Jon H Olson Chemical Co DBA Skeeter's Fly Dope

[postalkarl]

Hey Jim:

It's looking just great so far. Keep the pic coming.

Karl

[Jim Donovan]

And to think, I'm just trying to get the hang of lighting building interiors and you are doing some amazing work on 3-D printing.
I didn't realize that the MMW brick sheets came in thin material.  It has to be easier to cut than the 1/8" stuff.
Keep up the good work.

Bob sorry for slow reply, the wife and I have been traveling for better part of three weeks. Thank you for the encouragement. The 1/32 is indeed much easier to cut then the 1/8th inch brick sheets. However, the brick cuts are so deep they almost go clean through! How he does it I do not know but the result is amazing. You do need to glue board to it as backing or light will shine through the wall. I was really impressed with how well it takes stains and colors as will be shown soon.

Jim D

[Jim Donovan]

Hey Jim:

It's looking just great so far. Keep the pic coming.

Karl

Thanks Karl, next batch of pictures coming up.

Jim D

[Jim Donovan]

It has been a while since I updated progress, so time to catch up.

With the walls cut out I turned to painting and applying mortar to the brick. I started by spray painting all walls with Rustoleum Chalk Cottage White. Three applications of light spray were needed to get complete coverage used. My friend Jason Jenson used chalk paint as part of his method of getting great mortar lines in laser brick. He used an ivory white version but I think both colors work. The goal is to seal the wood and get the white paint in the mortar lines. I use Rustoleum or Krylon spray paint when using rattle cans. The extra cost from cheap WalMart type paint is more than worth it in the results. I got a tip from someone to keep the cans upside down when on shelf. Since I started doing this I have not had one nozzle clog and the can works great until completely empty. 



For the aged American Brick look I cut a  natural sponge flat on one side. Using the damp sponge only on this flat side I gently applied a coat of Delta Barn Red making sure to only dab the sponge on the surface and minimize paint in the cracks. Next I did the same thing using Americana Heritage Brick Red. Then I added a very small amount of charcoal black to the Barn Red and sponged only some areas. Finally I mixed a little dark brown with the Barn Red and did more light dabbing in a random manner. I did not attempt to paint individual bricks but let the random patterns do the work of shading.

[Jim Donovan]

The white chalk paint did a good job of sealing the wood and filling the lines. The various shades of red and brown bricks really came out nice using the technique I saw Jason use. After the paint had completely dried for 24 hours I sprayed all the brick with Krylon Matt Clear Varnish. This will lock the paint in place for next steps. Again, when all was dry (24 hours later) I mixed up a thin wash consisting of sand grout, very thinned out modge podge (6 parts water 1 part mod podge and a drop of liquid soap) and alcohol. I used alcohol instead of water to complete the wash as it seems to get the grout into the mortar lines quickly and then evaporates fast. Only two coats were needed to get result I wanted. The mod podge mix is only to hold the grout in place while drying. 24 hours later I again sprayed the walls with the Matt Varnish to lock the grout in place.



This photo is jumping forward some but it shows the final results of the brick.


Well the computer is about dead so we will finish up tomorrow.

[Opa George]

That brick painting is some of the nicest I've ever seen!
--Opa George

[Zephyrus52246]

I'll second that!

Jeff

[PRR Modeler]

Excellent brick work.

[GPdemayo]

Nice progress Jim.....looking forward to seeing what you do with this part of the structure. 

[Jim Donovan]

Folks, thanks for the compliments. I do think the brick work came out pretty good. The process is a little time consuming but the result is worth it.

Next up is creating the parts needed for the internal structure and roof. I had to buy another 3D printer since I had not taken the time to actually learn the limitations of the Proton S.  By accident I broke the UV light system. I decided to buy the Elegoo Mars Pro to replace it.



I have found it superior to the Photon S in all ways, plus I took the time to read all of the manual!

[PRR Modeler]

I was going to ask how hard it was getting the girders off the sprue without breaking them but you didn't seem to have any issues. Very well done and I look forward to seeing more.

