FOS Yard Office Three Build

[ReadingBob]

Bob,
Will follow along.
Enjoy your photo updates on your builds.
Tommy

Thanks Tommy!  Happy to have you along for the ride as well.  This one is small, but it should be a fun one.

[ReadingBob]

Always love a Bob Build. 


Jeff

Jeff.  I appreciate that!     Happy to have you on board for the journey.  Should be fun.   

[ReadingBob]

What's the masonry material?  Plaster? 

Looks like a nice structure, I'm sure you'll do your usual great job documenting it.

dave

Dave - Thank you!  The other structure is made up of hydrocal castings.  I'll be working on them today.  I've been kind of itching to break out a hydrocal kit (like a Downtown Deco kit).  This one offers the best of both worlds.   

[ReadingBob]

Good start Bob...I'll be following


John

Thanks John!  Should be a fun.  I need to work on improving my brick coloring and this seems like a good one to practice on.   

[ReadingBob]

Your starting off with your usual great tutorial.


Looking forward to another great build by you.


Jerry

Thank you very much Jerry!  I'm glad to have you following along.   

[ReadingBob]

I just jumped on board, too. Looks like fun.
--Opa George

I appreciate having you along for the ride Opa George!  This one has been fun so far.  I think it's a neat little design by Doug and I like the mix of materials.   

[ReadingBob]

I'll be looking in Bob.....

Thanks Butty!  Glad to have you along for the ride.  May be a little while until you get to see it.  Hopefully not too long though. 

[ReadingBob]

Time for a progress report/update.   

My go to method for peeling paint.  "Dry sponge" some Acrylic Craft (Folk Art) Dove Gray on the walls, windows, doors, trim pieces.  The only trick here is to get some paint on the sponge and then remove as much as possible before dabbing the sponge on the parts.  Just trying to transfer a little of the gray to to parts.  Not paint the parts.  I followed this up with some Khaki Tan using the same method.


Next up I gave everything a coat of Hunterline Weathering Mix Light Gray.  Sometimes I use A&I.  Here's where I noticed one thing that's different about using the Vallejo Acrylic Model Colors for the doors, windows and trim.  When I used Floquil or PollyScale paints for and then dabbed the Dove Gray and Khaki Tan over them (previous step) if I got a little heavy handed with the dabbing I could bring it back in this step by washing away some of the Gray and Tan with the Weathering Mix or A&I.  The Floquil or PollyScale was impervious to both.  The Vallejo's aren't.  So I need to be just a tad more careful with the "Dry sponge" technique.


Next up I drybrushed everything with some Acrylic Craft paint Ivory White.  Just enough to highlight the edges or any raised surfaces.


Since all the windows are relatively small I used MicroScale Industries Micro Kristal Klear for the glass.  Just spread a little over the opening to create a thin film and let it dry.


I add the corner trim to the wooden walls per the templates.  I glued it to the edge longer than necessary.


Then trimmed the trim to fit using a single edged razor blade.


More in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

Skipping ahead a bit.  I painted the inside of the walls black with a craft store acrylic paint and installed the doors and windows.  Next up is to add some window shades.  I have a sheet of plain while paper I painted a tan color (probably Floquil Depot Buff).  I cut a strip slightly wider than the window openings.


The lopped of a few pieces.  The length isn't particularly important.


A smidge of glue is applied around the window openings (on the inside of course).


Then add the window blind.  Vary the amount they're 'drawn' a little so they don't all look uniform.


Now the wood walls are pretty well finished they can be glued together.  I use a square to keep things square. 


Hit Post too early....more in a moment....

[ReadingBob]

When the walls were assembled I added (almost forgot actually) the trim across the top.  Like the corner trim I added it longer than necessary.


Then I trimmed it to fit with a single edge razor blade.  After I finished I touched up the cut ends with a the Hunterline Weathering Mix.  Yeah, they should be painted the trim color, weathered, etc. but the Weathering Mix does a good enough job hiding the cut ends.   


On the the hydrocal walls.  I checked the back of the walls (only the ones that will have the edge of the adjoining walls glued to the back side) and noticed a slight curve to them.  So I took them outside and sand the back side as flat as I could get it.


I did the same for the edge of the side walls that will be glued to the back of the front walls.


Then I glued the four walls together using two part five minute epoxy.  I tried to get everything as square and lined up as I possibly could to minimize the visible joints.  One mistake I made was I used my standard method of creating two L shapes and then gluing the two together to form the box.  It would have been better, I think, If I had glued the two side walls to the front wall to get the best possible joint in the front and then add the rear wall last where the joints are less likely to be visible.


Here's my two L's.


More in a moment....

[ReadingBob]

I filled in the joints with spackle.  First I taped off the joint so I wouldn't fill in the nice brick detail and then applied the spackle.


There isn't going to be a lot pictures for the painting part.  After priming the walls with a rattle can white primer I tried a process of adding layers upon layers of thinned acrylic paints going from lighter, bright shades to darker colors.  Brick walls are one of those things I really need to improve my skills on and that's one of the reasons I decided to build this kit.  As I added the various colors the idea was to not get a uniform color.  Heck, if I want one uniform color I would have just painted it that final color.   


Next, and this ended up being kind of a wasted step as I'll explain in a moment, I painted individual bricks various colors from light to dark.


Final picture for today.  I tried a couple different methods of adding mortar to the joints.  A good place to practice, on this kit, is the section of the wall that the wood structure will end up being glued to.  First I tried Hunterline Weathering Mix Cement color.  I like the color but it didn't flow into the joints like I had hoped it would and when I wiped it off the surface of the bricks it took the brick colors with it.  I ended up using a thin was of an acrylic white/tan mix.  That made the surface of the brick walls lighter so I touched them up with some drybrushing of brick colors (mixes of the colors I had previously used) followed by a light wash of A&I.


I finally got the point where I found the brick color acceptable.  Not great but acceptable.  I'm going to continue to work on the stone base though.  I'll try some more washes and maybe some chalks and/or Pan Pastels until it looks better to my eye. 

As always, thanks for following along!

[PRR Modeler]

Great job Bob. I will probably be building thIs kit when I start on the peninsula. What is the square black hole in the large window?

[ACL1504]

Bob,

I think the walls look fine. I have several Downtown Deco kits to build. I've been putting them off cause I don't feel comfortable doing the Hydrocal brick thing. I definitely need to come out of my comfort zone and give one a try.

Tom 

[deemery]

I've gotten good results messing with gouache (opaque watercolor), I got a cheap student set at Michaels with a 40% coupon.  The advantage is that you can easily wash it off if you don't like the result.  The disadvantage is that you should seal the results when you do like it, otherwise the gouache could get washed off doing scenery. 


dave

[Jerry]

Bob great tutorial as usual.  I like the brick coloring nice job.


And a nice job on weathering the wood walls.


Always a pleasure following one of your builds.


Jerry