MAP's FSM Tower Build - kinda an after thought....

[jlgrove]

...ok, so I volunteered to build this tower for MAP (our own Mark Panzera)....I had built this one many years ago, and had forgotten how difficult it was....this one includes a bunch of laser cut walls...(hmm, now that I think about it these were probably not laser cut, but die cuts or something since this kit was probably 1979? or so...)... but they are like putting together a jig-saw puzzle since none of the cut walls are in one piece....I don't know why George did the walls in such small, multiple pieces...perhaps to fully utilize all materials.  This one packs a lot of modeling fun in its package.....and some aggravation....

.....sorry I didn't take more pictures of how it went together....but I did not intend to do a thread...

[jlgrove]

...and some of you have already commented about the fact that I didn't paint and stain the wood first on it....ok, a few reasons (in my mind) why I did it this way -
    -  first of all the wood seemed very dry and fuzzy.  I assume maybe since this kit is probably over 30+ years old.  My experience with this feel to the wood is that is does not like to be very wet with stain, or even paint.  If you do some of the finishing first with this, I have found then that the bracing just doesn't want to glue to the walls etc.....
    -  this one will be pretty dirty and messy, so I was not thinking that the varied colors of the individuals boards/beams would not need to be as appealing as the coal tower look we were going for....
    -  I could not figure out the instructions (more on that later), and I wanted to make sure I would brace it properly.
    -  and when you are painting and staining prior to assembly, you have to have an idea of where things were going to fit.....(again, more on that a bit later..)

...so that's my story and I'm sticking to it...

[jlgrove]

...so I  moved on to the actual construction....

.....and now my thoughts on the instructions....George, as always gives you excellent, step by step construction details in all his kits....but for some reason (maybe it was my ADD kicking in...) I couldn't make heads or tails of much of the written instructions....so after a few evenings going thru them, and trying to sort parts and pieces...all to limited success...I put the written instructions away, and did it from the pictures.....again, this one was like putting together a jig-saw....trail and elimination seemed to be my best efforts to making progress.....

[jlgrove]

....the underside "guts" of this one was where I had most of the issues with getting it together....so after finally determining the pieces required for this portion of the build, it went together pretty easily....then trimming the bunker to make it more prototypical of course....and I am content with the out come......

[jlgrove]

...and now with it pretty much finished, I'll move on to the painting process....and you can be the judge of how it's come out....

[jlgrove]

...and he first step of painting....starting with another of the camoflauge paints, this one is manufactured by Majic, and is Bark Gray, a little darker than your typical gray primer....another thing I like about the camo paints is that they are very flat, and seem to be a bit dryer than other "rattle can" sprays.....I also will soak my "rattle can" spray in VERY HOT water for a few minutes before spraying...

[jlgrove]

...and after my first coat of color is dry, I sprayed the bunker with flat black primer to start the dirty portion of the bunker.....

....then I did a test piece of my colors so far...this will help me in determining the finish color that I intend to use.....one thing that I had to do because of this rather unorthodox assembly process was to keep in mind my glass for the windows....so now that I am this far along, I can glaze the windows using gallery glass....and adding view blocks as I see fit.....

[ACL1504]

Jeff,

I've been following along with the build. I built two of these, one to use and one to burn! No joking here, I used George's plans and scratch built one and then burned the top out as I wanted to have one in a abandoned turntable area on the old, old layout.

As far as staining prior to assembly, you'll find that when you are finished and the tower is heavly weathered, as most of them were with coal dust and soot, it won't matter one hoot what came first, the chicken or the egg!

Tom

[MAP]

Looks great Jeff!  I am so happy you agreed to build this kit for me.  If left to me I probably would have lit the box on fire before the first pieces were glued together!!  I'm going to have to find some of that camoflauge paint.  It sounds like a good thing to have around.  Keep the pictures coming!

[S&S RR]

...and some of you have already commented about the fact that I didn't paint and stain the wood first on it....ok, a few reasons (in my mind) why I did it this way -
    -  first of all the wood seemed very dry and fuzzy.  I assume maybe since this kit is probably over 30+ years old.  My experience with this feel to the wood is that is does not like to be very wet with stain, or even paint.  If you do some of the finishing first with this, I have found then that the bracing just doesn't want to glue to the walls etc.....
    -  this one will be pretty dirty and messy, so I was not thinking that the varied colors of the individuals boards/beams would not need to be as appealing as the coal tower look we were going for....
    -  I could not figure out the instructions (more on that later), and I wanted to make sure I would brace it properly.
    -  and when you are painting and staining prior to assembly, you have to have an idea of where things were going to fit.....(again, more on that a bit later..)

...so that's my story and I'm sticking to it...

Jeff

Thanks for the build thread, and your reasons for painting after assembly make sense to me.  I will be following along with great interest, I have this build in my future. Already have a spot picked out for it.

[jlgrove]

...so I decided on the Dr. Ben's Natural Pine for the final color...it is dark and dirty with just enough greenish hue to it to make me happy...(I sure hope MAP is happy with my decision).....if any of you have followed my threads in the past, you'll remember that I do all my coloring in many layers of colors....normally 3-6 shades of something.....so...here's the break-down on how this one will be colored -
   1.  Majic Camo paint Bark Gray
   2.  Dusting black primer in the areas where coal would have been prominent
   3.  a light dry-brushing of steel gray acrylic
   4.  Dr. Ben's Natural Pine as dry as it can be applied (if that makes sense...)
   5.  Hunterline's Weathering Mix Driftwood around the boards and trim
   6.  Hunterline's Weathering Mix Light Gray over the entire structure
....again, I try to apply ALL these layers of color as dry as possible.....most times I do not "flood" the structure with each application....a few of these steps (2,3,5..) are very subtle to the point of wondering why they would even be done....but leave them out and you can tell the difference....

[jlgrove]

...and I jumped ahead of myself....I added the windows using Clear Frost Gallery Glass....I really like this product for a dirty, run down structure....it's easy to apply with the tiny tip of the container....and it makes it nice for leaving some glass panes out.....I did this after the dry-brushing (Step 3 above) so that it picks up some of the coloring....

[EricQuebec]

Very nice job.
I remember to have build the same kind of coal tower in N scale there's 20 years ago. At this time, I've found a very complete draw in an old Railroad model craftsman, and the coal towr (from cCNR) was pictured on the first page of cover of this issue.

Eric Québec city

[MAP]

Jeff,
Your color choices sound good to me.  Any progress photos to share?  I can't wait to see the tower in person.

[jlgrove]

...so here it is pretty well finished....I have a couple things to finish/fix (that's what I like about taking pictures...they help you see flaws that don't seem to show up in person..)  After the painting process I explained earlier was completely dry, I added Rembrant brand chalks to the tower.....I used Rembrant because Mark will be touching this some as he adds the ropes/chains to finish it up.  Mark will have to finish the ropes/chains etc., since they would not travel well. 

....so that's about it....on to other projects now.....