Québec et Place-Royale en Panorama, L'Instant Durable, 1:400 [FERTIG]

The thought of folding this one up makes me salivate.

I have been most impressed with this set of buildings. The fit has been excellent. This is quite something when you consider that the entire assembly was made of basically only two main parts. But there were over 60 folds in them. When I started gluing at one end and working forward I wasn't sure what would happen when I rounded the next corner. But sure enough, the parts landed on their tabs with no travel.

The assembly does need a template in the bottom. There are many undulations in the footprint and trying to glue the part down piecemeal could be frustrating. The template aligns everything and ensures that the part will make contact at all points around its perimeter when it is glued down.

The template...

The assembly in place.

Thank you Friedulin.

The buildings on the right side of the model are complete with the exception of one little part which I will mention later.

I have a lot of respect for the designer of this model. Hughes Renier has had to create buildings designed to fit onto a base that is sloping downward from back to front as well as inward to the centre from right and left. Try and figure out those angles to keep the buildings standing plumb!

Reminds me of the mountain goats that have legs longer on one side than the other...

Two buildings under construction...

Here is another example of how well the buildings are designed to adapt to the sloping ground.

Thanks Fred.

I agree with you Norm. There is something very appealing to let your eye wander through the narrow streets and discover lots of little surprises in the details.

For example, you can just see a bit of the covered overhead walkway over the street in this shot.

Hi Tom,
Thank you for the kind comments. You will certainly enjoy the challenge of Pont-Neuf.

To be honest with you, if I didn't have experience working with ID models, I might shy away from the Pont-Neuf panorama model if I based my choice only on the cover photo of the prototype. The buildings are tipping all over the place. Nothing seems to be plumb. I'm sure the printed parts will enable a more precise build. With your skill, you will make it so!

By the way, I really enjoyed following your Carcassonne build.

The buildings at the base of the cliff are built Hollywood backlot style - with false fronts.

This is the site of the last complete three-dimensional house on the model. It is Maison Chevalier. I do not know the significance of Chevalier House, but it is one of the few named on the Model. There is a pen and ink drawing of it by André Robitaille in the book notes.

I found out from a Google search that Chevalier House was built as a home to Jean-Baptiste Chevalier in 1752 and has been restored as a museum focusing on Quebec's history.

Now it is time to put in place the Royal battery on this site.

Here is the ground piece for the base of the battery. It does not fit. This is quite understandable. It has nothing to do with any design error. Some parts just tend to creep over their baseline if they are complex assemblies. A lot of folds can create quite a bit of travel in a piece. Sometimes you can not just cut out a piece of a wall for example to shorten the part so it will register perfectly on its baseline footprint. The curved building is over the line. (quite a bit actually)

We are fortunate in this case to have too much material blocking the fit of the ground piece. It can easily be cut away. It's when a part falls short that you have to become creative to fill the gap.

To get a close fit, I build up a pattern incrementally with scrap paper. I find this an easy way to get really close to the mating part.

The pattern is placed over the part to be trimmed.

The part is trimmed using the pattern.

This procedure results in a fit that requires only a small amount of fine tuning.

Note that a bit of the building on the right got pushed in a bit. That can either be picked out with the sharp point of a #11 X-acto knife or tooled out from below.

Thanks Wolfgang, but I can not claim that this idea is original to me.

Professionals who lay linoleum flooring often use pieces of brown paper to build up a template around odd corners of rooms or where the flooring will pass through doorways, etc. The actual roll of linoleum, on a warm, sunny day, may be lying outside on the driveway of your house - where they can roll it out flat. They make the pattern on the floor inside, then go out and lay the pattern on the linoleum and cut it to shape. Then they roll the linoleum up and bring it inside. They unroll it in the room and it fits and the edges fit all the little nooks and crannies around the perimeter of the room.

