Hoping to concentrate on set/prop making I'm taking this opportunity to showcase what I can do with regards to making and dressing a set. As shown in the previous post the structure of the interior set is now designed and built, though we still have to fix it so that the walls can be removed individually. This is so we can take off any wall and shoot through the opening. We are also thinking of standing the characters with magnets on their feet, which means a metal floor.

 

 

Having sourced a piece of sheet metal from the materials store I then had to cut it to size. Luckily I got a dry day for doing this as it had to be done outside. The slowest part was filing smooth the edges, I don't want anyone's fingers getting sliced on my watch.

 

 

It's funny really, even though I had the measurements written down I still managed to cut one side a 1/4" too wide. Surprisingly not the only problem I encountered.

 

 

I considered fitting hinges to the bottom of each wall so that it could fold downwards, out of the way, but the wood is only 1/4" thick so it would be hard to get screws short enough. In the end, after several cups of tea, I decided to fit 2" x 1" batons along the bottom of each wall.

 

 

 I then drilled through these into the base board and held them in place with dowels.

 

 

 

 

I also fitted 2" x 1" batons around the door and window openings to imply that the walls are thick.

 

 

 

I had to add glue to the chimney breast and bar sections as the panel pins weren't secure enough.

 

 

I also added batons to these parts to secure them to the walls.

Still unable to come up with a way of joining the tops of the walls - at the corners - I'll have to put the kettle on again.

I would like to create a 3d texture effect of stonework for the walls and had an idea to make a mould with plaster of paris and cast the stonework in latex rubber.

I started by making a stone relief effect from newplast modelling clay. This was made to scale and set to cover a 9" square section of the wood. There is no reason for the different colours of clay other than it was all I had to hand. Looks good though, maybe it would make a nice installation piece?

I then made a case around the clay out of 2" x 1" batons, that could be filled with plaster of paris. As the clay "stones" were not secure and kept moving my plan to brush on a release agent wasn't working. In the end I found an almost empty spray container, some kitchen cleaning liquid plastic bottle type. I poured some vegetable oil into this and was then able to spray it onto the clay.

As usual when I'd mixed the plaster and started to apply it to the mould it began to set. I had meant to mix it fairly wet but it's often hard to judge the quantities when mixing. I was convinced the plaster  wouldn't have filled the gaps between the stones as it was setting during the filling procedure but luckily it worked o.k.

After the plaster had set I removed the wooden batons and then gradually peeled out the clay.

The mould seemed to have turned out o.k. so I then replaced the batons as I now needed to apply the latex rubber.

Although I had researched this procedure it didn't really go to plan. Apparently the latex should be built up in thin layers, with each layer air drying thoroughly before the next one is applied.

As the first few layers were taking ages to dry I put a bit extra in the third layer, which I left overnight to set.

This layer only set on the outside which meant bubbles of liquid were trapped in the grooves and wouldn't set, as the air couldn't get at it. I had to pierce each bubble and squeeze out the liquid inside, then peel back the outside covering to dry everything. Obviously I would have to stick to applying very thin layers. 

This procedure is seeming to take forever. This is the mould after eight layers.

I did discover that leaving the mould outside in a breeze speeded up the drying process. The holes in the mould are still only about half full after a dozen layers.

This is the mould after three days of applying layers of latex. Considering that this is only a 9" x 9" section it's obvious that this method of creating a stone texture to the walls is not feasible within our production time frame. I will continue with this mould as I'm determined to finish it, I'm curious as to whether or not it'll even work.

 

 

 

I tried out ways of shaping individual "stones" from polystyrene and gluing them to the walls, but again this was a very slow process. It would have taken days as we need to cover around 8 square feet.

I made a new chimney breast and bar section from blocks of polystyrene.

I then attempted to carve the joints between the stones using Lino print cutting tools. This kind of worked ok but it was still fairly slow.

I then experimented on carving the joints using a soldering iron. This is definitely the fastest way to make the grooves but it is easy to burn to deep into the polystyrene so had to be done carefully. The irregular surface of the stones was made repeatedly hammering the the surface of the polystyrene block with a screwdriver handle.

 

Comparing the two methods I think the soldering iron works best.

Drying the latex in front of a fire helps, it's still a long way from being finished though.

Some shots of the walls in position. I was also able to carve the shapes of the door and window lintels into the polystyrene, which will save having to make wooden ones. Next I have to figure out a way to join the top corners of the wooden walls in a way that they can be easily separated for removal. I also have to paint a wood effect on the floor, and fit the fireplace mantle and the bar counter, which are already made and just have to be glued in place. Of course there's still the furniture and other props but I'm hoping a lot of these can be made from modelling clay.