I think that this will be the basic composition that I will go with.The tipped wheelbarrow adds to the storyline by confirming that the junk pile is there only temporarily.It will now have to be glued and pinned down piece by piece.
A little more subtle weathering is now required.

The gluing down of everything will wait until I can get better ventilation into my workplace or even work outside. I find that CA and exopy glues can be a health hazard if not used in a well ventilated area.This diorama could be finished now in a couple of days.So that is two down and two to go.
It has been about a year and a half since I touched the Jenny,my third diorama so I have forgotten exactly where I am with it.It seems to me that a couple of weeks are left on it if I just finish what is there now.
I am meeting with the CAM in Ottawa in April to discuss how and when to move them.Their construction work should be finished in about a year from now.
My wife has been very patient with me over the years as I slowly required more and more space for all this stuff.
The fourth diorama, the Backyard Flyer ,has probably about a year of more fun to finish.I however would like to keep it for awhile and use it as a photo backdrop for my old car collection and to do a photo essay on gangsters of the prohibition era.
Now it is back to the Jenny!

Lighting options!
All four dioramas have different types on lighting.
When I started ,all those years ago with the basic Albatros hangar, I thought that I would be keeping it for my own enjoyment and would have ready access to the lighting for maintenance purposes.The hobby store I frequent has a lot of RR guys hanging around so I went with basic RR type lighting,transformer and bulbs with wires on them.Installation was a little more complicated than it needs to be but I thought I would be doing the maintenance.The way I see it now the lights will eventually burn out one by one,so provision will have to be made for alternate lighting by the CAM.Luckily I left lots of areas in the diorama for both natural of artificial light to enter however it will never look as good as it did under its own interior lights.
The second dioramas lighting is simplicity itself,two 5 Watt Christmas lights in a concealed box in the roof.Around this time I knew that probably someone other than me would be doing the maintenance because this diorama is basically a shadow box and the bulbs are easily changed.

The third diorama ,the Jenny, is a little more problematic.While I used dollhouse type wiring which is easy to maintain, you still have to be able to get to the bulbs.The roof is removable and the rafters as well ,which gives fairly easy access but if it goes permanently in a glass case it won't be all that easy to get at either.There is a large viewing hole in one side of the roof ,large hangar and garage doors and windows all around but still some areas will be hard to see without the interior lighting.
The fourth diorama will be the most museum friendly of all but will be viewable from three sides only.It will be naturally lit except for the back wall which is the buildings facade. I plan here to put lighting behind the windows and maybe over the back doors. It will be very simple to maintain.

Gap & Seam Repairs
When I was building this base for a diorama I made, somehow (but I can't remember why ),there was this gap in the plywood that now needs to be filled.This is a common modeling problem so I thought that you guys might like to follow along as I try to fix it.The gap shown in the pic is similar to the one I am working on now maybe a little smaller.
It is now crunch time so I can't put it off any longer ! Normally this would be an easy job,just fill the gap and blend the terrain.My dioramas are different though ,as they were designed to come apart and be broken down into modules.This was done for maintenance purposes and ease of moving or storage if required.
Well anyway now I have to find a solution for this problem.My usual method of doing basic landscaping is the glue,water and sand over plywood kind, as described by Ken Hamilton in his book "How to do creative car dioramas".It is now out of print but is available on line.This repair will be using the same basic methods .

See my Albatros Dv album in photobucket for the following pics:

08-2 The gap.Double check that the plywood edge has been well sealed as this fix requires the use of water.I use lacquer for this.

06-1 2 sided carpet tape.

07-1 cut the tape in strips.

05-1 tape is applied along plywood edge.A second layer of tape was applied over the first beause of the width of the gap to be filled.

01-1 all materials are soaked in achohol before applying

02-1 apply your earth or fine sand'

03-1 apply your thin glue/water mix.

04-1 add turf then more of the thinned glue mix.

05-1 remove tape backing and de-stick the surface using dry earth or fine sand as you want the panel to be removable from the other panel edge.If this is a permanent fix carefully line up both edges and stick the panels together. to be cont........

Some of you guys must be wondering why does he keep posting this stuff when hardly anyone ever responds ? Well in the beginning ten years ago I wondered the same thing myself and almost gave up.I build every day so I don't have a lot of time to socialize on the net, other than sharing my work and techniques with you guys, which I find extremely rewarding.So why is it I don't quit ? well my photobucket tells me a different story.Sometimes over a five month period I can get up to a million hits ! Recently it has been running around 600,000.I post my stuff on about 35 websites; aircraft ,RR,cars and ships, some more than others depending upon what I am working on at the time.It is very time consuming but I love the opportunity to do it.You see I am almost 70 years old and I remember how it used to be years ago when most modelers built in isolation from one another, except for the occasional phone call or snail mail.Now I can instant communicate with other modelers, on a day to day basis, and show my stuff in real time.Until now this was never possible, before the era of computers, digital cameras and photobucket etc....I show it, if you like it fine, if you don't that is fine too ,but at least the majority of the official gatekeepers, as I new them,are pretty much irrelevant today and thank goodness for that. Cheers! John.