Wolfgang, another place where building up a pattern with bits of paper really works nicely is where you want to make a pattern of a printed footprint. If the pattern paper is thin enough, you can see through to trace. But tracing papers are flimsy and don't stand up very well when you manipulate them and hold them for tracing around their edges. Building up the pattern a bit at a time with straight line segments of paper is very accurate. You can snuggle the paper right up to the printed line or even allow a bit for clearance. You can see precisely what you are doing. Clear adhesive tape is used to hold down the bits of paper on their inner edges, leaving the leading edge free.

I made the templates for many of the buildings on this model this way. The pattern is taped down onto the template stock or part with clear adhesive tape. Cutting around it is easy. You slice down through the tape at the edge of the pattern into the required stock or part. When you finish, the pattern falls away and you have a perfect copy underneath.

Works for me!

Cheers...John

The parapet around the guns of the Royal Battery is folded out of one piece of paper. The thickness of the walls leaves open gaps at the embrasures. I think that the sills of these embrasures can be filled with 1mm card at ground level when the parapet is glued around the grassy knoll.

No, that idea is not feasible. The sills are printed red brick. No need to raise them.

The battery from the side...

...and from above.

The canons for the battery...

The guns are on the ramparts.

Hello Yu,

Nice to hear from you. Thank you for the comment. I am really enjoying this different type of build. I like the panorama style.

Yu, this model represents a significant turning point in the history of Canada. In 1759, a state of war existed in North America between French and English forces. After a two month siege of Quebec, British forces scaled the cliffs of Quebec City at Anse au Foulon under the cover of darkness. It was a daunting task. By morning General Wolfe had deployed his forces on the plateau above and waited to engage the French militia forces. He had completely taken the French by surprise with this bold move.

The stage was set for The Battle on the Plains of Abraham.

There you go Yu. A short history lesson surrounding the model. The history books pick up the story.

Now the mature trees on the ramparts of the battery reflect a more peaceful time.

I have been looking forward to this challenge for some time while working on other parts of the model. You will notice the dramatic angle of the buildings that will line the left side of the road up the cliff.

Will the part fit?

We will see...

Thank you Friedulin. Your comment is very much appreciated.

Well, the buildings went into place quite well. The yellow building at the base of the cliff face-on to the front anchored the part. You can see in this picture that the pressure of the buildings running up the street began to lift its lower edge.

At the top of the street, the curb had to be eased a little bit to bear up under the part's last tab.

But, all in all, I am very pleased with the fit of this part. This is a beautifully designed model. The registration of parts is excellent.

I don't use the ATB pens that often, but every now and then they come in handy...

The little bridge across the road at the top of the cliff is a nice touch. Very clever foreshortening on this model.

We have arrived up on the plateau with the build now. (almost) The buildings up here are two-dimensional.

I think this is the first time that the back of the model has been shown. You can see the method of construction. Angle brackets support the plateau.

This is a rather flimsy construction. In my humble view, it needs a back. The model will probably be taken out of its box and placed on a table for display. It will not take much abuse when the upper parts are added. The buildings on the top of the plateau will be easy bent unless there is a method of picking the model up. Otherwise there will be bent flags, finials steeples and statues. The one flag on the post office has already been knocked about.

I would like to grab the model from only the back. I have an idea...

In gathering material for the base and the back of this model, I have come upon a product that is quite nice. It is a very strong but soft mounting board 2mm thick. I have been using 1mm laminated bristol board, white on both sides. The edge does not colour well at all. The core darkens more in colour than the edges. This new, thicker board is white all the way through and colours extremely well.

At first, I thought this heavier board would be very difficult to cut. Not so. It cuts like butter and will be so much easier on the fingers and the blades!

A good find.
John

Hello Zhyrair,
It is nice to see new card model distributors setting up shop. The craft expands!

You are doing some very nice cutting with the many dormer details on Azay-Le-Rideau. It is a tricky little model.

Here are some photographs of Quebec City with a 2mm bottom and back applied. The model is significantly stronger.