All in all it's just ....

I thought that documenting the process I am using on the walls of the briquetting plant for my copper smelter module in the event that somebody might find the process of use in their own modeling. The following series of photos shows the process step-by-step. Comments on the contents appear immediately below each of the photos.......

The structure of each of the walls is built-up of two two layers of 050” Crescent mounting board glued together with Mod Podge matte medium. I place the two glued sheets between a couple of sheets of Masonite with about a half dozen clamps spread all around until the mat medium dries – about a half hour. I then remove the wall lamination from the press and glue the pattern for the blocks on the front face. This new lamination is then returned to the Masonite clamping setup for another half hour, or so.

Here, the triple lamination of Crescent Board and printed card has been removed from the Masonite press and I have carefully measured and drawn the cut lines around all four sides of the wall.

Next, the openings for the doors and windows are carefully laid out. I try to place all doors and windows so that as many of the cut lines will occur on the natural edges of the blocks. Having the printed template applied to the wall really helps with this task.

Here the windows and doors have been cut out. It is acceptable to "overshoot" the corners a little, since the kerf will be covered by blocks. I use a good old #11 blade in a Fiskars handle.The left side of the handle as seen above, is flat, and provides a good, solid and comfortable surface against which to apply the necessary pressure with my index finger to cut through the two layers of Crescent board. I find it usually takes five, firm passes with the knife to cut all the way through.

Here I am laying out the cut lines for the lintels on the same matte inkjet photo paper which I use for printing the wall templates and the blocks themselves.

Here the door lintel and three smaller widow lintels have been cut. They will be glued onto the piece of card shown between them. The three pieces of card below will be laminated together to create the correct thickness for the window sills.

At the top, the three pieces of mat photo paper have been glued and a 1-2-3 block placed atop them to apply pressure until the glue dries. The four outer lintel laminations have been glued to the backer sheet and await final cutting.

The four lintels and three window sills have all been cut and are ready to install.

The lintels and sills are glued in place on the wall.

I then cut the sheet of photo paper which has been printed with the pattern for the blocks into horizontal strips using a stainless rule as a guide.

The strips are cut into individual blocks by eye using the #11 blade. This is an easy task since the pattern has a crisp printed line where each cut needs to be. Partial blocks are cut by eye as needed, cutting halfway between the printed lines.

To be continued .....