Goodwin & Wolfe Distillery

[deemery]

That wax sounds like a great idea.


dave

[Mkrailway]

Thanks for dropping by.

I've been busy trying to get the feel if carving in the wax. But before I go into that, I did manage to layout the window and door openings and scratch in the first pass of the blocks of the wall. It was a bit challenging as the wax tends to get soft with the heat of the hands touching it. (I will have some suggestions about this in a later post.)

So some initial tricks; I used some angle irons and a 1/4" section of board to elevate my wrist above the wax. It made it easier to carve and I had more control. I initial used the #11 blades ground into various HO sizes to see if I could make the carving easier, but had limited us of all but the normal #11 blade.



Now the problems I had.

From the next photograph you will see ridges that occurred while I scored the mortar lines in. Not to good and I know it will cause al sorts of problems later. Also, you see the vertical mortar lines are incomplete. I must have made 4 or 5 passes over the complete surface of the wax wall to get the blocks uniform and more realistic.



Some diagrams might help.

Here you can see the #11 blade as it is about to "cut" into the wax.



In reality the #11 does not "cut" the wax, but plows through it and creates furrows in the wax. When you work in the second row of blocks more furrows are creates which deforms the block and make it look like a mountain instead of a block.



As you do more and more passes it just gets worse.



Eventually I had to cut off the furrows to make the blocks look ok. This makes the blocks narrower and less like blocks and the mortar line remain as "V"s. Not too good!



So what were my solution(s)?

I know I used the wrong type of wax! I should have used jewellers wax which can be carved or even a soft version of machinable wax used for prototyping. Both are just wax with plastic added to it to make it firmer/harder and increase the melting point.

The #11 blade is the wrong tool for carving! I need to use a Graver. This is a fine edge tool used for engaging metals and such. It cuts metal out, not plowing though it. If I had done that the comparisons would like like below.



Ok, I did not want to go out and spend $20-$40 for a graver, so I made my own out of a small round file. it is a complex grinding of 5 facets into the tip of the file that will cut a groove into the wax while not plunging too deep and evenly removing the wax. When I started using that everything when easier, but the damage was already done.



I will let you ponder over this post while I keep on going plow and engraving the way too soft wax. I think I have some more tricks up my sleeve on how to fix this.

Until next time.

Marty

[Mkrailway]

Now that I have the carving process understood I moved ahead and added strips of wax as lintels, sills and bonding rows for the wall. I then carved them to look like split face stone. It also gave me a chance to ensure that the windows all aligned with each other.



I made the centre tower section from another piece of wax. The process was the same in laying out the bond row, corner blocks so that they match the rows on the two wall.



The tower's opening were cut out and final texturing go the blocks was completed. I will be making the freight doors as i could not find any that looked right.



I cut the openings for the windows and door on the side wall. Then I created a mold box with Lego and 1/4" foam board. Then using Smooth-on Star 30 silicone I created a master mold for the final walls. Another challenge is how do you glue a wax master to the mold box bottom when virtually nothing sticks to wax, except wax? I will let you figure that our for yourself as I could not.



(BTW: I only carved on side wall and will use it for both the right side and left side of the tower.)

After the silicone cured, I then created a resin master of the master. It turned red from the dye in the wax and helped to remove the areas that were undercut in the wax. I will keep this until I finished with the wax master.



I'm heading back to the grind and figuring out I will be doing next.

See you in the next post.

Marty

(Did anybody recognize the two fictional characters that the building is named after?)

[restocarp]

Martin,

That is really impressive work. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Matt

[Mkrailway]

I am slowly catching up on the posting of the build. Here is the next instalment.

Looking at the resin mold, I decided that I would build the structure from Hydrocal. Plaster is easier/cheaper to cast the various wall sections I need for the background structure. I have a glass table that is perfectly flat that I use for casting. I mixed a watery batch of Hydocal and poured it into the silicone mold and let is dry/cure for a few hours.



The first ones I cast looked ok, but there were too many missing blocks because of air bubbles. I tried to add some mold release to help breakdown the surface tension, but it was not any better. In hind sight, I should have used soapy water and brush into the very fine indentation of where the blocks were.

After a 1/2 dozen castings I got some castings that looked reasonable and represented the faults that the prototype had in the blocks. A lesson here was that I should have used 1/2" thick wax, or attached the wax to a backer board so the final casting was closer to 3/8" thick at the deepest mortar joint. Live and learn.

So I was forced to epoxy bracing to the backs of the plaster walls. I first epoxied to long braces to the top and bottom to keep the two side walls in alignment.



I then epoxied the second wall to the long braces leaving a space for the tower to be attached later. The tower section had bracing added to keep this fragile casting flat and straight.

