Just a teaser Completed

[Gern]

So no ones got “eat a pie“ then Dave...pity, I thought it was quite good.....as is the idea for the build....

Well done Tim! If I was giving prizes you'd have won a coconut - if I had any coconuts!

[Gern]

I fear that one of my questions has got lost in amongst all my waffle!

Does anyone know how to specify the exact size that cells in Excel are printed?

[monica]

If you got a use for the decals Moni, PM your address and I'll post them to you. If it's the images I found, it will be a while before I get them printed although you'd be welcome to a copy of those as well.

Ta Dave,thats so nice of you,just the images ,of the decals and the others are fine,I can get them printed out,always handy and useful,

[Gern]

Ta Dave,thats so nice of you,just the images ,of the decals and the others are fine,I can get them printed out,always handy and useful,

You sure, 'cos it's no problem to send the decals. I'll see if I can find the original pics I used. Watch this space ....

[Gern]

Some more progress today, but not as much as I would have liked.

Remember me saying my 'puter crashed last week? I've spent another two days linked with a Microsoft technician trying to fix it. Really weird, when I first log on, I get asked for my pin and sign in with no problems. The next time I log on I get a screen which tells me my password is wrong, so I click OK which takes me to a second screen and type in the only password they have and I get logged in. But the weird part is, the third time I log in, it's back to entering my pin again! Back to Microsoft tomorrow.

Anyway, here's where I'm at:



Got the fence glued into place. I cut recesses into the back of the foam and glued the posts to the MDF base as well as to the foam with a big dollop of no more nails. That should hold it well enough.

Oh. Added a strand of barbed wire to the top rail. Gotta try to stop the oiks climbing over and getting into farmer Giles' fields - he might get me thrown off the pitch!

Waiting for the glue on the fence to dry before I start adding all the green stuff.

The grass is cut from a mat. I could have used some flock and PVA, but this only took 2 minutes to cut it to size and glue it down. I glued all of the base parts together at the same time and added a few books on top to weight them down for 5 - 6 hours while the PVA dried enough for me to carry on.

I've started putting the grit and dirt I used for the road (disappointed I didn't get my nice tarmac but it's turned out OK) around the joints between the slabs. I'll see how it looks when the glue is dry, but I can already see I need more along the edge of the kerb.

Used some VMA Mahagony (!?) diluted with airbrush cleaner for the benches (about 2 : 1 thinner : paint). Came out alright and left a bit of the grain showing. There's a couple of white streaks here and there, but that's where little Billy spilled his mayo trying to open the sachet.

I like how these have turned out (the lettering is on all four sides):



I mixed up a thick goopy mix of white powder paint and just brushed it all in and over the recessed letters, left it for 10 minutes then carefully wiped away the excess from the raised part of the surface with a damp tissue and cotton buds. First time I did it, either my paint wasn't thick enough, or I didn't leave it long enough and I wiped most of the paint out of the lettering. No problem, just added thicker paint. Whole job took less than 30 minutes. There's odd smears of the white paint left here and there and you can see some of the lettering appears faded but that just makes them look more weathered and realistic.

Sorted out a nice tree to go in the bench:



Starting to sort out the green stuff. This is about half the contents of one of my two boxes so plenty of choice. Some I got from florists but most of it is the stuff you buy for aquariums and vivariums - dirt cheap if you avoid buying from pet shops and garden centres! - but there is some stuff specifically made for scenery. It's worth looking at model railways on ebay. You can quite often pick up job lots of the stuff fairly cheaply. I'll be adding some of those small grass clumps to the corner joints in the paving.

[Gern]

Ta Dave,thats so nice of you,just the images ,of the decals and the others are fine,I can get them printed out,always handy and useful,

Hi Moni. I couldn't find the original images I used as I couldn't remember exactly what I searched for, but:

I typed Roadside catering posters into Google and searched through the images. I found this one and right-clicked, and saved it to my desktop.



Right click on your saved image and copy and paste it into a word document. Right click again and you should get a menu with the option 'Size' near the bottom. Click there and you get this menu:



You can use the size option to get your image the size you want before printing.

I vaguely remember searching for:

Fast food posters/advertising
Soft drinks ditto
Ice cream ditto
Opening times ditto

Picture of the decals:



Are you sure you don't want me to send you the actual decal sheet? It's no problem and I'll only be throwing them away when I've finished the build. I'd much rather let them be used.

[monica]

hi,Dave,very much appreciated ,for your time with this,just sometimes or most times
my pc,hates me and google dose also,have been trying to sort out using paint in win 7 ,with some luck.
cheers
Monica

[Gern]

Got the base just about done now although the benches and bins need to be glued down





Interior fittings and posters



Still don't understand why my pics are blurry when I use a timer and tripod stand and I'm not touching the camera. Could it be the actual camera mechanism that causes it to move? If so, why only on the close up shots?

Almost forgot:




Just the van and A-boards to do now, but I have ordered a couple of cheap figures. Got to wait and see, but given my limited figure painting skills, I don't know if I'll get them done well enough to include on here.

Thanks to my kid brother for helping with all the posters and stickers. I designed 'em, he sized and printed 'em for me.

[SimonT]

Dave,

having done something similar I found that for Styrofoam you need to prime it with something like this to stop it dissolving

Primer

then you can paint over the top with whatever finish


Setting cell sizes in Excel - was going to try explain but someone has already done a good one here

Excel

[Gern]

Thanks Simon. I normally use acrylics for painting and they work OK on foam - I just forgot the effect that cellulose has! My bad!

Thanks for the link - although my kid brother showed me briefly when I went to collect the stuff he had printed. Always nice to have a reference you can go back to. Don't get me wrong, but my brother is absolutely typical of most IT guys. He'll explain techniques but he types so fast he misses explanations for half the menus and stuff he goes through - he also omits to mention he's pressed about half a dozen buttons since his last sentence!

[boatman]

HI Dave its lookin great realy nice dio but im bloomin starvin how much longer till i get my burger ? lol
chris

[Gern]

HI Dave its lookin great realy nice dio but im bloomin starvin how much longer till i get my burger ? lol
chris

Still trying to find some chease for you Chris. Hopefully not long now though.

[boatman]

Still trying to find some chease for you Chris. Hopefully not long now though.

WELL i hope so Dave as much longer an i'll be a bloomin skelton an havin that sittin at your table ani't gonna do your bussinsse any good is it as people will be passin you by as sayin im not eatin there look what happend to that poor bloke lol
chris

[Gary MacKenzie]

have been trying to sort out using paint in win 7 ,with some luck.

Have a look at paint dot net.
A great , free , graphics package

[Gern]

WELL i hope so Dave as much longer an i'll be a bloomin skelton an havin that sittin at your table ani't gonna do your bussinsse any good is it as people will be passin you by as sayin im not eatin there look what happend to that poor bloke lol
chris

We'll have no skellingtons at the feast thank you very much! They're almost as bad as Marmite fans!