Large Scale Central

Castle Build

Modeling
#81

Okay Dan, it’s all your fault, you just caused me to remember things from 40 years ago! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Knight statue figure looks for all the world like one which came in a plastic snap-together castle playset my little brother received for one Christmas in the 1970s. Had a several inch high square base molded in tan styrene to look like boulders, walls were light grey, roof color is not remembered. Had several standing and several mounted knights. Was actually a quite nice playset.

Will send him url for the page and see what Wes thinks of figure.

1st Edit: done.

And I very much remember the tactile sensation of point on helmet visor and feeling of shield surface with hand molding on back.

I don’t much remember configuration of castle though. Am certain it had actual chain for drawbridge.

And had a well.

2nd Edit: Found something about it, and there’s the guy!

http://webdebris.com/70s/2011/08/king-arthurs-castle-playset/

http://richardluschek.blogspot.com/2016_08_01_archive.html

3rd edit a video review

https://youtu.be/0Si7taNNIrU

“King Arthur’s Castle - speed build - Vintage Toy” https://youtu.be/QsE_obgHoX4

#82

Forrest Scott Wood said:

Okay Dan, it’s all your fault, you just caused me to remember things from 40 years ago! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Knight statue figure looks for all the world like one which came in a plastic snap-together castle playset my little brother received for one Christmas in the 1970s. Had a several inch high square base molded in tan styrene to look like boulders, walls were light grey, roof color is not remembered. Had several standing and several mounted knights. Was actually a quite nice playset.

Will send him url for the page and see what Wes thinks of figure.

1st Edit: done.

And I very much remember the tactile sensation of point on helmet visor and feeling of shield surface with hand molding on back.

I don’t much remember configuration of castle though. Am certain it had actual chain for drawbridge.

And had a well.

2nd Edit: Found something about it, and there’s the guy!

http://webdebris.com/70s/2011/08/king-arthurs-castle-playset/

http://richardluschek.blogspot.com/2016_08_01_archive.html

Ha! That’s exactly what it is. I had that castle set in the 70s myself and this figure was with it. I’m not sure what happened to the rest of it, but this guy has been knocking around in a box of miscellaneous stuff since then. I thought he’d make a good “statue.”

#83

What! No drawbridge? No moat? What kind of self respecting castle owner would not have have a moat and drawbridge? Oh that just ruins the whole effect.

Just kidding. Someday I need to try my hand at building a castle, after all, the name of the central town on my railroad is “Castle Shannon”.

#84

Vaguely remembering something about castle moats I went playing in Google (which often is a kind of playground to me) and found the following, even though it goes without saying that I found the following, since posting the following makes it self evident that I found the following. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

http://www.jcastle.info/resources/view/20-Moats

Water Moats (水堀) • Dry moats (空堀)

Earlier castles were mostly mountaintop castles so they rarely had water filled moats. With the evolution of hilltop and flatland castles, water filled moats became more common. Water moats often connected with nearby wetlands, lakes, or the ocean to fill with water. During peaceful times, these waterways could also be used for commerce and transportation. Even in later day flatland castles with other water moats, the inner moats were sometimes dry moats. Dry moats are actually a stronger defense than water moats. With water moats, an attacker could hide in the water, swim across and even jump into the moat if pursued.

and,

http://www.ancientfortresses.org/castle-moats.htm

Origin, Meaning of the word ‘Moat’
The Origin and Meaning of the word ‘Moat’ derives from from the Middle French word ‘motte’ meaning mound or hill. The French word was translated into the Middle English word ‘moat’.

Forerunner of the Castle Moats - Norman Motte and Bailey Castles
The forerunners of Castle Moats was introduced with Norman Motte and Bailey castles during the Medieval period 1066 - 1154. Motte and Bailey Castles were built on top of hilltops. A high and extremely steep mound was built (called the Motte) which had very steep sides and a Tower was built on the top of it. The process of excavating the earth to build the massive mound, which was the motte, created a highly convenient defensive ditch at the base of the motte and surrounding the whole of the bailey! The ditch later became known as the Moat.

Introduction of Castle Moats - Medieval Castles
The Castle Moats was introduced with Plantagenet castles during the Medieval period 1154 - 1485. The most prolific of the castle builders were the Plantagenet English King, Edward I. These great old castles were built for Medieval warfare and defence and new parts of the castle were designed accordingly! The Castle Moats feature in the Medieval castles built by the Plantagenets.

#85

Bring a student of castles of the medieval kind, and being brought in a country with at least ten within an hour drive, I can save you a LOAD of pain be telling you that NO medieval castle had glass in the windows.

Shutters, yup. In UK on the inside, sometimes. On the outside, never.

Yoorup, yup. On the outside, usually, and made from diagonal strips.

Castles like the pink structure you have shown in the post above, VERY European, BTW, will have had glass installed in the windows when they became obsolescent, and began to be lived in by long-standing families rather than troops.

I suggest that if you are emulating a medieval European-style castle that you take a look at Ehrenbreitstein on a hill outside Trier, or Chinon in France. Both of those, however, are much earlier than the one that you are building. Malbork in Poland might be a good one to look at, too.

tac

#86

tac Foley said:

Bring a student of castles of the medieval kind, and being brought in a country with at least ten within an hour drive, I can save you a LOAD of pain be telling you that NO medieval castle had glass in the windows.

Shutters, yup. In UK on the inside, sometimes. On the outside, never.

