concrete block walling

[steve howe]

I have some pre-War industrial stuff to make requiring concrete block walls. Before I sit down and laboriously scribe several feet of the stuff... does anyone know of a pre-formed product? I thought S E Finecast had included it in their range, but the only one I can find is "textured concrete block" which looks nothing like the utilitarian product I'm after. I'm surprised that such a common building material isn't readily available from the Trade?

Steve

[Noel]

It does depend on how long before the war it was built, what sort and size of structure it is, and what was intended to happen inside the structure when it was designed, but I would suggest that concrete block is definitely not the most likely material, unless, of course, you are modelling a specific prototype.

[steve howe]

Thank you Noel. I have researched this and measured several structures which date from the 1920s & 30s. Concrete block made an early appearance in Cornwall as a building material when enterprising local firms began using shingle from certain beaches or crushed mine waste – of which there was a plentiful supply – for aggregate. Unfortunately neither were suitable for purpose; the salt in the shingle meant the blocks were permanently damp, whilst the sulphuric acid and other minerals in the mine waste, known as Mundic, reacted with the lime cement causing the blocks to disintegrate – an on-going nightmare for many homeowners to this day. It is an unlovely material, but very common and very typical of industrial buildings of the pre and immediate post -War period. Pre-metrication, the standard size, at least locally, seems to have been 17" x 8" x 4" or 6". As far as I can tell, this corroborates closely to modern block sizes.

[Noel]

I was aware that concrete blocks were pretty much a post-war phenomenon, but this speciality of Cornwall had passed me by. Thanks for the information, Steve; as you say, unlovely stuff!

[bécasse]

There are a couple of items in Slater's embossed plastikard range which offer possibilities. The sizes aren't precisely right but the regularity of the embossing gives precisely the right impression, particularly if you use a very fine coloured plaster mix to almost fill the embossed cracks and both are moulded in grey plastic.

0406 7mm Brick grey (garden wall bond)
0413 2mm Paving

7mm and 10mm plain bond brick sheets, and paving sheets, in the South Eastern Finecast range might be worth looking at as well.

[bécasse]

A couple of photos of a model of a local bread oven showing the use of the 7mm Slater's brick for concrete blocks (to the right of the doorway). In this case the model is actually to 3,5mm scale.

[steve howe]

There are a couple of items in Slater's embossed plastikard range which offer possibilities. The sizes aren't precisely right but the regularity of the embossing gives precisely the right impression, particularly if you use a very fine coloured plaster mix to almost fill the embossed cracks and both are moulded in grey plastic.

0406 7mm Brick grey (garden wall bond)
0413 2mm Paving

7mm and 10mm plain bond brick sheets, and paving sheets, in the South Eastern Finecast range might be worth looking at as well.

Thanks for those pointers, Wills Finecast have advised me that their stone block sheet should be a good match, I also now find that Wills Building packs do concrete block, the disadvantage here being their small sheet size. I will have a cast around when next in the modelshop.

Lovely little building BTW, is it a Breton example?

Steve

[bécasse]

Lovely little building BTW, is it a Breton example?

No, I live in le Luxembourg belge, more commonly known as the Belgian Ardenne, and the bread oven can be found opposite the site of a water mill in the tiny hamlet of Vieux Grainchamps. It is one of the most wonderful examples of vernacular "architecture" that I have ever come across and just cried out to be modelled. Here is a similarly orientated view of the original. It must be decades since it was last used but the wooden "spoon" used to put loaves in the oven and retrieve them still sits on the shelf inside.