[Jim Donovan]

Well it seems about every month I have something worth reporting and this month is no different, but first I want to say thanks to Curt appreciate the compliment and question.  To answer your question on difficulty removing the truss from supports, that part proved easy. Here is a screenshot showing the 'sliced' design for the truss with the supports. The trick was to keep the supports long enough so that I could use sprue snips to get between the base and part to remove the truss without damage.  Other parts have proved very hard being delicate, complex or both.

[Jim Donovan]

So now to current update. The design of the building has evolved somewhat since I started it. Since my last update I decided to change the roof somewhat and add more than originally intended to the interior. As I go through the steps to date I am sure I will forget somethings so feel free to ask if there is a gap in the thread.

I found I needed to back up and re-think how I was going about designing and making the parts. Things were just not going right and all I was doing is creating a lot of waste, a lot.



That is just some of the waste.

So I needed to become much more educated using Tinkercad to design the parts before I attempted to make them. While I thought I could just wing it I couldn't. By the time I decided I had read enough how to articles, watched enough videos and 'tinkered' with the parts I had designed all the parts needed to move forward but more importantly I had designed a copy of the building shell to correct dimensions so that i knew the parts would fit. Here are a couple screenshots of the design as it came about:

[Jim Donovan]

As you can see this 'scratch' built version of the Skeeters Pump House has become very part intensive. The arch windows ended up consisting of 5 resin parts (1 frame, 3 window frames, 1 backplate) and four glass inserts. So there are 54 parts just for the arch windows. I tested using clear plastic windows cut using the Cricut machine to save some time but I was not pleased with how clear and undistorted they looked. I even dipped them in Revive prior to placing them in the window frame as the military modelers do to enhance the 'glass look' but while an interesting result, not as clear as I wanted. I ended up using Clover Glass and hand cut the glass to shape. A couple of the test windows of 'Revive Glass' I used and you might be able to see the difference.

[Jim Donovan]

I am by no means an expert now with Tinkercad but I think having put the needed time in to learn the basics that I have enough working knowledge to finish this project.

For the interior I came up with the idea to have a steel internal frame to hold the brick walls in place and allow for a second floor consisting of a small work area, catwalk and leading to what will be a covered bridge over the track to the main processing building. Limitations of the size the printer could handle along with the complexity of the design forced me to cut the frame into three parts. Also The hand railings had to be made separate and then glued in place. Finally, I used scale 2 x 6 boards to cover the underling supports and create the floor:


One of the three 'iron' frames hanging on the print plate upside down and diagonally  with supports enclosing it. You have to wear latex gloves when handling the still soft parts and the raw resin. Apparently allergic reactions are a sure thing in time if not used.


After cleaning the entire structure in 95 percent denatured alcohol for several minutes I used the sprue cutter and carefully cut the supports off the frame.


The part is then placed in a UV dryer that rotates for 30 minutes. It can now be handled without gloves and is no longer soft and flexible. I placed it in the building to see if it fit, it did, FINALLY.


Previously I had printed out the necessary guard rails. I used Krylon flat black as the primer and first coat. I then used my airbrush and sprayed the upper railings with Vallejo Flat Red. It took forever to cover the black, next time red first, black last, lesson learned.

To complete the section I again used the flat black to paint the frame. Here is photo showing two sections painted and test fitted:



Next using Hobby Lobby Thick Super Glue I put pre-stained (Hunterline Medium Brown) scale 2 x 6 boards cut to length just covering the catwalk and second floor office area. Finally, the pre-painted railings were cut to length and super glued to the boards using a very fine needle applicator. Just a small drop is needed to hold the resin railings to the wood. (friend Todd Wiley put me on the Hobby Lobby brand, it works best of any I have used. However, once opened, after six months throw out the bottle. CA shelf life is not great).

The same process was done for the other two sections. When complete they were test placed in the building. So here is how they came out:




The catwalk is not even in photo as the sections have not be glued in place. The boiler can be seen in photo as well for test fitting but a lot more work needs to be done on it.