FOS #210 The Red Light District (HO Scale)

[ReadingBob]

You do a wonderful and inspiring job, Bob.  Thank you for showing us "how to do it".

Thank you Jan (and Erin and Andrew too)!  Most (okay, all  ) of what I share are the things I've learned from others so I'm happy to pass along the stuff that works for me.  I think that's one of the things that's great about both this hobby and this forum - most of the people involved in it are more than willing to share what they've learned.      

[jimmillho]

I have never seen anything so "Wrong side of the Tracks" bad as this
It is about as trashy as it should be!!!!!!!!

Awesome job Bob

Jim

Thanks Jim!  And how, exactly, would you know how trashy a place like this should look?        

You forgot that I live off of "South Orange Blossom Trail" and I have seen the "Best"

Jim

[gnatshop]

You do a wonderful and inspiring job, Bob.  Thank you for showing us "how to do it".

You have to go inside to learn "how to do it".!!! 

[rpdylan]

The forum, for me, is like the old hobby shop ( remember them?) that I used to go to as a kid. The old timers would bring in their models and give out tips for making a better model.  I remember one time, back in the late 70's, this guy showed me how he used a charcoal briquet to add black to his tanks/ military models.  Now we have pan pastels! 

Bob C.

[ReadingBob]

I like Bob C.'s comparison of the forum being like old hobby shop.  I think that's spot on.     It's great that we now have forums like this but sad that many of the hobby shops are just memories now.

Okay, back to the build.  It's time to cover the second structure.

The Art Deco Theater

This one is a bit different from the norm and I thought it might be a really challenging and fun little build.  I was right on both counts but kind of wrong in where I thought the challenges would be.   

Most of this part of the thread will cover building the front wall of the structure because that's where the fun part is.  After cutting out the required parts and touching them up with an emery board I smeared wood glue on them and started gluing them together.
 

This wall is made up of several a layers.


After gluing all but the back piece on I weighed it down with some marble blocks (recycled from some old bowling trophies) to hold everything together while the glue dried.


Next I did the same with the parts that go in the some of the openings.  The decorative trim above the large window and entryway/box office, for example, were also made up of several layers.




I primed everything with a rattle can light grey primer.  In this shot the decorative trim and entryway haven't been glued in place yet.  I just wanted to see how it would look.


More in a moment....

[ReadingBob]

First challenge.  The front wall gets a 'stucco' treatment made up by mixing a small bag of powder included in the kit (Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty) with water until it's the consistency of peanut butter and then applying it with a stiff brush.


This was the first major failure on my part and an epic failure it was at that.     I had trouble getting the stucco finish to look like I wanted it to.  Note, I have done this in the past on other kits but apparently I forgot how to do it right.     I made two errors in judgement.  The brush I was using wasn't stiff enough and I mixed the water putty a little bit thinner then I should have.  When it dried I tried to file down the high spots with an emery board and a spot of two of the putty flaked off.  Hmmm.....I wonder.....yes.....I took a chisel blade in an X-Acto handle and carefully chipped off all of the putty.  I had a do-over!     The second time around I mixed the putty a bit thicker, used a stiff brush and, something I hadn't done the first time, I smeared Elmer's White Glue on the surface of the was before I started applying the putty to give it something to grab onto.  This time I got the result I was looking for.   

Part of the side walls for this structure contain parts within the wall itself.  Here the box office interior is being assembled from parts removed from the side wall.


Skip ahead a little bit, I had painted the decorative panel, entryway wall, etc. and applied rust using artist oil colors in a fashion similar to what I did for the Burlesk house and now I'm applying 3M Transfer tape to where the signs will go for the marquee.


Followed by adding the signs themselves.


I applied a little glue to the trim for the marquee and glued it in place.  I was careful not to use too much glue to prevent if oozing out but if any did I quickly removed the excess with the tip of my X-Acto knife blade.




Then I assemble the marquee.  Again, the 'box' was made from pieces that came out of one of the side walls.  The face/trim pieces are glued directly to the box.


Oops...Junior is ready for breakfast so I'll have to finish this up later on. 

Thanks for following along!

[Dave K.]

Been following and really enjoying your thread. Thanks, as always, for documenting your build. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[EricQuebec]

Never tried this technic for doing stucco. I,ve always used Liquitex light mortar structure with a small amount of plaster.
Thanks to share this technic with us.

Eric Québec city

[ReadingBob]

Been following and really enjoying your thread. Thanks, as always, for ducumenting your build. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Thanks Dave!  And Eric who posted while I was typing this!   

Okay, breakfast is over so I'll continue on with the rest of the theater build.

I picked up several different 'white' colors of cheap craft store acrylic paints and painted them on a piece of scrap until I found one I liked for the front wall.  It's called 'Oyster White' and it's in the Ceramcoat line from Delta.  That's what I painted the front stucco wall with and, later on, the side and rear clapboard walls. 


