Need help building a WWII European floor...

[Adam Baker]

Ok, on the base I'm using for my Kugelblitz build, one of the walls has a hole in it, that looks to be perfect for floor joists for a second story floor.

So I've decided that to go along w/ everything else I'm trying, Im going to attempt to add a second floor to the base, to give more visual appeal to the base.

What I need help w/ is how exactly I should go about building the floor. Does anyone ahev any decent pictures of bombed out buildings in Europe during WWII that would give me an idea of how a typical floor would be assembled?

While at my LHS today, I purchased a piece of 3/16"x3/16" basswood which would work out to about 6.5" square, and it fits almost perfectly in the hole in the hole in the wall on the base. I also purchased a piece of 1/32"x6" balsa but I dont know if that will work, I started thinking that a typical floor would probably be individual planks, instead of a large sheet, so I dont know if it will be used, and I'm not sure if it would be thick enough to be accurate.

 

[kryptosdaddy]

Adam, they probably built them like our old hardwood floors here in America. Subfloor and then the top layer being the finished item. if you can scale about 1/2 inch to 5/8 into your build that should be close to the material thickness for each layer. Either way you could be short about an 1/8 th of an inch per layer. 1/4 inch in a floor in 1/35th scale would be negligible.

We have cut up early 20th century hardwood floors with tar paper between the wooden layers- and on another note, tile floors that were built up near an inch thick! Those things came up like stone- I think your most obvious detail in a smashed floor would be how the floor layers 'relate' in other words your subfloor would be set at a 45 degree angle in relation to how the top layer sits. ie a layer of this \\\\\ covered by a layer laid like this IIII. And then again we have cut into colonial era homes that had subfloors 90 degrees perpendicular from the top layer. As far as thickness on a 200 year old house that can be anyone's guess. Hope this helps.

 

[Cheyenne]

Chip , that was in the good old days when houses in America were " BUILT " .

However , in Europe I've not found this flooring construction " herringbone " pattern used , at least not in any of my refs.
Ceiling and floor joists with a single layer of 90 degree planking .
Brick , block buildings with wood ceiling and floor joists built into the brick/block outer shell .

Many destroyed houses don't show the second or third floor flooring because it's usually covered by the damaged roofing .
That or it's a brick/block building - it caught fire and - no more floor or roofing .

Look closely , some of these pics. show flooring through the windows with damaged roofing as the last layer of debris .
Try not to confuse roof joists and laterals with floor joists and planking in the pics.
Look closely , you'll see what I mean .
Look also at the destroyed buildings of brick/block with the location points for where the ceiling and roof joists used to be .

Adam , hope these pics. help .
Remember also that during the conflict there was tons of debris - everywhere .
After the conflict a lot of the debris was removed , that's why some bombed and destroyed buildings look sterile , so to spesk .
Adam , you're also better off using bass wood rather than balsa , balsa is very porous [ sp ? ] and will suck up paint or stain like a prom queen .

Pics. without water marks or copywright marks wre foud on expired e-bay auctions , ............ or down loaded so long ago I've forgotten where I found them - these are for reference only .

 

[Iron Mike]

From what you told me, Adam, the next to the last picture Cheyenne posted would be what my mind's eye saw. Basswood strips for the planks and ruined framing, misc rubble and maybe some broken furniture for interest. Looking forward to seeing what you do with this, going to have it done for the next meeting?
Of course, this is for discussion purposes only!

 

[piase]

At the time of ww2, the buildings in Europe, were built mostly with materials found in the place it is for this reason that every country has its typical. However I think about wood floors can be a few variations. I would use strips of wood for ship modeling. There is a nice chapter devoted to this theme of "Let's build the diorama" vol. 1, a book that I bought just reading a topic on this forum

 

[jknaus]

Nice pics Glen. And cool subject. Learning lots.
James

 

[Adam Baker]

Thanks Cheyenne! Those are excellent pictures.

The thought I had, was building the floor similar to how the first image is layed out, w/ the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of the 2nd floor w/ the exposed floor trusses like that.

And then I was going to add a little bit of debris like the 2nd to last image that Mike pointed out. Like was mentioned, once a battle is past, a lot of the debris would be moved out of the way, so I figure right around the base of the building, I'd have debris, as well as some stuff inside, but most of the sidewalk, and all the street, would be clear of debris.