Hi John:

I don't respond to your postings very often, but I do look at what you are doing and the progress you make. You do outstanding work, and your topics are quite esoteric.
Thanks for posting and keeping us updated.

Best
Mark

I am just glad you keep posting. Good stuff John.

You have all the makings of the misunderstood genius! Your responces are normal,as others struggle to see your vision.

Live long and prosper!

I had a long awaited visit from the museum tech services director and a electronic technician gentleman today and we finally got things straightened out,so I can go ahead and finish the first three dioramas now.They have decided to move them themselves in the finished state ,as is, no crate.On their way to Montreal they surveyed the road conditions between the museum ,which is located on the east side of Ottawa,just a short drive to the Trans-Canada highway,and from the Trans Canada to my home, which is also a short drive and decided it would be the safest way.When they contacted their regular movers that are supposedly used to moving art and delicate pieces,after accepting to do it the next question was "and how much insurance would you like to buy?" That gave them a bad feeling.
Now I have to do the old jiggle test and a couple of 90 deg tips to ensure everything remains in place,then it will be up the steps and out the door and not my responsibility anymore.
Now that I know where I am going ,it should be just a matter of a couple of weeks to finish all three dioramas and sent them on their way.If the 90deg tip test fails and something comes adrift ,well all bets are off !
The fourth diorama, the backyard flyer, will be picked up sometime next year after it is finished.This is modular and can easily be broken down into five separate units for transport.(I did learn something over the years)
Cheers!

I don't know if anyone here has the ambition to build models for museums but there are a few things to keep in mind when doing so.Transport ,which I already
mentioned and especially lighting.If you plan to do large scale dioramas or even small that are designed to go into a case of some kind, plan for ease of maintenance and visual presentation.
If I had to do this all over again there are a lot of things I would change.My dioramas where built primarily for my picture taking purposes and the creation of dramatic stage type lighting emphasizing shadows etc...Museums have different priorities and are much more dependent on ambient or outside the diorama lighting.The pics that I have taken already may be the best and only ones of the dioramas as I intended them to be.The carpenters shop in the Jenny diorama for example is very difficult to see into and it has Plexiglas windows which are very reflective of light.Better that I had not gone to all that trouble of cutting individual panes and had just left them open for viewing purposes..Unfortunately ,a lot of the interior work will never be seen either except in my pics or on a slide show type presentation of some kind that is in the planning stages now.
Thank goodness that today all those visual presentation options are available.I will have some more on this in the future.

Hello Mr. Reid
I've secretly paged through this post and your photobucket. I find myself awed and somewhat overwhelmed. You leave no doubt in my mind that you are a true artist. The detail is incredible, and beautiful. I am truly inspired.
Thankyou

Well thank you Leslie ! I am just havin' fun.
I see that you are from Alberta.My dad and I restored a real airplane way back in the 60's and it now is at the Reynolds Museum near you.CF-JLW a red biplane.

Finishing seams,gaps and screw heads.

The pics in photobucket are almost self explanatory on the final cosmetic stuff.
The screw heads are covered using round felt pads the tops of which were covered with white glue and then dipped in the original earth soil,glued on using contact cement and blended into its environment with the materials shown in the pics.You just have to play around with this until it looks right to your eye.
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I woke up this morning to a hairline crack about half way along the repaired gap.Rather than re-do anything I think that I will just take a little of the vegetation, soak it in alcohol,place it on the crack in a random manner,and add a little of the glue/water mix which should take care of it.Because of changes in humidity there will always be a tendency for the wet soil type of repair to crack a bit.The overlying vegitation will expand and contract with the wood and should make it totally invisible.

I have mentioned this book before and it is now out of print but my good modeling bud Ken Hamilton has given his permission to put it on the internet.
Ken encouraged me to get into doing landscaping,making good looking junk and super weathering when I needed a lot of encouragement.Ken's work along with Shep Paine are the two rocks that my stuff is built upon. Thanks guys!

See Ken's book here:

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/mercman51/DIO%20Book/

Enjoy!
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"Once upon a time......." Storyboard dioramas by JohnReid.
My photobucket:
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/JohnReid/

Today was the official door opening day for the Albatros dio.The bases are glued but the door holders are not glued to the hanger, just in case they wanted to close it up again someday.
My workstation now is reduced to a little mobile table as I work my way around finishing the dioramas.The last thing to be permanently installed is the wood stove's chimney ,which I have avoided till now as it easily knocked off.Then it is on to the Jenny.

I have added a bunch of new pics to the Albatros album.They will probably be among the last ones I take with the lighting as I intended it to be.I installed it years ago with the intention of doing the maintenance myself.Well things have changed and the museum will be lighting them from now on to suit their own purposes.