A relatively recent build

[marianas_gamer]

CA,
Was the circular saw a kit or did you scratch built?
LB

[Zafarelli]

The saw is incredible! Is the sawdust fixated in some way, or just sprinkled on? If glued down, how did you do it? And what did you use for the logs?

[Cheeky Monkey]

Marianas - the saw was scratch built using a dremel saw blade as the basis for it.
Zaf - the saw dust was sprinkled onto the model with an old spice jar and fixed with a light spray of thinned matt medium - the same thing used for creating trees and grassy areas. The Logs are just some pieces of a small pine tree that I cut down in the yard and cut to length. Nothing fancy. I'm a firm believer in using as much "found" stuff as possible for my builds, it's cheaper and actually looks better. I'm reminded of a model railroad scenic master who was asked what made the best dirt for model scenery and his reply was "Dirt!"

[Hauptgefreiter]

Great work! 
I thought you'd have used one of those:
http://www.wilesco.de/wilesco/us/index.html

[Hammers]

A gem, the more I look.

Cheeky, have you made drawn plans for the castle? If you have would you be willing to share them?

I really like what I see, the castle looks impressive but not impossibly big for a gaming table.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Hammers - basically I'm working from photos and a ground plan of the castle. I did download some drawings from     http://carneycastle.com/index.htm
Bob Carney builds all his castles out of Legos and his site is awesome if you haven't looked at it before. The overall size of this build is about 39" by 42" give or take so I guess it could be something used for gaming. The biggest problem I have encountered is that there seem to be about 4 different ground plans and its been tough to determine which is the most correct - if any, as there is one report that the castle was rebuilt using neo-gothic features that were not part of the original design. I'm currently in discussions with the Polish Consulate to try to solve some of the architectural problems so that I  can render it as authentically as possible. I can probably post the ground plan and a few of the pictures later if you would like me to.
I know the link above is good - just doesn't show as an active link. Try copying it and pasting it in your browser if you can't get it work.

[Bako]

Hmm, the server for that link seems to be down for the moment.

That's excellent, I love all the little details such as the saw dust.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Just thought I'd post a little update on the Bedzin project. Here's a few new pics - hope you enjoy.



Have also recently acquired a book of polish castles (500plus) and am scanning it as it is an inter-library loan, so work has slowed on the build until I finish with the book. Will post more as soon as able.

[Cheeky Monkey]

just a short update on this project. Having spent 2 weeks scanning 600 pgs. of a book on polish castles I was ready to get back to work on my build.First I decided to do the paving in the courtyard before I went back  to work on the walls - that way I could get my clumsy hands into the tighter areas.

after I finished that up it was time to figure out how to do the curved wall from the tower:

since then I have been busy working on completing the remaining wall layers and will post some more pics early next week.

[OSHIROmodels]

Oooo, that's purdy   

Do you have the name of the Polish book, my mate might be able to get hold of it for me.

Looking forward to seeing more 

cheers

James

[Hammers]

Monkey, is there any clever reason behind using grey, yellow *and' white Coecal (or whatever brand you are using... come to think of it, what brand *are* you using?)

I take it you are using 8" tower blocks to get the curvature on the on the other wall? Or are they custom made?

Are you planning to build it as a straight-from-the-plant castle or are you going to take pliers to crenelations corners and the like?

[BigMecha]

looking very awesome perfectly!

[artshiraz]

Greetings


my, that looks mighty impressive. I really like what you have done with the sawmill. I concur with the others here, an amazing job you made there.

Now for the castle. It will be impressive, but what about weight? I do have most of the molds (not the cavern and not the scifi ones) and I use dental plaster for my castings (http://www.gipsboerse.de/) which holds the details just fine and doesn't have much of a problem with airbubbles. The downside is the weight.

Now about mortaring or pointing... just as a thought.. I usually prepare a plastermilk after the model is assembled. Just pour the milk over the building and use an old toothbrush (soft) to spread over the blocks. The plaster in the milk will close all cracks and openings and gaps without loosing detail.

Happy building
Jo

[Cheeky Monkey]

.Well, that's a lot of questions to answer so I will take them in order:
1) Jimbibbly - the name of the book is " Leksykon Zamkow W Polsce" and yes it is in Polish. Good luck finding a copy as the only way I was able to get ahold of it was through an inter-library loan - hence the reason I spent two weeks scanning it and converting it to pdf files.
2) Hammers - before I started building this monstrosity I did a bunch of casting with several different products but it is mostly "Merlin's Magic" (the grey and tan) and hydrostone (white). The Merlin's is quite expensive when you factor in the shipping costs so I usually get the hydrostone - which I can get somewhat locally as I have a friend who lives near the supply house and grabs it for me when he comes to town. As far as the build itself goes I'm pretty much trying to do it as it appears today - although I have thought about taking my little black-powder cannon to it after its finished (not hardly). Oh and the curved blocks are actually 9"dia blocks from the 8" tower mold. The outer wall as you will see when I post the next batch of pictures is going to be small 1" blocks filed to shape to create the curvature.
3) Artshiraz - Yes its going to weigh a ton but the walls will be foam filled. When mortaring/pointing I use either carpenters wood glue or a mixture of talcum powder and future floor wax - which also works a treat.
Hope that answers the questions. If I forgot anything I will try to remember it when next I post. Thanks guys