Haut-Koenigsbourg

An aside. When I was coming upstairs from taking the photo you see above, I turned and looked back down the stairs at the table. Perhaps it would be of interest to show the table top setup?

Here's a picture taken looking down into the room. The room is dark. I have to turn off the overhead florescent light when I work. It messes up the incandescent settings on the camera. You will see a light lying on the floor. It is used to paint light in background areas or as an accent light. It is hand held. You can see the handle of the tripod between the two lights.

Waiting for the paint to dry...

Cheers...John

I am convinced disaster was avoided by reinforcing the two long side plates with heavy material. I would recommend this to anyone attempting to build this model. As Jens has indicated, a lot of stresses build up in the ground areas. Without sturdy support, the side plates would simply fail. You could end up with a pretzel!

One area that caused me some stress was, ironically, near the gatehouse. I had to open the seams in the ground so that the parts would lie down flat. In doing so, the parts overlapped each other a tiny bit as the pressure dissipated.

Here's a trick that worked for me in getting rid of the resulting overlap joints. It's used by carpet and vinyl installers. You have to be able to cut through both pieces of overlapped material and you must use a very sharp blade in your knife.

1.Support the joint from below or behind with something flat.
2. Place a ruler over the two overlapped parts.
3. Cut through both parts.
4. Open the seam and remove the excess material.
5. Place a backing piece behind the parts and close the seam with glue.
For steps 1 & 2 in this case, I was able to hold a little block of soft wood under the parts with my fingers and clamp the ruler on top with my thumb.

I mentioned above that firm support was required to keep things under control. This is a shot of the side plates, looking here like two rails, extending out from the body of the model. Notice the brown spreader. The rails tend to bow inward at this end. The little end that closes this model off will have to have significant backing to hold these rails apart. Notice the twist of the little wall in the foreground. This is testament to the internal pressures at work here.

This is one neat, but challenging model. Well worth the time...

I added a portion of the ramparts at the west end of the model to see how they are built. Jens, the plate eliminated the waveform twist you commented on earlier. Here are before and after shots of this area. Some retouching will be required at the base of the wall.

I had trouble with the first watch tower. The curved wall bulged out from its roof and had to be continually cut shorter until it came back to the edge of the roof. I hope they all don't do this.

This photo clearly indicates that I have a problem. I thought I had corrected a wall previously that was too long. It overran the footprint of the watch tower you see on the left side of this picture. The tower was then correctly positioned. But look here. When I dry tested this next section on the other side of the watch tower it was much too long. From now on, I will have to test all wall sections before gluing them up. It will be much easier to trim them when they are flat.

In this case, I will have to cut not only the wall back, but the roof as well with its pitch. Hmmm.....

You could be right Jens. However, the little glitches I point out do not diminish the superb quality of this model. The designers are to be praised for their amazing rendering of this castle.

Now that I'm past the 'rocky' entrance section of the model, things should be clear sailing.

Cheers...John

Here is a shot of the completed south ramparts. The wall closed nicely at the east end with a small entrance door.

The ground on the north side at the west end of the castle undulates quite a bit at the base of a watch tower. The tower part is printed with a straight bottom. It will not follow the contours of the ground.

Here is a tip that might be helpful if you have to get the base of a part to follow undulations. It comes from the woodworking trade where pin profilers are used to trace the contours of mounldings. You build up a pattern of many thin slivers that stand vertical to the ground. As you go, the slivers rise and fall to follow the ground.

In this picture I am lifting the built up pattern away from its footprint. Of course, if this process sounds time consuming, you could just take a pair of scissors and cut away the base of the part with a hope and a prayer that the curves you are cutting will conform to the ground.

Then that stiff pattern is cut open and used to create a paper pattern. Here you see the pattern wrapped around the tower. A pair of scissors does the cutting.

The north wall went into place quite well. Only one wall had to be shortened a little bit. Here is a shot looking down on the fortress from the east. The curtain walls now enclose the main fortress. The embankments have been reinforced with triangular bits of 1 mm card.

The remainder of the castle reaches out to the east. At the end of this long ward, stands a most interesting building. It has thirteen sides.

Here is the bottom of this building. The template maintained the angles.

And here it is mounted at the end of the ward. If I were garrisoned at Haut-Koenigsbourg, I don't think I would want to be posted out here during hostilities.

