1:35 Kanálový poklop - hranatý

The cover that gives a town away

On a diorama the hardest thing is usually to convince the viewer that the floor is not a board but a street. Paving alone is not enough, because a regular grid works as a pattern. Only the things that do not belong in the grid give it weight: a curb, a rail, a puddle and above all a manhole cover.

The package carries two square covers. The square shape is a choice, not an extra detail. Round covers are more common today, but in Central Europe in the first half of the twentieth century square gratings and covers were entirely usual, so this shape places a scene in a particular period more precisely than a circular one.

The question of whether to make it yourself is a fair one here. A cover can be engraved into a plastic sheet in an afternoon. What will not come out by hand, though, is the sharp edge of the frame, the regular relief of the surface and the recessing that casts a shadow. It is exactly the shadow that makes a cover show up in a photograph at all.

• A town street, a yard, the courtyard of a factory
• A demolition or a ruin where the cover stayed at its original level
• A railroad platform and a paved handling area

Two pieces are exactly as many as one scene can carry. More covers on a small area look improbable and the viewer notices it subconsciously. Anyone building a single base will set the second piece aside in reserve and lose nothing by it.

Sink the cover into the surface so that it is flush or lies a fraction lower. A protruding cover is the most common mistake and gives away at once that it is a glued-on part.

This belongs to the entry level of the range, where the largest part of the brand's diorama items lies. The effect of two pieces on the credibility of a surface tends to be more pronounced than that of a single figure.