Zapałchitektura II – well and bridge

Last year, for the first time in the Workshop, we created a small architecture simulation - in a light manner, popularized by the Canadian website Matchitecture.com. We started with a pergola and furniture for it, and this time we will build two more elements that are often found in gardens, in the same scale and convention: a well with a turnstile and a bridge.

Readers who wish to see a broader description of the idea behind the previous openwork patterns, please visit the site. The designs there and those described here are adapted to the scale of the most popular block models. minifigure (scaled approximately 1:48).

1. Today it is difficult to find a real wooden well with a winch. Most often, these are only decorative copies - for example, such as sklep-altany.pl. For us, they will perfectly serve as a model for making in miniature.

2. Small bridges and footbridges are also readily used in the arrangement of gardens and parks - of the many designs, they are my favorite.

3. is a relatively new idea and series of self-assembly kits, characterized by lightness, obtained mainly through the use of openwork walls, and not solid ones, as in the original. At the same time, it also reduces the amount of materials needed for construction and assembly time.

In the Wroclaw studios of the MDK im. Copernicus is also the scale of the hugely popular – and established there – plywood ecosystem. The figurine shown in the illustrations for this article is taken from it (and probably goes better with the wooden pieces than with the standard plastic figurines).

4. Gazebo and furniture - for construction details, see the section “In the workshop” in “Young Technique” from February 2019.

5. The necessary materials and tools, having collected which you can get to work. Double printout will be useful if we need time (and parallel build).

6. Gluing before gluing: it is best to fix the resistance bands with glue, and where it could accidentally grapple with the plans, you should use colorless tape (it is hard to see in the photo - but it is already there). In some places, double-sided tape will help keep small items. Regardless of this, it is good to stick the whole plan on a more rigid lining - then you will avoid raising the edge of the crate as a result of the spreading of the matches.

Materials and Tools

This time the main building blocks in our projects will be regular household matches - with heads, thanks to which you do not have to look for special sticks for modeling for a long time. In the designs of this series, it was assumed that after cutting off the sulfur tip, the rod would have dimensions of 2 × 2 × 38 mm.

7. Many elements are easier to cut after gluing - with the exception of the racks, which must be installed with a slight interference.

8. Some elements should be glued in pairs - here a caliper is extremely useful as clamps.

9. While precise pressure is useful for gluing, it is even necessary for drilling! The photo shows how to drill holes in the turnstile elements.

A technical razor blade (with a holder) is enough for a haircut, but a cat/sea claw clipper turns out to be an excellent tool (the human claw did not perform well).

10. Bonding the railing to the bridge beams and joining the roof of the chamber will greatly facilitate the subsequent assembly of the whole. In the meantime, the turnstile is already made of separate sticks - and for ease of installation, one of the sticks is not glued to the other match.

11. Gluing the wells was not difficult, although it required attention and care to keep the posts and roof vertical and horizontal. Now the bridge (embedded in templates and supported by blocks to maintain proper geometry) is fitted with landing pads. The method of gluing successive sections to the right and then to the left works well - thanks to this, it is easier to get an even openwork.

12. A glued bridge and basically a glued well (due to the author's carelessness, there was no window sill around the perimeter, marked in Fig. 1), so it's time to assemble a miniature plywood user! By the way - you can get it by quickly boasting of your own model built according to this project.

For gluing, you only need wikol glue - preferably a quick-drying one. The use of cyanoacrylics (superglue, drips, etc.) while tempting due to setting time, is not without significant drawbacks such as discoloration or inability to make corrections. Therefore, it is not recommended, especially for young technicians.

Of the auxiliary accessories, resistance strips, colorless tape and double-sided tape are useful. The basis for the assembly, as usual, will be a printout of a specially prepared PDF file with detailed drawings in 1:1 scale (as in the reduced figure 3; downloaded from the m.technika website or the author's website - MODELmaniak.pl) .

Assembly of models

Matching Models by design, they are designed for patient builders. To build the ones presented in the article, you need to allocate at least a full day, and sometimes more. Sticks should be cut carefully, some matches should probably be rejected if they do not hold a section, and after gluing, carefully clean the individual prefabricated elements with sandpaper. If models are to be protected, it must be one coat of capon or matt wood varnish.

13. The turnstile works - in fact, you probably only need to persuade the eco-man to assemble the kit ...

14. Little by little, you can arrange a miniature garden. Maybe even a park? ... Let there be no ubiquitous plastic!

Detailed information about the individual steps, as well as workshop tips and tricks, are included in the photo descriptions, which I refer you to read.

Bonus for the hardworking

Because it fits this size and convention original minifigures from the ecoEgo series You can't buy it yet - you can win! The first five performers of at least one of these projects who send us a message with a photo of the model (or models) they made, we will send plywood figures, as shown in the pictures, for self-assembly.

And to all the Readers who decide to implement the presented projects, I wish you good luck in assembling and well-deserved satisfaction with the built models. Feel free to contact me via editorial or original FB profile.