Bigelow Street, Cambridge MA

[chester]

Foliage of any kind is a weak spot for me so I'll let others comment on it. I have to add though that the curbing and brick are great.
  Cutting large pieces of granite here in N.E. is still done the same way for almost 200 years on job sites I see it done on. Drill a series of holes, put the feathers in which are no more than shaped shields and driving a wedge in between them. One moves from one wedge to the next giving only a blow or two with the hammer until you can hear the sound of the blows change pitch. At this point your granite is cracked and persuasion is delivered with a larger sledge hammered on wood to complete the break. My wedge and feather set is about 90 years old and quite a mess but I still managed to cut some granite with them just last year.

[jacq01]

   Narayan,   

   your application of foliage, grass and trees is not doing justice to the refined stonework of the street.
   I would sxpect a more fitting choice of materials, which are availabe comercially or can be made as shown in the book "We built a diorama II"

   Jacq

[nk]

Thanks for the info Chester. I will look at granite with a new appreciation. Jacque, thanks for the references. I'll look into it.

I did make this fence to put into the garden, but when I tried it out it unbalanced the composition...so into the spares box it goes!

[nk]

I'm getting into small detail stages now and its a lot of fun....

I needed to make a lot of very fine debris to fill the cracks between the bricks. I did this using tea from teabags that I saved and dried out after they were used to make tea.


I ground it up and sifted it to get the very finest particles


and ground it again with a mortar and pestle to make the particles ever finer


And then I spinkled it into the brick surface and rubbed it into the gaps with my finger. I also installed the water and gas panels andf the little sign post bracket (that are everywhere in Cambridge and which trip you over all the time) and added utility marking and weathered a little. I did change the place of the orange markings to improve the composition...I'll call it artistic licence.

[finescalerr]

Satisfactory. -- Russ

[Ray Dunakin]

The utility markings are a nice touch of extra realism.

[Design-HSB]

I'm really impressed with the details.

[marc_reusser]

The markings are perfectly done  (I checked....I have a bunch in front of my house )...so is the cast iron acces cap.

If I didn't know better I would say the phot with the blue marking, was the real thing.

M

[nk]

Thanks for the comments. Much appreciated. The utility markings are always there in Boston, its like the Big Dig never ended...

I have done some work on the street, the ghosts of parked cars after it rains, oil drips from leaky seals, more mark-outs (what does the white arrow mean?). I added the leaf debris. The leaves are actually from that location, and I dried them in the oven and used an old coffee grinder to chop them up. I glued it all in place with 25% elmers white glue in water. I made a nice discovery...if you add alcohol to the diluted Elmers solution, it breaks the surface tension and does not bead up when you apply it with a brush, and you can move it around with the brush if it moves in the flood of liquid. It worked like a charm.

Still to do...glue the tree in place, make a squashed Pepsi bottle and a lid to a Cedar's hommus container (the recycling guys always drop something on the street).... I should be finished this week. Hurrah.

[EZnKY]

Very nice work!

[Ken Hamilton]

Flawless as usual, N.  Great stuff!
(Is this destined to become another wall hanging?)

[Chuck Doan]

Is this a subtle commentary on your friends yardkeeping?

Really looking good!

[finescalerr]

Who would have thought a model of a street and sidewalk could be so impressive? -- Russ

[TRAINS1941]

That is really some great work.  Realism at it's finest.

Jerry

[BKLN]

I probably have crawled home on this sidewalk at some point.

Excellent work! Thanks for sharing.