Well the second child building was for my middle son, He owns a landscaping business under the name of PLM ( professional lawn maintenance ) and I had come across a rather beat up Piko stone building, the walls were all unattached and was missing a roof, glue on the back where a shed roof had been glues and generally in pretty poor shape, but for $15.00 what do you want. I started by removing the windows, used acetone to soften the old glue and scraping with a hobby knife. Cleaning the glue on the back was a pain but got thru it with the help of a dremel tool having to re carve the cracks and remove debris from the rock base. Colored the stone with multi flayers of different color paints to try and simulate Coquina which is an indigenous to the area consisting of limestone and sea creature shells. Coquina buildings in the area, which there are quite a few) have the rocks separated with a rather coarse seams of black tar looking like rope. So after painting I scribed the lines with a small tip magic marker and the coating the service with Krylon dull coat. Added an awning from left over playmobil stuff and roof from older scankit. The old time lawn mower I purchased from hobby store and although it is 1" scale it looked good as sign logo. Lettering as with daughter's Lisa O came from sign maker for restaurants daily specials. Mikes letters on his real business are orange with outer edges white and as being not that sturdy of hand sprayed the letters orange and then stuck the orange side down on masking tape and sprayed the letters again with white paint. Mike's brother Brian (Barn's Texaco) when about 3 couldn't say Michael so he called him MIKE MO. How fitting 40 years later he would own his a mowing and landscape business.
Tom Trigg
Nice!
Get the Garden Railways newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month