A couple of projects I have been working on

[Chessie1973]

Here are some pics of a couple of projects I have been working on.

The first four pics are of a Con Cor Barn Dance Hall that my mother put together and I weathered. I have also sceniced it but havent taken pics of the little mini scene yet because it isnt finished yet.

I tried a weathering method that was posted here about using an alcohol was to cause dull coat to turn white. I think it gave an interesting faded paint effect to the red plastic of this building.

The only painting doent was the lettering and base of the model, as well as a wash of black acryllic paint and isoprophyl alcohol.

Front View

 

[Chessie1973]

Next is the parking lot view

 

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The Stage entrance view

 

[Chessie1973]

The Ticket Booth View

 

[Chessie1973]

And I did say that there were two priject did I not?

The second one will perhaps be of intrest to our fns of the overhead wire.

Ask yourself, just how do they get those Streetcars and traction engines from the factory where they are built to the location they will be used?

Well here was my solution to the question.

 

[Chessie1973]

Here are some pics of the sceniced scene with the dance hall.

Smae basic shots as before for comparison

 

[Chessie1973]

Next shot is a slightly angled shot to show the weathering effect better on the front wall

 

[Chessie1973]

Parking lot

 

[Chessie1973]

Stage door

 

[Chessie1973]

Ticket booth

 

[Chessie1973]

I plan to have a paved road running in front of this model when I put it on my layout which is the reason for the bare cardboard in front of the building.

So what do you think of my little piece of americana?

By the way I picked up those HO scale cars at my LHS for 20 dollars for 4 of them, I don't have the Impala in the picture.

They look perfect next to this barn so I included them in the picture.

I plan to add some more details and some LPB's around the place to add life to it. (that and cover up some of my overpainting on things from over zealous weathering)

The alcohol wash really gives the bare red plastic that faded barn look pretty well. Unfortunately it did sort of smear some of the painted on lettering my mother did.

She put together the building and did all the painting and signage, which were all cut outs from the back of the box as per instructions except the B&O Logo which was an attempt at a home made sticker decal for a boxcar we cooked up a while ago that worked so well we just had to use it.

The reason we hand painted this model was because the water slide type decals in the kit crumbled away to dust as soon as they got wet and were useless.


Oh and I plan to anchor this to a 1 inch thick piece of florist hard foam to put it in the layout to help keep it from warping, all the paint and glue I used soaked into the cardboard and caused it to buckled and warp on me a bit .

 

[TomPM]

Good looking building. Things came out looking great.

One question, when you say you are going to use green florist foam, are you talking about the stuff you get in a craft store? Is it the foam that is under the fan in your next to last picture?

If it is this stuff, the foam that is used inside of a flower vase to hold silk flowers, DO NOT USE IT. It will eventually crumble to dust. Every time you touch it a little will fall off. Use either the pink or blue foam installation you can get at Home Depot or Lowes, or the Woodland Scenics white foam. My personal preference is the pink or blue foam because it seems to hold up better in the long run. Also it takes paint and scenery items better. It does not melt or warp as easily. Also it when it is cut or breaks you don’t get those little foam balls all over the place.

 

[Chessie1973]

Actually this foam is the hard stiff foam like what is used for flower wreaths and the like. it doesnt crumble and is more like a rigid plastic type foam instead of that finer particled florist stuff.

That and convincing my Mother to throw away 60 or 70 dollars worth of that green foam has been like pulling teeth. I personally would prefer to get a 4x8 sheet or two to make a 2 inch thick base layer and then build up the scenery for plastering out of other materials myself.

Thanks for the comments on the building. I still have some scenicing work to do on the little mini scene due to the flexibility of the cardboard I need to touch up aroung the base of the building a bit to better hid the plastic base.

I am trying to make a layout that could represent a wide timeframe so we can more realistically run a wide range of different rolling stock from Steam engines all the way up to late 80's diesels. A building like this was perfect for that.

 

[shamus]

Looks really great Chessie, love the Dancing all NITE sign on the roof.
Shamus

 

[jon-monon]

So what do you think of my little piece of americana?

Looks so, so, so, ummmm, Hoooooooooosier! I've been to a few barn dances

 

[Russ Bellinis]

SWEET! That barn looks great! Nice work.