New product in development from Diorama Direct

[shropshire lad]

I have been sent by Louise at Diorama Direct a photo of a section of concrete block wall made from a new mould being developed by them and she is asking for any comments . Good or bad .

  At the moment the main issue is trying to make the blocks "idiot proof " so that they can be laid with all the mortar joints being the same . The obvious solution would be to have spacers incorporated , similar to their 1/35th scale Flemmish brick strips , but this might prove to be tricky owing to the thinness of the block walls . She asked if they should do away with the holes in the blocks and have them all being solid , to which I replied " no way , Jose "  that is the main appeal , to me , of the blocks in the first place . My best suggestion is to have the majority of the blocks being cast solid with spacer lugs and a proportion being cast hollow without the spacers . This would mean that anyone who wants to show the top of the wall can just lay one course of hollow blocks on top of the rest which are solid .

   The blocks were cast with a very dry plaster mixture . To rather good effect . Well , I think so .

   Does anyone have a better suggestion , or other comments ? The blocks will be 1/35th scale .

  Nick

[eTraxx]

Those castings are quite wonderful ...

[Ray Dunakin]

Holy moly, those look terrific! Sure wish they were 1/24th scale.

[danpickard]

Hi Nick,
Great looking castings, especially with the dry plaster mix gives that a fairly authentic looking rough concrete cast appearance.  Solid blocks for the majority of the mould would make sense in terms of improving casting results (ie of one of the moulds for about 100 bricks, 70 could be solid, the rest with the hollowed detail).  For spacing to make them idiot proof, they tend to suggest building their brick walls against a former (such as the lego), which should keep walls straight, so if spacing is the challenge, a simple suggestion of a common spacer piece should be the easy solution.  When laying bricks, provide space with a styrene/timber/card spacer, depending on what the modeller wants the gap to be, and just slide it out between each laying of the bricks.  The fancy answer would be some style of ladder spacer (with one long rail missing), to lay out a wall, and then remove the spacer jig.

Great to see them continuing with new product development.

Cheers,
Dan

[Alexandre]

That's a very nice and (I may be wrong) totally unseen so far?
I've been looking for that!
The casting look great, lovely texture and color.

I think you're totally right with the holes, that's the main interest, I fully support your suggestion of both solid and hollow cast.

Hope they'll do them in various scale, as with their bricks.

[marc_reusser]

Splendid!  Hollow 1/35 please......and hollow 1/24 (to put the car up on blocks).

Put me down for a set of molds in each scale.

Now,.....when will they be bringing out molds for the large hollow terracotta blocks, and perforated bricks? 

[shropshire lad]

Now,.....when will they be bringing out molds for the large hollow terracotta blocks, and perforated bricks? 

  When everyone has bought lots of their other moulds to support the limited demand for such specialist requests . Actually , they have been looking into producing a mould for three holed engineering bricks . Is that what you are thinking of ?

  1/24th scale is a possibility ( and probably easier to produce than 1/35th scale moulds) if there is enough demand for a mould in that scale . Register your requests with them and see what happens ,

    Nick

    Nick

[marc_reusser]

I believe I have met my quot of "lots of their other molds".....so unless there is something new...or in a different scale, I would soon need to start buying duplicates....or items in a scale I do not work in. 

No it was not the three hole small or long terracotta that I was thinking of (but those would be usefull as well), but rather the large ...don't know the size at the moment,...but roughly the cinder block size or larger, with the vertically raked sides, and I think 12 or so holes.

[shropshire lad]

I believe I have met my quot of "lots of their other molds".....so unless there is something new...or in a different scale, I would soon need to start buying duplicates....or items in a scale I do not work in. 

No it was not the three hole small or long terracotta that I was thinking of (but those would be usefull as well), but rather the large ...don't know the size at the moment,...but roughly the cinder block size or larger, with the vertically raked sides, and I think 12 or so holes.

  I wasn't thinking of you in particular in buying " lots of their moulds" , as I know you have purchased a significant number , however , I would imaging the numbers of moulds of the product you are talking about that would be sold could be counted on one hand . I'm not sure that they would consider it financially viable . It would also be an extremely tricky mould to make , if it were possible to do so in that scale .

  I know that these "blocks" have been used for some time in Europe in floor construction but I can't imaging too many modellers would have the knowledge or inclination to start incorporating them into their models .

  Is this the sort of thing you are talking about ?

  Nick

[marklayton]

Nick -

I'm unfamiliar with Diorama Direct, and can't seem to find anything on the web.  What other interesting products do they provide?  Any contact info?

These blocks are outstanding.  I can think of numerous projects that would benefit!

Mark

[Mobilgas]

I would like to see them do these in 1/24 and 1/48 scale 

[danpickard]

Nick's typo...DIORAMA DEBRIS, not diorama direct.

http://www.dioramadebris.co.uk/

Cheers,
Dan

[shropshire lad]

Nick's typo...DIORAMA DEBRIS, not diorama direct.

http://www.dioramadebris.co.uk/

Cheers,
Dan

  Sorry about that . I seem to have had a bit of a mental block , it happen every so often ,I'm down to just  a couple of times a day now .

   Nick

[marc_reusser]

Nick's typo...DIORAMA DEBRIS, not diorama direct.

http://www.dioramadebris.co.uk/

Cheers,
Dan

Boy, remind me not to hire him for my marketing guru. 

[finescalerr]

You see? That's what happens when you let Nick out of the corner. He is so much better off remaining there and building those exquisite models .... -- Russ