Base Building with Cardboard or MDF Wood
For the last few weeks, I’ve been building the base for my blacksmith diorama project.
The base is made completely from wood — 6mm MDF to be exact — which gives me a firm and strong foundation for the rest of the blacksmith build.
And that brings me to the point of today’s post:
Structure and strength when making dioramas.
Making Diorama Bases
In the past, I’ve used cardboard for the underlying base of my dioramas.
It’s a cheap and easy way to get into crafting and diorama making, mainly because cardboard is pretty much everywhere!
It’s also surprisingly easy to turn cardboard into a reasonably strong base.
But there are some downsides, especially when you’re using air-dry clay like I do.
Air-Dry Clay and Cardboard — The Downside
I use a lot of air-dry clay in my builds. I love the stuff. But clay and cardboard don’t always mix well.
The biggest drawback with cardboard is that it isn’t water resistant and can degrade over time. This becomes even more of an issue when you’re using air-dry clay. The clay seems to stick to the cardboard quite well, but as it starts drying, the moisture from the clay can soak into the cardboard. This can soften the cardboard and, in some cases, cause problems with the clay and the structure underneath it.
One workaround I’ve found is to let the air-dry clay dry completely before attaching it to the cardboard base and this seems to help quite a bit.
I also found that using multiple layers of cardboard, glued together with PVA glue, helped massively to strengthen the base or painting the cardboard with primer also seemed to help reduce the problems caused by the moisture from the clay.
I haven’t really tested this with other materials yet, such as modelling foam, so I can’t say how well those would hold up.
Wooden Bases
For me, though, I think the best base material for a diorama has to be wood.
MDF is relatively cheap, easy to work with and you can sometimes find offcuts for free if you know where to look, your local workshop, a company or even a neighbour might have some sitting around.
The big advantage is strength. MDF gives the diorama a much more solid structure than cardboard.
Once it’s painted or covered with a generous layer of PVA glue, it also gives me a good surface to work on and i’ve found that the clay sticks well to the wood, which helps add even more structure to the build.
Next Time
I’ve been preparing this MDF base over the last few weeks and have cut out a window using various tools. I’ve also started adding some clay around the window opening, along with the window I created previously, which will eventually be glued into the build.
And then…
It’s bricking time!
Next, I’ll be going through the process of adding stone bricks using air-dry clay, including the method I’ve found for making a lot of bricks without going completely mad in the process.
