale just isn't right, the gaps between will be to big, to be convinsing.
second, it's a damn hellish job to do, I did 80cm on 120 for a town big square,and I almost got another hernia
also the plaster will tend to break over time as the lentils will dry ou slowly, another problem with using white glue, it tends to fill to much and I found it not easy to paint, and the schrink will leave those cracked edges.

I also tried making them from plaster, one by one, from a long mold, then i glued them one by one, again time and muscle waste.
tried the making them from clay thing, again same amount of work, and they tend to be brittle
I now just make a fairly flat piece of plaster about a cm thick, an when still a little wet, i scribe the stones in, you can go fairly deep, and when your done just go over it gently with a steel brush.

hope i gave you a new tip,
Tha Pit

This is my alternative to lentils and scribing plaster
Cobblestone roadway. Roll out a sheet of plasticene to about 1/2- 3/4 cm thick cut it to the shape of your road way. Turn the plasticene sheet over. Now use a cobblestone shaped object to impress whatever cobblestone pattern you want. I use different sized paintbrush handles or brick shapes carved from sprue. When you've finished making your pattern build a retaining wall around it. You now have a mould of the cobblestone road. Mix up some plaster of Paris adding a suitable cobblestone colour, water based paint. Pour the plaster mix into the mould and shake it gently to make any air bubbles rise out. When it dries you can peel off the plasticene and there you have your cobblestone roadway. If you're careful you can reuse the mould a few times. The method is adapted from the book "Roy Porter's Model Buildings Masterclass" which is well worth getting.

Thanks for replies guys. I have to say they look good in Patrick's photo, but the mixed reviews I'm getting seem to pretty much come down against using them. I must say the plasicine/plaster method sounds good. At the rate I'm zipping along on finishing vehicles, though, I sometimes wonder if any of my mounting inventory of unused diorama supplies will ever be used at all.