Sneak Preview of Minas Tirith

[Rod]

DK is so busy building he has not had time to post anything from the workshop, but we sent in some spy cams and got these shots.

[Rod]

Coming along nicely and good to see he is putting in details like the stairs!

[Rod]

I Hope his workshop is air conditioned

[David Kuijt]

Workshop (my garage) not air conditioned. Ugly.

Just finished creating four tools out of spare brass stock for embossing buildings with windows and arches. I had been using a nail for arches (press the head in upside down to emboss a circle, then cut three lines below and use a flat-head screwdriver to press the bottom so it ends up an arch) but as you'll understand that's five steps for a single arch, which is prohibitive for 300+ buildings and several thousand windows and arches. I now have tools for:

• a round-topped arch in a single press
• a circle
• a single window
• a pair of windows
• a triple window

The buildings are now all built and set and marked -- most of them are glued together in blocks but the blocks aren't glued down, so I can more easily decorate (arches and windows) and paint. There are so many alleys and nooks and crannies that it would be near impossible to paint all glued together, especially as spraypaint dissolves styrofoam. I'm probably going to do one coat of spraypaint, but only after I give everything styrofoam a coat of acrylic paint by hand first.

[Scott Kastler]

Looks Great Dave.

[Rod]

More pics of David's project.

[David Kuijt]

The Tower of Ecthelion isn't the final version -- that's just representative of approximate size and position. Since I have to be able to transport the whole thing to Historicon, the whole top (Fountain Court, Tower of Ecthelion, whatever) has to be removable. It will be constructed later and attached with magnets.

[Rod]

Less than a week to go!

[David Kuijt]

Laminated some 2x4s last night; cut them square on the tablesaw this morning and tapered the resulting tower, then octagonalized the top part with a wood chisel. Sliced a finger cutting apart a ping-pong ball for the dome on the top, though.

[Bill Hupp]

DK of the nine fingers? I hope not.