(Notice the bar towel - it provides a soft surface to work on and reduces the number of cracked sections when cleaning up and fitting the walls. Believe me i had to re-cast one wall twice more to get a good wall. Also, I added some joint tape to the backs of the castings when I re-cast them so if it cracks it still hangs to together.)



I added some more braces as need to ad some support while I eliminated the furrow effects on the blocks. The tower' braces just fit into the opening left when the two walls were attached to the long braces. I had to file the surfaces of the walls and tower backside to make sure the tower sat flush and plumb to the two side walls.

If you look carefully you will see the two outer edges of the walls the bracing is set back the thickness of the walls. This provides a gluing surface and hides the crack were the two walls will be joined.



Turning over the wall, you can get an idea how the wall section will look like. I took some creative license with the top of the tower to give is a more scale friendly look



Next I will be dealing with the furrows and "fixing" how the blocks look.

Until the next post.

(PS: hint characters from Rex Stout novels.)

[Vilius]

Very interesting project, Martin. I was considering at some point using wax for the master of the brick wall. Now that you have done it I don't have to re-invent the wheel.

BTW, I think you could have "glued" your master to the mold box bottom with few drops of liquid wax.

Vilius

[Mkrailway]

The furrowing of the mortar lines shows up all over the walls. It is the one thing that bugs me the most in this build. A close-up of a wall you can see the extra lip that shows up on some of the blocks. The solution is rather simple.



I took a #11 blade and lightly scraped the long part of the blade over the blocks. This removed the furrowing effect and reduced the depth of the mortar lines. Sometimes it chipped the blocks that just add more character to the wall.

Now the seam of the tower and the wall was not perfect and stood out too much. I had to fill the cracks.

I could have mixed up some more Hydrocal and pressed it into place, but when wet Hydrocal hits dry cured Hydrocal it dries almost immediately. There is little of no wiring time. A trick I learned a while ago was to save all the Hydrocal dust from scraping, filing and sanding cured Hydrocal. I grind it up and add water to the fine powder to make a thin slurry. I use a brush to push it into the cracks and then a tooth brush to smooth and form it where I want it. The slurry will stay quite workable for hours and will take days to dry. The used slurry will keep weeks if the water level is kept up.

When it finally dries, you can brush the layer of dust off and it will be a seamless seam. It then behaves just like normal Hydrocal taking stains and paint the normal way.



The mortar lines in the wall are still too deep and the there are still sharp lines from scraping the blocks. This is unnatural and needs to be soften.



This is where the slurry is worth it's weight in gold. I slather the slurry over a section of the wall filling the mortar lines to just above the level i want them. I take a metal and tooth brush and work the slurry around until the blocks are clean and the mortar lines are just perfect. This process is repeated over the whole wall. The block edges will smooth out and look worn (after all the blocks have been exposed to the weather for almost 200 years.) Cool eh!



In the next posting I will be getting into the side walls and the cleaver design feature that makes this all possible.

See you then.

Marty

[Mkrailway]

Sometimes you just don't see the details until its almost too late. Well thats what happened here. I was looking at other photographs of the roof line and noticed that the tree were cornises on the building. What to do?

I did not what to cast another model so I just cut the edge of the existing silicon mold to create a cornice blank. Then I carved the blanks and exposed them to the walls.



Ok, now its time for the two side walls that will give the background structure a 1 1/2" depth. What I did was to take a wall casting, cut off the right 1 1/2", added bracing and exposed it to the left side of the front wall. I did the opposite for the right side wall. This way the corner blocks lined up and wrapped around the corner correctly.





This close-up you can see how well they align and the seam is totally gone with an application of the plate slurry. I was very careful to line up the bond rows so it would wrap around nicely.



The cornices were cut and exposed and then carved to fit into the wall structure seamlessly. The slurry helps blend everything together.



One issue with using one mold for all the walls is the slope of the roof line would be missing. So i found a scrap wall section and epoxied it to the side wall braces which were left long. Then the cornices could be attached to tie the front and side walls together,



When I looked at the older photographs I notice that there was a large block chunky foundation with two rows exposed. So I hit my stock of Hydrocal castings and found some split face blocks that I used to create a foundation wall.



Now I have the walls all completed and ready for windows and doors and the roof.



(PS, Sorry to say I have no photos of the process must rest assure it was not an easy task. I had to modify 6/6 windows from having trim to look like masonry windows. File and fit all the windows so they all aligned, etc.)

[ACL1504]

Marty,

This project is incredible and very impressive to say the least. This is going to be one fantastic looking scratch (literally) built distillery.

Extremely impressive my friend.

Tom

[Mkrailway]

Marty,

This project is incredible and very impressive to say the least. This is going to be one fantastic looking scratch (literally) built distillery.

Extremely impressive my friend.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks for dropping by and your generous compliment. This is structure I always wanted to build and soon I can check it off by bucket list. Lots more to soon.

