FSM Westside Auto

[ReadingBob]

Nice start.  I'll enjoy following along as well.  This is one I don't have so it'll be interesting to see how it comes together. 

[Zephyrus52246]

Thanks for looking in, gentlemen.  Bob, this won't be as detailed as your excellent builds.      There are additions to the main structure front and back, so there's no need to stucco those areas.  Plus, the stairs would look odd with gaps caused by the stucco. So these areas were lined off, first the front addition (it's slightly off in the pic, realigned for the marking), and then the stair area.


Jeff

[Zephyrus52246]

I have two types of stucco here, and was going to experiment with them, but I went back to the kitforums group build of Bailey's produce and found the page where I'd discussed that.  So I'm using the Liquitex stucco.  Though it's been a long time, the technique came back to me relatively quickly.  I use a brush which is a "deerfoot" or "stippler".  spread a thin coat of the stucco on the wall and then tap the brush against the wall, moving the brush around and twisting it back and forth before tapping.  This varies the pattern.  Use a thin coat first, let it dry and then go over it again.  The stucco tends to stick to itself and the brush more than the wall, so the first coat gives it something more to stick to.  First coat on two sides to start, putting the structure together first enables you to stucco the corners as well to hide the seams.

Jeff

[Zephyrus52246]

Two coats finished.  I think the "backside" of the structure stucco is a little too thick.


Jeff

[Zephyrus52246]

I sand the roughness down with a 180 grit emery board.  You don't want to leave scratch marks, just smooth all the raised spots down.  The window/door openings need cleaning out as well as the tops/bottoms of the walls if any stucco gets there.  The backside of an xacto blade is good for this.  The very edges of some of the window areas will need filing as well, if the windows jut out too far due to the stucco.  After finishing, I though I should have placed a window in each slot when the stucco was wet to do this.    


Jeff

[PRR Modeler]

Looks good Jeff.

[PainTrain]

The stucco looks pretty good so far.  Was that suggested in the kit instructions, or did you just decide to put your own spin on the detailing?

[Dennis Bourey]

Your doing a great job Jeff!!! Dennis

[postalkarl]

Hey Jeff:

Frank B and I built this kit for George before it was issued. It's a great kit. My favorite part is the roof repair scene.

Karl

[fbernard65]

The entire kit was fun to build.  Karl and I had a blast with building them in parallel.  My favorite scene is the small barn structure and all of the details around it.

Frank

[Zephyrus52246]

Thanks for the encouragement, gentlemen.  Paintrain, the kit has a small amount of Durham's water putty to mix and use for the stucco.  I've tried it in the past and it didn't seem to work well for me, though others here on the forum make great looking stucco with it.  I painted the building with Floquil's aged concrete per the instructions.  The windows/doors/trim are instructed to be Boxcar red and I had a new bottle of Pollyscale for this, though the bottle was a pain to open.    I put a couple of the windows in to see how the colors looked, pretty good I think, though the stucco is still a little too rough, but it'll do. 


Jeff

[jerryrbeach]

Jeff,

I think stucco is one of the most challenging things to model effectively in HO and smaller scales.  IMO your stucco looks great.  Westside is coming along nicely.  I think it looks much better than "pretty good".  I'm enjoying following along.

[Bruce Oberleitner]

Wow Jeff, This is a really cool looking model.  The Antique concrete color looks like a dead ringer for stucco.

[Zephyrus52246]

Thanks Jerry and Bruce.  Next step was staining all the stripwood.  The pieces are short, so I used a metal instrument tray.  Used the light grey Hunterline weathering mix.  This took several days as I only had so much room to dry them. 


Jeff

[Zephyrus52246]

They were placed in some test tubes with the wood sizes printed on the side.  George's instructions for finishing the stucco are a wash of A&I, dab it off if you've go too much in one spot, then a fine dry brushing of the aged concrete again.  I used the Vallejo black wash (water based) as I've had acrylics lift off with the A&I at times.  Looks better in person than the picture.  Next up is drybrushing the doors/windows.  Then window glass/shades.

Jeff