Update:
First, Bill ( @Hines ), thank you for your encouragement! Yes, the 1:24 crew earned their pay! Funny, I actually use them to slow me down. Posing them, in addition to helping me maintain our nominal scale, forces me to slow down and think about the project. Those little dudes have stopped me from making countless errors! Second, as far as time on projects, Kid-zilla and I probably spend six hours together puttering over the course of the week. He likes to build in parallel, but he is slowly starting to move onto the lanai on his own (if someone gives him a tablet or cell phone, I shall be most vociferously displeased…). Normally, I have to help him, but he does help me paint, glue, find tools, etc. We both help each other find dropped parts, and he has learned gravity works sideways in the modeling world! I do our blogging, almost exclusively here, to get help, show off, have fun, build community, remember how to do stuff, etc. Trains run most weekends, usually late afternoon through sundown, and we use setup time to address MOW and electrical issues. We both take great pleasure in flawless operations during dinner or during a garden party! As for inconveniences, yes, he has school, and I have a job. Bummer…We also have other hobbies, as diverse interests, in my opinion, keeps any one from becoming boring or stale. If Kid-zilla has an advantage over me, he has neither wife nor children of his own. These other folks in my life also demand and DESERVE my attention, and my puttering with Kid-zilla at the exclusion of others has gotten a few stern “Ha-RUMPH-s!” from CINCHOUSE!
This project has lumbered forward, all the same, with the Thanksgiving weekend offering a chance to work in fits and starts. One spasm of activity resulted in a pair of ladders. The 1:24 crew and a PLAYMOBIL ladder helped with the spacing:
The material is a kebab skewer, glued in place with TiteBond III, then lashed with a bit of twine. I lathered the lashing in more TiteBond III to reinforce the lot. The picture below shows the lashings without the glue.
The goal is to maintain some of the original structure’s “jungle theme” while avoiding poor choices of material. The next picture is the original roof lattice, built in the same manner, that survived 7 years outside and at least one falling coconut frond:
The other big effort was to finish the “stone” work. I ripped, jammed, and glued irregular bits of foam from our scrap bag around the base. Kid-zilla and I tried to texture it using flat matte, but found it harder to control, no quicker, and less visually appealing. The first picture shows the flat matte spray, and the second shows the same wall undergoing our traditional wire brush shaping.