Marty

[Mkrailway]

We move onto the roof and dormers. This dormers are located directly over the from wall window openings and make the roof line very interesting.

I take some cardboard and measure and cut out a dormer roof that will cover the ridge of the main tower roof. I used a paper to create a paper template to cut out the cardboard to fit exactly. Getting the ridge line to match the peak was critical to maintain visual alignment. I you can see that I left the card stock under the dormer roof in tact. This helps keep the roof flat and acts as a stop to prevent the roof from sliding off the hydrocal.



When the roof is fitted to the structure it sits very nicely. The dormer roof has been cut back from the front edge to allow for some cap stones to protect the tower gable roof. I also marked were the centre of the dormers will be located on the roof.



This roof will be removed and placed back onto the structure many times. I used some bracing to help keep the roof flat and to provide a stop for the front overhang.



Ok, getting to the dormers. One of the challenges was to be able to have a complete dormer that fit on the short/narrow roof card. I had to fiddle with the dormers such that ridge line would be horizontal and just meet below the back of the roof card. This meant moving the front of the dormers forward, but not past the inside of the front wall. It took some time playing with a paper mock to get it right.



these dormers are the most frustrating part of the build. I try using strips wood for the walls, but it looks too heavy and was hard to keep just right. So after sweating and cursing for a while, I found some 1/64" plywood that was perfect for the job. The plywood allowed me to cut and sand the curved window tops and CA everything into place. I added corner posts to help keep the walls together and provide a surface to glue to the roof card. Uniformity is the key ... I wish I could have done that here.



So you think I'm an idiot for sweating this small little detail? Well I guess I am, but they do look good. The dormers were painted CN Green (that is what I had on hand). The acetate glass insides will be painted Grimy Black (remember this is an attic that no one goes to clean windows). The current roof covering is asphalt 3-tab shingles; but I believe it would have been Slate back in the day, so I am going with square Slade.



I added some fascia boards that will hold the eavestrough and added some lead flashing in the gutters. I took the salvage strips from the slate cards and used them as started strips. I hate it when the first row of roofing is too flat and leaves a gap between the 1st and 2nd rows.



I guess I should apply the slate material the roof next, but I just do not want to. There is so much angle cutting and fitting that I have to be in the right mood to do it. Besides, I too anxious to see how to colour that bright white wall.

See you at the next post when I turn into an artist.

Marty

[Mkrailway]

Hmm, I back after playing around with the colouring of the walls. In real-time it has been about two weeks where I struggled on how to get the "right" colour mix. The prototype has two main colours, a blue grey under tone with flashes of sand. When you look at from different angles, it looks different. I needed to replicate that feeling when you look at the model. I want the view to walk by it and see it change colour and be confused/amazed how it looks.

This meant trying all sorts of combinations - lucky I had lots of scrap pieces to play with.



I then compared it to one of the prototype photographs and was happy with it. Can you see the test piece? I let it dry overnight to see if it was as amazing as it looks wet.



Ok, here is the magic recipe using Rembrandt Soft Pastel chalks. (I mixed them all with my magic Air Brush thinner mix of 50/50 of water/99% alcohol, a few drops of flow improver and retarder)

- Base coat flooded all over the walls with Blue Grey (727.7)
- Wipe the tops of the blocks to expose the white
- individually painted the random blocks using this ratio of the number of blocks
  5% of the blocks - Burnt Umber (409.9)
  5% of the blocks - Raw Sienna (234.3)
  20% of the blocks - Yellow Ochre (227.7)
  20% of the blocks - Raw Sienna (234.
  20% of the blocks - Raw Sienna (234.10)

I then let it dry for a few minutes and lightly blended using a large soft blending brush.

So lets see how it turns out. Wow that is very dark.



But is mostly a background colour of the mortar and deeper sections of the wall.



I jump ahead to a bit to the "final" colouring. I did add some black under the windows and used a Raw Sienna (234.10) to highlight the corner blocks. The foundation was left as the Blue grey with dashes of black to add some variations.

I was happy with the overall base colouring and want to freeze it with a Matte Varnish coat. I find this is the BEST matte varnish ever. The spray is extremely fine and there is no orange peeling of the varnish and is totally transparent.



So this is what it looks like so far.



You have notice the windows were not installed when I did this colouring. I was not in the mood to clean up any of the chalk mess of small panes of glass. So i guess there is no excuses now, next is installing the windows.

See you later.

[ACL1504]

Martin,

Dang, that is just one wonderful looking structure. The dormers really change the look, a great look. Extremely well done.

Tom

[barrymk]

You beat me to it Tom, that is a superb structure and finely crafted.

[Mkrailway]

Martin,

Dang, that is just one wonderful looking structure. The dormers really change the look, a great look. Extremely well done.

Tom

Tom I'm glad you liked it so far and your comments are appreciated.