Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Digging a hole - Part 8

Blog Catch Up: This really happened in November 2018, although the wording of the text makes it seem as if it happened today.

To block off the hole in the road I needed some barriers. I had already set my eyes on this type of concrete barriers.


I first thought it would be a good idea to 3D-print the barriers. So I drew a 3D-model of such a barrier, after having found the proper dimensions on the Internet. But it turned out it would be rather pricey to have such a barrier printed, not to mention the fact that I wanted at least four of them.

I instead decided I should try to cast them in plaster. I built a mold using pieces of styrene card and strips. I made the mold so that it would cast only half (one side) of a barrier. To do it in that way would make it easier to get the casting out of the mold in one piece. For the same reason I also made the mold partly separable, and held together by a removable frame. Here is a picture of all the pieces, followed by one of the assembled mold.





Here is the mold filled with plaster...


... and a casting, i.e. one half of a barrier.



Once I hade made 8 castings I could assemble them into 4 barriers. To finish them off I first filed the bevels on the corners. I thought that a few strokes with a file would be easier than trying to build the bevels into the mold. Following that, I airbrushed them a gray color, wheathered them and added the hardware that makes it possible to link several barriers together. Here are a few pictures.







 

I assume the blue triangles, which I duplicated from a real-life picture, is a company logo, but that it also serves to identify one specific end of the barriers. If they shall be linked together they must all be turned the same way. Otherwise the hardware (a simple link and pin system) will not fit together. That is my guess at least. 😀

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