I was extremely fortunate to get to make a brief company trip to the UK and then to Germany
First to the Manchester Exhibition Center for their big biannual Industrial Electrical Trade Fair. (Stayed at the Hinkley Island Hotel.) Then a Sunday in London on my own, staying at the Royal Horse Guards Hotel. Then Monday a drive to Leeds to meet with our company’s trade show staff. Followed the next day by a flight to Bonn and a long car drive to Gummersbach to meet with our German subsidiary’s exhibit people. In Gummersbach we stayed in an extremely nice B&B, quite remote, out in the German countryside. Beautiful!
It was a bit of a brief world-wind trip but I am still very grateful for the experience and the exposure!
Buckeye, you are humble and self-deprecating. I really appreciate your professional explanations and descriptions. Saved me hours of research for correct terminology.
Same with my dad. His time with USN in the Pacific 1939-45 soured him towards intl’ travel. We had all the golf, hunting and fishing he wanted within an hours drive.
I came across this, it might be of some help with regard to proportions. Removing the top storey to reduce it to two looks as if it would work:
although this is more the style I was thinking of:
Anything with a projecting gable to the rear would likely be a bit more up-market!
There was an excellent “Time Team” special: “Buried by the Blitz” in which some surviving residents of the Shoreditch slums described the buildings that were being unearthed and the disadvantaged lives lived in them. (I include this latter for the benefit of our non-U.K. members following the this topic.)
I want to expand on something Robin said about sloping walls.
If you see a wall w/a fairly obvious and steep face it is probably a cast concrete wall and it is actually a vertical wall which is thinner at the top than the bottom. Wall thickness is a function of the shear forces that the soil applies to the wall and increases with depth and why pay for more material then you need.
Walls generally do not topple over or outward. The exception to this is old masonry walls where the grout/mortar has failed due to age or somebody cutting corners.
Significant wall failures you design for are sliding, which is a function of the total mass of the wall, and rotation failures where the earth moves in a circular motion and lays the wall, including the foundation, backwards. To resist this movement the design elevation of the wall footing is established so that it is below the failure plane.
This is a somewhat simplified explanation since there are many other factors that govern wall design. Hope it adds some value and apologies to G for the hi-jack.
Yes, slope failures. These were not retaining walls however and the footings/foundations were not far below grade so away they went. When Mother Nature sets out to do something all we poor humans can do is hunker down and wait it out.
We have much more inventive retaining wall designs today. Much of the newer work originated in Europe. My base comparison is that European civil engineering finesses the design where as the American approach is, if it doesn’t work, get a D-8 Cat. I did two tours leading a regional Geo-tech and materials lab during the 80’s and 90’s. Along w/the State Geo-technical Engineer I fought the Structural Engineers to get some of these newer designs implemented. Resistance was huge and quite frankly childish. Soil nail, cylinder pile, micro piles are all common wall types now. Much cheaper and easier to construct.
Good retaining walls are just like good dams; thicker at the bottom to resist the greater sheering pressure further down. Just had a friend’s old, OLD concrete block retaining wall cave over. Always wondered why anyone would have built such a thing out of single course block but still it lasted for many years.
Hey G! That was a brilliant attempt coming back in under the wire with a decoy thread title to evade the Diorama Police (for being AWOL) and Modelmakers Anonymous (for loss of mojo). Alas you’re busted now, but if you’re thrown into my recently-vacated cell I’d nearly sawn thru the window bars with my contraband sanding stick - just don’t ask how I got that past the guards.
Great to see you back again, take it easy & in the immortal words of Chief Inspector Dreyfus…
If it is to be an earthen embankment the slope should be LESS than 40 degrees and be grass covered to halt erosion.
If your embankment wants to be greater than 40 degrees you should instead build a short sloping vertical retaining wall to such a height that the remaining grass embankment will then be less than 40 degrees.
Firstly, my apologies for not responding sooner. Secondly, thanks to all those people that took the time to a) welcome me back after my ‘mojo-sabbatical’, and b) respond to my specific questions, the photos and links have are much appreciated, .
The in-depth responses from both Tim, and Michael have been very helpful, thank you.
I have managed to track down a book, ‘Bridges for Modellers by L. V. Wood’, not sure how useful it’ll be but, as it cost me less than a tenner, it’s worth a shot, .
I’m still in the process of working out how everything will fit together on the diorama, so it’s early days, but in answer to John’s question(s), I’m thinking of a ‘Danger UXB’ scene. The situation, blitz on a city/town, road closed off, a German bomb having just missed the railway bridge and buried itself in the road just in front of the terraced houses.
Not sure how deep a large bomb might bury itself through tarmac, but imagining bomb disposal chaps having dug out around it, still a mental WIP at this stage, but all comments/ideas/suggestions are welcome.
“Lieutenant R. Davies, commander of a bomb disposal unit, carefully looks for the fuse of a 1200lb time bomb as it is hoisted from a crater in the grounds of a German hospital. London, 1940”
Thanks to John and Henri-Pierre for the images provided, the 1200lb photo is quite inspirational, especially given the closeness of vehicles. I had thought of including at least one military truck, but thought it a tad unrealistic to have one in close proximity.
I appreciate that the photo could probably be staged, the bomb being inert, given the number of people, especially civvies in the background, but the beauty of our hobby is that it can allow a certain amount of leeway creativity-wise, …especially in my builds, .
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