Drystone Wall ..... SBS

[Gordon Ferguson]

As promised, not long, not exciting and pretty simple really

First the foam, I have both blue and pink foam in the store cupboard ........ both are Styrofoam types. You also may find offcuts of the yellow type with a foil backing around building sites



For this job the pink was a bit better as it had a slightly coarser grain structure.

I then cut a number of slabs of the foam block , I used a band saw, the widths of these varied from 1 mm to about 5 mm


Note, I deliberately made no attempt to cut these slabs with parallel edges, if anything I was looking to try and vary the width across the length of the slab.

These slabs were then cut into strip all about the general width/depth of the wall


These strips were then cut into the various lengths I had calculated for a scale 1/35 wall, mixing the lengths with the various thicknesses.



I then "textured" the part of the foam that would show on the external side of the wall ... now you could knives, toothpicks, etc , as I don't bite my nails I found that pinching bits off with my thumb nail worked fine by me.
 

Now to build, on a base  of thick card I laid down a strip of double sided tape .... I used d/s tape as I did not want any glue seepage to spoil the look of the wall



The base stones were laid down on the d/s tape. Follow the real thing here and use your thicker strips in general at the bottom of the wall, working to medium and then the thinnest ( and real life the heaviest blocks at the bottom lightest blocks towards the top ) This is not a strict rule and you need to use thinner strips to level out the wall as you build.  I find it useful to insert a large block in odd places to ensure variety ( in the real walls I believe these heavier blocks are inserted to span the wall front to back to build its strength and stability)

 

As you can strips of D/sided tape is used between each layer of blocks, and the wall built up.



When the wall had reached a height I was happy with, in this case a scale 4 feet in 1/35 a layer of very thin blocks were added at the top to provide a  reasonably level surface for the coping stones to be then added. I also added a strengthening strip of card on to the rear of the wall.




Style size and shape of these copping/cap stones appears to be one of the identifiers of the locality.

The finished wall , with gate post added.





That's it, as I said fairly simple, cheap material and very few tools needed.

Painting details may or may not follow

[Andi Little]

Smashing little SBS Gordon ............ succinct and easily readable, very good.

Ps .... Local store didn't carry the "pink" space board, but got a lump of the "yellow" foil covered stuff for a fiver. "Ray" the assistant didn't seem to think there was much by way of difference between the two??

Pps ........ will be trying this in the very near future ........... thanks for the time and inspiration.

[compressor man]

Wow, this looks really good. I hope that you will show us some painted results???

Chris

[Design-HSB]

Hi Gordon,
thanks, exactly what you have now shown, I've searched the help to me.

Your painting technique would naturally be interested in me.

[Wesleybeks]

Great little SBS Gordon. Thanks

[Mobilgas]

Gordon,     Thanks for the how-to   Like you said very cheap and simple....waiting for your next post....on how your going to paint the wall's

[finescalerr]

When you finish everything, maybe we should publish your tutorial. -- Russ

[Gordon Ferguson]

Could we all stop using words such as "paint" & "finish" please but thanks for the positive feedback

[chester]

Great little sbs Gordon thanks. Can't wait to see some color on this.

[granitechops]

Thanks Gordon, so how does the finish compare to the blue you did for the bridge over troubled waters?
In my ignorance,  personnally I would have gone for the blue, but maybe the yellow "pics away"  more realistically?
is this 1/35?

[Malachi Constant]

Elegant in its simplicity ... excellent results ... clear info with some very useful/practical bits ... many thanks!  -- Dallas

[marc_reusser]

Well since Chester hogged all the plaudits for his post, I'll just say I agree. Thanks, I know I will put this to good use at some point.

M

[lab-dad]

Thank you for explaining Gordon!
I have saved, printed and placed it in the archives.
soul like to try it in 1/16 some day.
Marty

[Gordon Ferguson]

Next installment  ................ this one is most definitley NOT an SBS as to how to paint a stone wall  but may assist in some things not to do as well as some ideas which if refined may work.

At this stage as i reach for my paint brushes I am always reminded of a quote , I think from a Clint Eastwood film

"son, your brain is writing cheques your body can't cash"

My brain knows what it wants to achieve with paint but my abilities  don't match.

Anyway , first stage was to spay the foam with mix made up of Vallejo  Black Grey & German Green Brown surface primer......... I wanted/needed a water based paint as the foam does react/dissolve  with some chemical thinners.



This successfully covered & sealed the foam although as noted further on ended up much too dark a undercoat.

As I had used oils on the plaster wall previously and I liked the effect/colour went down this route ..... sponging on a blend of Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna & some plain white




Now you can see the issue I had with the too dark undercoat, think I thought I was working with a piece where the undercuts were shallow and therefore I would need to emphasise the shadow areas .... this is not the case with a piece built of individual bits.

At least because I was stopping to take photos as I went along, I had time to think about the issue .... normally when it all goes wrong with paint I just keep slapping some more paint on hoping it will fix the problem. Forced dried the oil paint with a h/dryer and then misted on a  coat of Dullcoat to seal what I had done so far.

Mixed up a very diluted wash of Light grey oil colour and brushed all over wall making sure that I got it into all the cracks/crevices,. Again forced dried and then using a clean brush lightly dampened with thinner lifted of some of the grey from the rock surfaces so that some of the tonal variation showed through.



When I was reasonably happy with the effect, again sealed with mist coat of Dullcoat.

I then mixed a variety of thin washes/glazes based again on Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna and also some Sap Green. These glazes were applied to individual stones with some variety added by combining one coloured glaze over another.



Finally after further drying and sealing I switched to Gouache using a Cool Grey Oxide of Chromium and Cadmium Yellow Deep to try and recreate some of the grey & yellow lichens you see growing on these sort of walls.



I have tried to blend out the lichens to soften the effect but looking at the last picture still need to soften some more of the areas where it looks a bit too spotty.

The plan is to place wall in a pretty damp location with grasses, rushes & ferns along with some moss, etc hence the strong greenish tinge to lower areas of the wall(really would like to get close to what Per Olav Lund has achieved with his vegetation)
When the vegetation & base is sorted I can do some fine tuning to the colours ......... an advantage in using the Gouache colours is that with a damp brush you can lift /soften the colours very easily.   

[Wesleybeks]

This has turned out great Gordon. I love the look of the whole wall and in particular the gate post.