Need help with Verlinden materials...

zokissima

I have used a few of these plaster kits before and found Le Pages white glue works okay to hold it together. For added strength I have drilled into the casting where the parts attach to one another and "pegged" the joint with dowel, BBQ skewers, Toothpicks depending on the size of the pieces. It just adds some strength to the joint and squares everything up. Once the joint is dry I use a dry wall filler compound to fill the seams in. There is a squeeze tube type pre-mixed at Home Depot for filling cracks that works great. I can't remember the name of the manufacturer right now but you'll be able to find it. The last thing is to scribe in any detail such as brick joints or detail that should continue from one side to the other. That's about it.

Hope this helps.

Cheers;

Gregory

That definitely helps Gregory. I was definitely thinking of drilling and pinning the structures, but I did not know of any adhesives I could use. As to the prefiller, I have a product from Home Depot as well. It is not in a squeeze tube, but in a bucket, but I believe that it is probably a similar, if not the same product, you're referring to.
Once again, thanks a lot!

I used yellow wood glue on my Verlinden bunker, worked great. Some folks like to use epoxy, but that's too much work for me.

Here's an answer to a question I know you didn't ask, but a caveat: that plaster soaks paint up like a sponge! It'll suck a loaded brush dry just like that, before you even have time to move the paint around. Some folks like to seal the plaster with a spray lacquer or something similar before painting plaster, but that's too much work for me if the plaster is to represent plain ol' concrete. I recommend mixing a very thin wash (probably oil or enamel paint thinned with turpentine) in a nice concrety color (dirty gray with some yellowish/brownish tint) and giving the whole structure a heavy wash BEFORE the glue gets anywhere near it (any errant glue spots with resist the wash and it won't soak in and it'll be the first thing you notice any time you look at the dio and you'll have to hide it with some improbably-placed bit of equipment or such like and the nice folks at the model show will ask all sorts of awkward questions-- ask me how I know!) As a plus, the wash acts as its own wash, so you won't have to go through the usual paint-wash-drybrush drill. Plaster is a very similar material to concrete, so you can just let it be itself and it will represent quite nicely.

Thanks for the heads-up tangoromeo. I had a feeling I'd have to use a lot of paint for it, but using a pre-wash is actually a very good idea.
One question however. You suggested a very thin wash. The plaster being completely bleached white, will a thin wash provide enough opacity to actually get a good colouring on the plaster? I guess I can go over with multiple washes.

Because the plaster is so light, whatever pigment goes on it will show very well-- it's analogous to painting over white primer. You don't really want the wash to be too opaque; remember the plaster is a similar material to concrete. You can let it do most of the work for you.

It's always better to start too light. Then you can go back and add more if it dries too light. Don't forget to add streaks of mold and rust for that lived-in look! The beauty of the wash is that if you don't like how it winds up looking, you can just prime the @$#%!^#%$ hunk of $%^& and paint it up as per usual.