Caernarvon Castle

[Mike Stamper]

I was about to add a few pictures to those I posted a few weeks ago, but the thread seems to have gone missing.

So at the risk of repeating myself - I'll give a brief synopsis of the earlier note.

The decision to make this Dover kit was made by a friend, I was a little surprised because they had the choice of quite a few castles - including some of he Instant Derable Chateax. However, I csn't critisize their choice of an English castle.

Like all their kits the card is quite thick and silghtly glossy. The instructions are quite easy to follow:-

Build all the towers and wall
Join them all together
add the base.

There are a few drawings to help.

The fun starts when it comes to adding the bases. There are three pieces that go part way up the towers and the fit is good - only were the pieces touch the walls ;-(

The first two weren't too bad to adjust, but the third one is "challenging" because it has to be folded to make a bank up to the end towers. An initial trial showed that almost no where did it fit, so I decided to cut the piece into two pieces. It was then a matter of working out the best way to make it fit. I took many copies of the parts and drew lines where the base was too wide and added masking tape where they didn't touch.

After about 2 hours I had a reasonable fit for on piece. The next took about an hour to et right. I then joined the two pieces together and drew the new shap on the original base.

The first photo shows the piece with the new lines. You will also note that the paths are off-set. I then made up new paths so the gap wasn't so obvious. I then added the new base to the towers. When that was done I spent a further - amount of time - touching up the small gaps that remained.

I'm quite pleased with the final result. There's about 6 hours work from starting with the original base and the final result.

My next task is adding the "aprons" to the outside. I've done a trial fit and hope to get these in place in less than the above 6 hours. I've already photocopied a "field" of brick work to make a new set of aprons.

More pictures to follow - unless I give up - although I've spent a lot of time already so giving up would be a waste !

Sorry there's no pictures - the "system" won't let me - I'll have to have "words" with someone ;-(

Cheers

Mike

[Mike Stamper]

It appears that "the system" logged me off !

so here are the pictures.

[Don Boose]

Great to see these photos. Too bad about the earlier ones, but I look forward to the future postings.

Don

[cjwalas]

Coming together beautifully, Mike.
Chris

[Mike Stamper]

Here's a few pictures that seem to have disapeared !

Th scaffolding was needed to holdthe walls against the base
Cheers
Mike

[papermodelfan]

Thanks for catching us up on the build - I had been following it BC (before crash). What are those scaffolding thingies? - they look useful

[Mike Stamper]

Rob,

The clamps only have "serre-joint" on them. I bought them at the model engineering exhibition in London about 20 years ago. They came as a set of six - three were about 10 inches and the others about five. They consist of carbon fibre rods with plastic armes with rubber bits at the end. They are useful for holding parts together where there is a big gap between the parts. For example - on The castle I could squeeze a wall between two towers.

I tried Googling the name but only found the usual type of clamps ;-(

Cheers

Mike

[AndrewO]

Very nice build ! I really like buildings, and castles seem to have a lot of fiddly bits to work on, eh ? -AndrewO, in San Jose, California

[rickstef]

I found these on MicroMark.com

MINI PLASTIC CLAMP SET (SET OF 4)
MINI PLASTIC 7 " CAPACITY CLAMPS (SET OF 2)
MINI PLASTIC 3 " CAPACITY CLAMPS (SET OF 2)
SOLID BRASS MINIATURE BAR CLAMPS, 12 " LONG (SET OF 2)
SOLID BRASS MINIATURE BAR CLAMPS, 7 " LONG (SET OF 2)
SOLID BRASS MINIATURE BAR CLAMPS, 3-3/4 " LONG (SET OF 2)
CAM ACTION BAR CLAMPS, 7 " CAPACITY (SET OF 2)

Rick

[Mike Stamper]

Rick, you have more time than me to "surf" most of my time is spent building models ;-)

You may want to put the sites on a separate thread - these clamps would be useful to those who don't look at Arcitecture !

Cheers
Mike