While waiting for the paint to dry I decide to work on the roof of the marquee sign.  I had some fine, black gravel left over from the roof of the Bar Mills Sokol's Build I recently did so I smeared some white glue on the roof top and sprinkled that on.  Later on I sprayed it with Dullcoat and hit it with some weathering powders.


After painting the front wall of the theater I wanted to try something that Doug did on the pilot model and that was to create a cracked and peeling paint effect using something called Crackle Medium.  In the instructions Doug refers to one made by Folk Art Crackle Medium but these were the only two I could find.  He mentions that he painted the walls, let them dry, applied the medium and when it was dry painted them again (using a heat gun to speed up the drying process).


I normally don't experiment much (that's really not a good habit) before diving into and doing something but this time I did.  A lot.  If you're going to try this I recommend you practice, practice, practice.  I found that I couldn't get anywhere near the effect I wanted with the bottle on the left, from Delta, but the one on the right was more promising.  The heat gun didn't help a lot and I had to be careful or it would bubble the paint and ruin everything.  I also had zero success applying paint over top of the crackle medium.  I ended up painting the wall, letting it dry and applying the 'One Step Crackle'.  Now, when applied the thickness of the application makes a huge difference in the effect.  The thicker the application the larger the sections are that 'crack'.  The thinner, the smaller they are.  But, and this is a big but, there's a real fine line here.  I went with a medium coat which ended up giving me larger, somewhat out of scale, cracks but they're visible and the effect is interesting.  Too thin and they can be too fine to be seen.  Also, when dried the crackle coat is glossy so I hit with Dullcoat to kill the gloss.

Here's the wall with the crackle effect.  I blew up a small section to demonstrate the effect up close.  Hopefully it shows in the picture.


Here's the assembled front wall.


On to the side walls.  These are made up by joining a piece of clapboard siding to the matt board (?) carrier sheets that contained some of the smaller pieces for the marquee, box office, roof top access shed, etc.


More in a moment...





 

[ReadingBob]

I braced the side walls per the instructions.


Then I was working on finishing the side walls when I realized there was a problem.  There's a notch in one end of each wall the will allow the wall to fit into the rear side of the front wall of the structure.  Can you spot the problem?


The notch is at the wrong end of one of the walls.  When both are facing outward (back to back) like they will when the building is assembled one notch will be where the front wall joins the building but the other will be where the rear wall joins the building.  Easy to correct, since I had clapboard siding on hand, I simply made a new wall to replace the one with the notch on the wrong end.  I did a full size wall rather than replace just the clapboard piece that mates to the carrier sheet. 


I painted the clapboard side and rear walls with the same Oyster White then applied Dove Gray and Kahki Tan by dabbing an almost try sponge onto the surface to kill that fresh paint look.  The gray/tan speckles represent places where the white paint peeled away and the primer or wood beneath it has been exposed. 


I used (the horror) a ponce wheel to add rows of nail holes to the side and rear walls spaced roughly 2 scale feet apart.  These walls aren't the main focus of the entire build but I like the effect and it's quick and easy to do this way.


I also used a chisel blade to get underneath some of the clapboard siding and lift it up or, in a few cases, splinter a piece off.


After the nail hole/lifting splintering process I applied an A&I wash to tone everything down (especially any 'fresh' wood exposed by splintering a piece of clapboard siding off.  For white walls, like this, I keep a bottle of straight "A" hand along with the bottle of A&I so I can make the A&I a bit lighter than normal.  I dip my brush in the straight "A' first and then the A&I second.


More in a moment....    

[ReadingBob]

I assembled the walls, added the roof and the roof top access shed (I'll skip those steps since they're repeated on several of the structures in this build) and here's what I ended up with...








You may notice there's no rear door at this point.  The instructions don't mention which door to use and there are several cut into various carrier sheets.  There are also no pictures of the rear of most of the structures so I decided to simply wait until I build the rest of the structures to see what doors I might have leftover.    

That's where I'm at right now.  Next on my plate is the third structure of seven, the Adult Bookstore.

Thanks for following along!

[Dave K.]

I've gone to this for stucco...quick 'n' easy...can paint any color.

[jimmillho]

I am just sitting here waiting for the next building in this build. Can't wait to see it finished.

Jim

[madharry]

You are making a really nice job of this build Bob.

I have Jimmy Dee's Topless Bar and Hokum's House of Burleque on my Red Hook Bay show layout and they always cause a stir with the viewing public. I have actually positioned two topless girls sunning themselves on the roof of Jimmy Dee's to good effect!

Keep up the good work I enjoy learning new techniques and I must try out the "crackle" effect.

Mike 

[Janbouli]