1:35 Zahradní lavička

A piece of garden in the middle of a wartime scene

A garden bench is an object that does not work on a diorama for itself, but by contrast. Placed by the wall of a house, under a tree or beside a parked vehicle, it reminds you that the place had quite a different purpose not long ago. Modelers therefore like to use it in rear-area scenes: at a field headquarters set up in a villa, in the yard of a farm where a crew is resting, or in the garden of a shot-up suburban district, where it stayed standing as the only undamaged thing.

The set is made as a laser cut wooden set, so the slats have a real thickness and the grain of the material of their own.

A scorched edge and the fragility of thin parts

A laser cuts with heat, and that is why it leaves a dark carbon tinge on the edge. Anyone who paints a part without preparation gets slats with a suspiciously black outline. Go over the edge lightly therefore with the finest abrasive paper folded over a hard support, with a stroke along the grain and only for as long as it takes for the gray to disappear. Break the parts out only just before gluing, and rather cut them out with a fresh blade than twist them out of the sheet: slats a few tenths of a millimeter wide snap at the tab immediately.

You can leave the finished model in the shade of the wood, or give it a flaking coat of paint, which looks most natural on garden furniture.

The bench benefits from having something left lying on it: a folded blanket, a watering can, a helmet set down. An empty seat looks like a piece of showroom furniture, whereas an object set down suggests that somebody was sitting there a moment ago and will be right back.