Hi Oliver,
Sorry I wasn't clear about the procedure.

Thin strips of light card are cut up. They can be as thin as 1/8". They are scored lengthwise in half and lightly bent. You now have angled 'fingers' that will be glued together as you work your way around the contour of the footprint on the sloping ground. It sounds awkward, but you start with one strip. You eye it up plumb and mentally remember where you are starting. You remove it and apply a thin strip of glue to the bent edge. Assuming you are right handed, you take the glued finger in your left hand and put it back on the footrpint. With a second strip in your right hand, you snuggle it up against the first strip and let it make contact. You have now two strips that are probably 'stepped'. One will be higher than the other if you are on an embankment. And so it goes... When you finish up, you have a closed polygon - the lower edge is riding on the contour.

Now you cut the closed shape open with a pair of scissors and lay it out flat. There is the contour. Mind you, it's stepped. You can lay this card pattern you have created on a piece of paper and trace the lower edge smoothing out the steps with your pencil, or you can take the scissors and directly follow the steps on the built up pattern with a pair of scissors and test your result. Whichever method you use, make a light pattern on thin paper - the finger jig you built up is too awkward to wrap around the part you want to modify.

Then you simply wrap the paper pattern around the part and follow it with your scissors.

Oliver, it sounds complicated, but it really does work! I guess the only trick is to keep your strips vertical as you build up the card pattern.

Cheers...John

Here is something I wish I had done from the beginning with the embankments. I have added triangular and other polygonal shapes of reinforcing card between the folds. Lots of clearance is left on each side of the fold.

If I had done this initially, I think all the angular planes would have appeared much flatter and crisper at the folds.

Hello Herbert.
Adding the triangular card under the embankments is really cosmetic. I have some serious lumber running down both sides of the model and internal support from below.

Returned greetings from Ontario.
John

Oliver,
No snow in this region. We missed a big storm that blew in south of us last week. It caught many by surprise. Power was out in some areas for days. Here, there has been a lot of rain.

There's your weather update.

Good to hear from you.
John

It is time to glue this model down on its base. A little friendly persuasion is required at the southeast corner...

The east promontory in place...

Looking east...

Thanks Jens,
The walls leading down to the east fortification were difficult to put into place. Much alteration was required with their length and their roof configurations. Everything eventually worked out.

Here are a series of shots showing the construction of the last wall. Some of the curtain walls simply fold over with their roof attached to create inner and outer walls. Here we see separate inner and outer walls reinforced and ready to be joined together.

To shape the reinforcing pieces for these walls, patterns were made. I highly recommend the use of vellum for pattern making. It's tough and transparent. Here is a shot of the product label and a pattern.

The last wall built up...

Here are the two walls in place. Jens, you will pick up on the altered roof configuration on the wall travelling from the tower up to the south wall. I had to make it a hip roof - it wouldn't mate properly with my south wall.

This model of Haut-Koenigsbourg is complete. There are a few observations I would like to make in conclusion.

This is a visually attractive model.The design of the sloping embankments from west to east adds interest. There are eye catching elevations from the high keep tower to the low curtain walls surrounding the entire structure. There is also interest in the little nooks and crannies of the deep courtyards.

The colours have warmth and depth. The model feels hand painted.

Having highlighted all these wonderful attributes, I must say that this is not a model for the novice. The experienced modeller must be willing to make alterations to make many parts fit. This is not the fault of the design, but rather the individual differences that arise while building and gluing up the model. (ie. wall angles and lengths, slope differences in embankments...) The curtain walls are demanding.

The most important requirement for a successfull Haut-Koenigsbourg in my opinion is judicious reinforcement of key parts. From the outset of this particular version of the model, an attempt was made to make the core of the model load bearing by extending all buildings down through the model to the base. Also, heavy reinforcement was employed with the two closing sides or 'rails' of the model. Stresses will build up in the model and firm reinforcement is required here to close the embankment pieces sucessfully at the perimeter of the model.

In conclusion, this is a model well worth the time and effort to build.

John

Putting Haut-Koenigsbourg to bed...

... and done.

Time to man the door for trick-or-treaters. Happy Halloween!

Cheers...John

Hello Herbert,
Thank you. You are very kind.
Take care,
John