Bristol Armoured Division

[wibblywobbly]

This is for Rob. Sadly his own personalized road has been renamed.

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Did you spend the entire Festive Season trawling the interweb for that?? lolol.

[silversurfer1947]

Believe it or not, it appeared in one of the Facebook pages I follow. Pure chance!

[wibblywobbly]

Richard - Any chance you can bring along a small bag of your garden at the next meet? I have been renovating my scenery and need some to resurface a section of road.

[silversurfer1947]

Will do.

[silversurfer1947]

Before Christmas, I bought myself a new tele. As with most things these days, it came with expanded polystyrene packaging. l could not help thinking there must be something I could do with it, so I cut a piece off and marked it out. This is what I've got so far. It's about 3 feet long and 7 inches high. Before going any further, do you think there's a place for a wall like this on the battlefield?

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If so, I will give it a quick one over with a blowtorch then paint it. I have enough to do 2 more the same.

[silversurfer1947]

Well, no-one said Yay or Nay, so I've gone ahead. I gave the surface a light blow torching. I could have gone a bit harder, but was afraid of completely melting the polystyrene. There are still signs of the original texture, but, so as long as you don't look too closely, it passes for the tone surface. i painted it with a coat of emulsion, but this did not sink into the grooves which I cut for the mortar lines (too deep, I think.) After trying to paint in the mortar lines, I decide on an alternative. I want grey stone and my primer is grey so what could be better than spraying the whole thing. BIG mistake. However, I did make an interesting discovery. The solvent for Halford's acrylic spray primer dissolves polystyrene! In hindsight, I suppose this is not surprising as it must bond in some way with the surface onto which it is sprayed to do its job properly. Fortunately, in small quantities, it is OK, so what I have now is a battle damaged wall as per the photo.

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[wibblywobbly]

Only just saw this, well you have saved me a job, I reckon we need some long walls, and was going to make some at some point. They are looking good, I just hope that they stand up to the regular battering that the scenery takes.

[silversurfer1947]

I have only done one side - does the other side need doing for what you have in mind? In the meantime, I will have a go at the other 2 lengths.

[wibblywobbly]

I was thinking of a wall lined street, just something to block shots, and prevent direct routes from one end of the hall to the other?

[silversurfer1947]

I'll have a go at two other lengths - one side only to begin with. We can then see how it all slots together before I do the other sides.