World War II Project - 28mm Village Church - Sarissa Precision - The Walls - Part 3

Probably should have said this in the last post but I broke these long walls into three sections; short edge, long edge and the arch. The arch is the easiest so I saved that for last. I did the short side in the previous posting so that leaves the three arch section followed by the full arch.

I used the same approach as the short wall, taking all of my measurements from the same side and I used my best 12" steel ruler to do this. The process, surprisingly was successful! Take a look at the sequence below.

Laid everything out just like I did for the short wall.

Here are all the weights holding it down. I leave these in place for about 15 - 20 minutes while the glue sets. Then I can move on to the next piece, usually the opposite side.

And here is the three arch piece glued in place.

And now with the arch piece in place

Here are the long walls just about finished. Just one more arch to cut out. I let the glue completely dry before I cut out arches or trim up the edges.

The main thing to remember is keeping things slow. With that in mind I don't trim up anything until it has dried completely and I usually let it go overnight to be sure. While the stone paper is pretty stiff it sucks up the moisture from the glue and the air and tears easily when its wet, so make sure its very dry when you start to trim or it will tear. It lengthens the process but there are plenty of wall sections to work on so I do as much as I can while a section is drying. At this stage I continue to dry fit sections together to make sure they still fit. Typically I find that the stone paper has slid into the slots used to slide things together and since this is laser cut there is virtually no give there so I need to cut and file to make sure the tab and slot section remains clear. If you rush through this and force things to much its still possible to snap the MDF so take your time.

I dry fit the walls back into the floor. I like the contrast between the two stone types.

I did some quick work on one edge of the short walls. Testing the fit here so I could make sure everything continued to slide together smoothly. Its still a tight fit, tight enough that I probably won't have to use glue to hold these pieces together.