Stone & Styrene construction

[Ray Dunakin]

Lately I've been working on a small two-story house for the town of Dos Manos, on my In-ko-pah Railroad. The first floor will be made of real stone, and the second story will be styrene. The styrene will be textured and painted to simulate the look of old, heavily weathered wood with peeled paint. The technique used to build my stone walls and bridges has been modified slightly to make the stone portion of this building. Here's a look at the construction process: I started with a form made of foam core board: 1/2" thick foam core plugs were used to create the openings for the door and windows: Rock was broken up into small bits with a hammer, then I used tile nippers to shape some of the stones as I placed them into the form. (Later I found a pair of curved tweezers which made it much easier to reach into the tight spaces): The most square stones were used in the corners: Brass "rebar" and hardware cloth were placed over the stones: Then the mortar was added. I used a mix of high strength mortar and vinyl patcher: The form was tipped over and stones were laid into the next section of wall, followed by hardware cloth: This process continued, working my way around the structure one wall at a time: The mortar didn't get worked down into the stones properly in a couple of places on the corners. As a result, some of the corner stones fell out when the building was pulled from the form: I fixed this by gluing stones into the gaps. Dry mortar mix was sprinkled onto the wet glue between the stones. This made the glue look like mortar: On one corner, the mortar oozed under the stones: I carved "stone" shapes into the exposed mortar and then painted them to match the real stone: The door is from Grandt Line. The windows are modified 1/4" scale Grandt Line. I used real, slide cover glass in all the windows: I plan to add some curtains and a simple interior. The curtains will be open enough on the main windows, to allow some of the interior to show. You can't see much of it in this shot but there's a compressed "kitchen" against the back wall. It's got just enough dimension to it to make it look like there's really something there. Here's a pic showing the floor and some of the interior detailing. It's pretty crude, but it's only intended to prevent the structure from looking like an empty box when the lights are on: (Continued in next post)

[Ray Dunakin]

Part 2 The second level of the structure is made of styrene, scribed and painted to look like wood. Here's a close up view of the front wall: . . I broke off a piece of hacksaw blade and fit it into a hobby knife handle. This was used to scribe "wood grain" into the styrene. A hobby knife was used to carve cracks and other details: . . I'm finally having a little success at building my own window frames: . . . Here's a small vent for the attic: . . And here's where I'm at so far: .....................

[Ray Dunakin]

Part 3 . I've been working on the roof. It's removeable, and fits down between the front and rear walls. . I want to use the attic vents to be open, on the theory that this will prevent moisture building up in the structure. So I had to cut rough openings in the roof insert, to correspond with the position of the vents. The vents will be fitted with some kind of small screen to keep out bugs. . The ends of the rafters are just small pieces glued to the eaves. The top of the wall fits into the gap: . The trim at the top of the wall is notched to fit the rafters: . Here you can see how it comes together: . The ceiling for the first level of the house is attached to the underside of the second story. It fits into the stone walls of the first level, "keying" the second level in place yet making it easy to remove. . . I still have to detail the rear wall and the other side wall, and I haven't decided yet what material will be on the roof.

[Ray Dunakin]

Part 4 . I did a little test of some techniques for simulating the look of old wooden boards with peeling paint. I plan to use this method on the upper level of the small house I'm working on. It's meant to replicate the appearance of an old cabin I saw in the desert, which had originally been painted green. Most of the paint had flaked off and the wood beneath was sun-baked and heavily weathered. . I started with a scrap of 1/8" thick styrene about 2" x 4". I scribed "wood grain" into the wood using a piece of hacksaw blade, as described in my other post. A hobby knife was used to carve additional cracks, nail holes, etc. . Next I painted several layers of Apple Barrel acrylic paints, in thin washes, allowing each to dry before adding the next layer. I started with a couple washes of warm brown (Nutmeg), and then a mix of brown and orange (Apricot). Another wash of brown, then a darker, slightly redder brown (Espresso). When applying the darker color, I left some of the lighter areas exposed to provide variation. Last was a thin layer of black, just enough to seep into the crevices; a little more was added to darken specific areas. . This produced a very life-like representation of old, weathered wood: . . Note that for weathered wood in colder, wetter climates, you'd probably need more grays and less of the warm tones. . . Next I dabbed on some small blotches of "Micro Mask". I also added a strip of tape to represent an area which had once been covered by a now-missing batten. . After the Micro Mask had dried, I coated the whole thing with Testor's enamel thinner. While this was still wet, I very lightly brushed on some random splotches of Apple Barrel "Hunter Green" acrylic paint. The paint thinner causes the water-based acrylic to break up and smear unevenly: . . After the paint and enamel thinner had dried, I pulled off the tape. Then I washed the piece in cold water to remove the Micro Mask. The effect turned out beautifully. However, the base coats came off the styrene in a few places. This should be avoidable, simply by better preparation of the surface prior to painting: . . This method of replicating the look of peeling paint on old wood show great promise. In the future I will carefully sand the surface and clean it with alcohol before painting, and that should eliminate the few adhesion problems seen in this test. . Since this is just a test sample and not an actual model, I didn't need to fix the spots where the paint came off. But it was such a nice looking piece, I went ahead and fixed it anywhere. Here's how it looks: . (To be continued)

[McWho2]

Wow!  All of that has me thinking....   Thanks for  the inspriation!    Steve

[ttrigg]

Ray: Just one question! Where do you get all of those 99-hour days? With the constant flow of masterpieces from your hand, you must have a whole bunch more available time than anyone I know of. Another well done my friend, and thanks for the complete lesson on "How To".

[Rex in Pinetop]

Tom,

I think you meant Ray and not Rex.  Rex is the guy who can't get the hang of mixing mortar.  Ray is the true stone artist.

Ray,

Truely beautiful work.

Rex

 

[ttrigg]

Rex in Pinetop

Tom,

I think you meant Ray and not Rex.  Rex is the guy who can't get the hang of mixing mortar.  Ray is the true stone artist.

Ray,

Truely beautiful work.

Rex

 

Doctor says my new "quad-focals" should be in next week.

 

OOPS! 

[Ray Dunakin]

Part 4... I made a fancy "wood" post for the front porch of the house. It's actually bits of telescoping square brass tubing, soldered together. I also added a thin coat of solder to the major surfaces, to aid in scribing simulated wood grain. It'll be a while before I can paint it, but here's how it looks unpainted: . . I also made a ceiling-mounted lamp for the front porch. It's made from a brass brad, and a round, plastic button: . I drilled out the interior of the spherical button. When a grain of rice bulb is inserted and lit, the effect is really nice. . .