Boltorr Reservoir Dam : What the eye doesn’t see …

All smoke and mirrors. The back of Boltorr dam. Foam-board, PVA and hot glue

All smoke and mirrors. The back of Boltorr dam. Foam-board, PVA and hot glue

… The heart doesn’t grieve over.

Construction is going well on the Boltorr dam.

Foam-board, PlastiKard, PVA and hot-glue are the essential parts of my builder’s arsenal.

As I’ve mentioned before, the actual structure is quite large, although I’ve scaled it back as far as I can so it still looks mighty, but in scale with its surroundings. A real dam, even a small one would probably take up five or six foot of space to faithfully represent as well as a couple of feet of depth as well.

Although I’ve been as accurate as I can with the marking out, on occasions I’ve adjusted it to “look right” rather than worry too much about getting my laser level out. Btw; I actually don’t have a laser level.

Looking up at the Boltorr Reservoir dam from "eye-level".  Glue beads to be trimmed and gaps will - hopefully - be filled at the masonry stage.

Looking up at the Boltorr Reservoir dam from “eye-level”. Glue beads to be trimmed and gaps will – hopefully – be filled at the masonry stage.

But now the glue is almost set I’m starting to look at it from the perspective of the layout to see where I can leave gaps, and on the other hand, stuff I can’t get away with.

Since the dam will be set right to the back of the scenery I’m not too concerned about the back of the dam. I am not an OCD completist.

However, checking the structure from the viewpoint of the layout I will need to represent “under the arches” and any flow control devices a dam like this would have.

I think the dam needs a run-off to keep the Boltorr Brook from drying up, so I just have to figure how to represent that.

I’m going to give the structure a couple of days for the glue to set and cure. First job will be trimming the beads of glue which are visible, then experimenting with getting a thin lamination of DAS clay to adhere to the foam-board to form the basis of rendering the granite masonry.

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