Modelling stuff continues, albeit slowly and I missed the weekly deadline of last night for an update but there you go. For the middle support for the rail bridge mentioned last week, I had long ago ordered two Chooch Bridge abutments with "steps" to nestle the truss bridge into. BUT, traditionally these appear on opposite ends of one bridge and merge into a hill or elevation at both ends.
For my application, the two abutments needed to face outwards and be a single support. An early trial with a layer of plaster sandwiched between the two abutments failed on many fronts, most importantly in alignment. Trial two, now on its way to being the real deal, involved a non plaster mounting to ensure proper alignment and the plaster would just be decoration. Out came the Tarzan's Grip and a small rectangle of 5-ply. So I now had a bridge support sandwich that needed plastering.
The batch of plaster I have has instructions that rely on weight measurements of plaster and water. The chief catering officer was not even approached about borrowing the kitchen scales, instead I used my usual kitchen technique of "Add stuff still it looks right" And so far it has worked for what I am doing. Excess plaster has been adding to the mountains and valley in the Christmas project, so that was handy too.
The bridge support sandwich then required matching texture and colour wise. Out with various files and knives to file and scrape mortar lines into the plaster to approximate the moulded stonework on the abutments. Acrylic paints work fine on plaster and are water cleaning which is always nice. See pictures below for bridge support so far. More work will be done to meld the abutments with the plaster visually, more photos will be taken when I am happy with the results.
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