Once again, I wrote a post, forgot to hit "post reply" and lost all the images. So we'll do it again. First of all, I hope all of readers in various parts of the country are surviving okay after Ida wreaked it havoc. Just think… sitting here in Louisville, we were missed by the whole deal. The path just went south of the city so we got a smattering of rain. My old home in Bucks County, PA has had more "mid-Western" weather than we have.
I got started on putting "earth" under the rick house. First I protected the bottom of the model with Press N-seal. I traced the model's perimeter with a fat Sharpie, and then masked the inside of the line so Sculptamold (STM) wouldn't get underneath. I mixed up STM with some earth toned Woodland Scenics color and applied it to the site. I'm unsure about what to do with the "retaining wall" question. I built the STM out further making a more severe slope giving me some more flat surface, but did not install a wall. I don't have any material in the shop to do it. I may just add some rock outcroppings there instead of a formal wall.
Then I got interrupted. Our Internet went out again. It seemed to do this every day around mid-afternoon. It's a pain in the butt. I have to got upstairs to the 2nd floor, reboot the modem, reboot the master Netgear Mesh router, and then reboot the Mesh Satellite in the great room and get the TV running again. The Mesh box next to the TV was acting suspiciously. It was taking much too long to re-sync with the master and kept dropping out. We decided to go to Costco and buy a different brand. The modem is new since I replaced it in July. We bought the Google Nest set, and I installed it when we got back. It was much faster to link up and seems quite solid.
So my plastering came to an abrupt end yesterday. Today we're heading to Cincy to the art museum to see the "Monuments Men" exhibit.
I'll finish up the ground work tomorrow.
I continued working on the Cletrac model. My detail level is approaching what I'm looking for. Printing is another question. It's a complicate model and printing setup will be the determining factor as to the model's ultimate success.
I finished the auxiliary generator that sits on the right fender. The headlights are the ones from the former model. I will redraw them.
And the complicated air handling system. With all that piping you can see that printing will be a challenge. Not so much printing per ce, but having the details strong enough to sustain themselves after printing.
And all the stuff happening at the back end.
I approach drawings like this as one approaches rigging an 18th century model ship. The completed model is complex, but rigging is done one line at a time. When I do these drawings, I draw each detailed subassembly as a unique drawing. I have a setting I use that blocks out the rest of the drawing and only shows the part I'm drawing. It's a bit tedious, but nowhere near as complex as the finished whole is.
