| Building kits from ALDI | |
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GWhizz
Location : Charente, France
| Subject: Building kits from ALDI Wed Jul 20, 2011 5:23 pm | |
| You may well already be aware of these, but a visit to ALDI today in Montbron and the prospect of many more wet days ahead drew my attention to these building kits.... Whilst I have no intention of building a "Shop" I was attracted by the miniature real clay canal tiles, something I've only seen marketed by Bloxx in Germany at some pretty prohibitive prices. The materials seem to scale out OK the blocks are 10 x 20mm scaling to something like 225 x 450 mm and look pretty close to some of the materials used for buildings here in the south west.... There are also some interesting detail pieces and a few green plastic windows... The kits were selling at 7 euros which although a lot more expensive than the "Mikey" methods should be a fun project and much cheaper than Bloxx! Not sure what I'm going to make yet, but a platform shelter comes to mind! The "mortar" supplied with the kits is water soluble so I'll have to get round that! Also I imagine the tiles, etc will be porous and need to be waterproofed for long term outside use. Still it will be an interesting project for the wet days ahead. Any ideas on waterproofing and permanent "mortar" greatfully received! Cheers | |
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clive_t
Location : Portsmouth, England
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:55 pm | |
| Brian
Nice find! I'm looking forward to seeing what you make of it
I would imagine mixing in a bit of cement powder in a 1:3 ratio (cement:goo) would be enough to make the mortar go off properly, whilst for waterproofing, maybe some 50:50 pva:water mix sprayed or brushed on?
Although, maybe allowing moisture to penetrate might encourage algal or moss growth?
Good luck, and show us the progress!
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Carl Hibbs Admin
Location : Haute Normandie - visitors welcome
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Wed Jul 20, 2011 7:48 pm | |
| Great find Brian. I'm off to ALDI with the wife's Carte Bleue tomorrow. For waterproofing try hydrofuge the same stuff used on real tiles and façades. I'm doing my roof with it now. Also mortier colle exterieur available from most brico places. | |
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Paulus
Location : The Netherlands
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Wed Jul 20, 2011 8:48 pm | |
| Looks great. What material are the blocks made from? How will they hold up with rain, snow etc? I bought a similar kind of set once, only the stones were not ready made but I had to pour them using molds. The stones were to be poured from a sort of gypsum, but this 'melted' when getting wet for a longer time (for instance during autumn...) So I used the mold to pour blocks using fast setting concrete and build platform retaining walls from them. They are out in the garden for about 3 years now. You can see that the weather (rain) made them wear off a bit (rounded edges) but still they hold up very well. I also used cement or fast stetting concrete as 'mortar'. This worked but was not always a great success. On some places (perhaps on more wetter spots?) the mortar will not hold and the stones keep getting loose... I recently used a transparent silicone kit (for bathrooms) to 'glue' the stones back in place on this spots. This holds up well so far (2 months). If you try silicone kit, make sure that the kit don't show in the front of the wall. Pictures below show the concrete made blocks in the platforms. Paul | |
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GWhizz
Location : Charente, France
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:13 pm | |
| - Paulus wrote:
- Looks great. What material are the blocks made from? How will they hold up with rain, snow etc?l
All the parts, other than windows, appear to be some kind of ceramic material and therefore quite porous and brittle. I will have to experiment with waterproofing as suggested by Carl and others! I do leave my POLA buildings out all year, but I suspect, like my scratch built wooden ones, these will come inside to avoid the snow! | |
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mikeyh
Location : Dordogne France
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:53 pm | |
| I saw these in their 'catalogue' and thought it wasnt worth it as it would take too much effort to make them suitable for outdoors. Interested to see what you can do with them though
mikey | |
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GWhizz
Location : Charente, France
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Fri Dec 23, 2011 10:41 am | |
| With the recent spate of wet weather and being forced inside, I decided to dig out the kits and have my first experimental bash at building something. The local water tower (subject of a seperate thread) was the inspiration, so utilising an old coffee can here's progress so far. I mixed waterproof pva glue with the mortar mix the kits provide rather than straight water in an effort to waterproof and make the mortar permanent. I will spray everything with matt varnish in an effort to weather seal it, but after I've applied some acrylic spray to weather/ rust and tone down the tank. I found a diamond file (from a ceramic tile cutting kit) ideal for trimming and shaping the bricks round the doorway once the mortar had set..... | |
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Paulus
Location : The Netherlands
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Fri Dec 23, 2011 8:08 pm | |
| Looks great Brian! What are you gonna use for a door?
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GWhizz
Location : Charente, France
| Subject: Re: Building kits from ALDI Sat Dec 31, 2011 7:08 am | |
| - Paulus wrote:
- Looks great Brian! What are you gonna use for a door?
Probably not bother with one! | |
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| Building kits from ALDI | |
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