Yoorup, yup. On the outside, usually, and made from diagonal strips.

Castles like the pink structure you have shown in the post above, VERY European, BTW, will have had glass installed in the windows when they became obsolescent, and began to be lived in by long-standing families rather than troops.

I suggest that if you are emulating a medieval European-style castle that you take a look at Ehrenbreitstein on a hill outside Trier, or Chinon in France. Both of those, however, are much earlier than the one that you are building. Malbork in Poland might be a good one to look at, too.

tac

Yeah, it’s not really very “authentic” for a medieval castle. I have a bunch of books on crusader castles and such, and this is necessarily more like a manor house. The size, even at this scale is an issue. Krak des Chevaliers, for example, would be bigger than my yard :slight_smile: Fitting it into the available space required scaling it down from my modest original plan.

In my mind, this is a castle that had square windows (like Kanturk) that later was “modernized” with glass windows. Or like this one in Poitou…

#87

Ah, NOT a castle, then, but a ‘fortified manor house’.

Right.

tac

#88

David Maynard said:

What! No drawbridge? No moat? What kind of self respecting castle owner would not have have a moat and drawbridge? Oh that just ruins the whole effect.

Just kidding. Someday I need to try my hand at building a castle, after all, the name of the central town on my railroad is “Castle Shannon”.

I agree, a moat would have been cool. Actually, when I first envisioned this, I was going to make it Zenda, with one turret actually sitting in the pond and a pipe leading from a window down into the water for Black Michael and his henchman Rupert of Hentzau to dispose of King Rudolf :slight_smile:

#89

Which I guess makes it one of those cases of modeling the concept more than modeling the object.

#90

Forrest Scott Wood said:

Which I guess makes it one of those cases of modeling the concept more than modeling the object.

Definitely. I’ve found (though I’ve not been doing this long) that it’s pretty hard to be prototypical in the space I have available. My town, for instance, has only four houses but a Main Street with enough stores to serve hundreds. And the mountain is really the size of a large hill (though obviously much taller). There’s only one passenger station, which means passengers are just making a round trip :slight_smile: I wanted to have a model zeppelin, but the Hindenburg is 33 feet long in 1:24, which is about 2/3 the length of my whole layout. There are lots of compromises.

#91

tac Foley said:

Ah, NOT a castle, then, but a ‘fortified manor house’.

Right.

tac

Yep. It started out more “castle-like” but that turned out to be significantly too big for the available space. It’s much more of a manor house than castle now–though to most USians “castle” includes things like Versailles (which is really a palace) and Carcassonne (a chateau). We’re pretty vague with definitions :slight_smile:

#92

Round here, in the UK Bucks & Northant’s area we have a couple of farms that have castellated towers as part of the main house building. A bit like the one being modeled here. We call them examples of a “folly”. You could always claim to be replicating one of them.

We had a big scandle a few years ago about members of Parliament, MP’s, (think Representatives/Senators) claiming expenses for things other than Parliamentary duties that they should not have. One MP claimed for having his castle’s moat cleaned. His political career ended somewhat swiftly after that was revealed. Max.

#93

Go it outside to see if it fit.

It fits in much better at this size than when it was twice as large. It helps too that it’s not white :wink:

#94

Wow nice layout and your castle came out really cool.

I think it needs to be raised a bit and make some rough terrain a round it. I would guess that the castle predates the RR so somewhere sometime there was a reason to build that castle. It could have been at a cross roads of trade, a Summer house for royals, or there was something about the land that needed defending. If it was built for defense it would have been setup higher with natural barriers like the lake behind or man made barriers like stone or earthen walls piled up.

Will there now be a RR stop for tourists to tour the heritage site?

#95

Looks to fit right in Dan. Nice build and location.

So that’s where the pic-a-nic ers hail from.(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

#96

That turned out great! Looks like you have an instant moat, if you put an island in that pond.

-Kevin.

#97

Todd Haskins said:

Wow nice layout and your castle came out really cool.

I think it needs to be raised a bit and make some rough terrain a round it. I would guess that the castle predates the RR so somewhere sometime there was a reason to build that castle. It could have been at a cross roads of trade, a Summer house for royals, or there was something about the land that needed defending. If it was built for defense it would have been setup higher with natural barriers like the lake behind or man made barriers like stone or earthen walls piled up.

Will there now be a RR stop for tourists to tour the heritage site?

Good points, Todd.

I could probably raise it up using somewhat the same method I used to build the mountain (paper mache using concrete). I thought about making a hill out of dirt for it to sit on, but when we get heavy rains everything tends to flatten out (in a very Kansas-like way) unless there are well-established plants to hold the soil. I was also worried about erosion undercutting the foam base, which would look funny. I’ll have to noodle on this some more.

The RR stop is something I hadn’t considered. Maybe I need to add a platform there… but I think an actual station might be too much. I’ll have to think about that, too

Good ideas. Thanks!

#98

dieseldude . said:
That turned out great! Looks like you have an instant moat, if you put an island in that pond. -Kevin.

Other than the turrets it’s all foam, so it could just float :slight_smile: I think the PVC makes it top heavy, so a capsized castle?

#99

Castle color’s similarity to local earth color says “I’m made locally out of stone from here”.

And yes, I do realize stone color and dirt color are widely different at times.

#100

Yea, a small shed by the tracks. Make it a sort of whistle stop. If anyone wants to stop they can, but if not, the train just keeps trundling along.