I'm about to begin building the Valley Growers Assoc grain elevator and I'd like to know if anyone out there has already built one. I'm looking for ideas on paint colors. If you would, please post photos of your Valley Growers and tell us which color paint you used (and whose paint).
Did you have to brace the tall walls of the elevator?
Thanks,
Jeff
I'll bump your post, there must be grain elevators in this community.
I don't currently have room for a grain elevator, nor did I grow up in grain elevator country. Google has images
Grain Elevators
Some are wood, some metal and some concrete. You can sort that out. Howard Zane is fond of mixing paints rather that painting with just one color. You couldn't go too wrong if your elevator looks painted by Howard. Whose paint seems less critical to me.
Weathering is important, even if you want a relatively clean look.
I'm pretty liberal about bracing buildings with square plastruct tubing. It makes a stronger corner joint. Some of my structures have moved 2 times and I have never had anything come apart.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I recently built an N scale version of the Valley Growers grain elevator. The picture shows it sitting on my layout but it is not in place permantely yet. Still needs decals and surrounding landscape.
I have seen many of this type grain elevator. Typically covered with metal siding as this model is. Never seen metal one that was totally painted but they may exist. Painted ones were always wood. I painted mine aluminum using acrylic Vallejo Model Air #71-062. Then I weathered it with a brush using a rusty colored acrylic paint. Don't recall what I used for weathering but I think it was an Apple Barrel acrylic. I model the 70's so a structure like this would be older thus my weathering was somewhat heavy. Also has LED lights in main building as well as the truck shed on side.
No braces to side wall in the N scale version.
Paul D
N scale Washita and Santa Fe RailroadSouthern Oklahoma circa late 70's
Bigdaddy,
Thanks for the bump, everyone must be busy doing other things. My thought about whose paint is that if I like the color of someone's elevator, then I would know who made the paint. I figure it will be some shade of gray (I've heard there are 50 shades of gray), so knowing who made the paint and the color name would be real helpful.
Thanks for the tip on corner bracing.
PED,
Nice elevator, nicely rusted without looking decrepit. Did you use the dry brush technique to weather it?
PED Malawarebytes is blocking your site for invalid SSL protocol
BigDaddyPED Malawarebytes is blocking your site for invalid SSL protocol
I get the same warning: u.cubeupload is malicious spyware.
I stumbled across this neat documentary a while back. Maybe you can pick up some ideas for details and weathering while you watch a very well produced film.
Hope you can watch it on a decent-sized screen. At 4:45 you can see him make the grain-door for the boxcar. Good Stuff
Good Luck, Ed
Mine is Walthers' earlier "wooden" grain elevator, but I added a scratchbuilt farm supply store annex, with a scalehouse attached...
Mine's painted with PollyScale, but likely a mix of two or three "boxcar reds". I don't often use colours straight from the bottle.
Other suitable colours that I've seen for grain elevators are white or cream, and green, but metal elevators might be unpainted, too, usually with some rust.
Wayne
This site has more ideas for elevators than you can imagine http://www.grainelevatorphotos.com/ . The typical color for the corrugated elevators was silver, with white being less common.
Milton Elevators 1 by wp8thsub, on Flickr
Milton Elevators 1
I don't have the Walthers elevator, but do have a scratchbuilt example with the usual monochrome paint job.
Rob Spangler
jcopilot PED, Nice elevator, nicely rusted without looking decrepit. Did you use the dry brush technique to weather it?
Yes. I put a strip of tape at each metal joint to create a sharp line like seen on real sheet metal siding then dry brushed on some paint very lightly.
Strange about my pitchure site. I don't have any problemwith it but others report that it shows up as malware. Need to find a different site.
PED jcopilot PED, Nice elevator, nicely rusted without looking decrepit. Did you use the dry brush technique to weather it? Yes. I put a strip of tape at each metal joint to create a sharp line like seen on real sheet metal siding then dry brushed on some paint very lightly. Strange about my pitchure site. I don't have any problemwith it but others report that it shows up as malware. Need to find a different site.
It's interesting how the rust creeps up from the bottom of the metal sheets on some buildings and others it creeps down from the top of the sheets. When it creeps up from the bottom, in time the sheet will rust away, leaving a ragged lower edge. On the plastic model, any damage/tear (removel of plastic with a Dremel Tool from the inside of building) to the metal will make the damaged metal look thin, like a truck backing into the building or some piece of equipment fell aginst the building and gouged the metal there would be more rust streaking down.
According to the Malabytes fourm there is a cubeupload site and a u.cubeupload site. They block the latter. If I understand the explanation clicking on some of pics get you a virus. It's not clear if it's just one pic on the site or multiple pics.
Imgur works pretty well for me.
BigDaddy According to the Malabytes fourm there is a cubeupload site and a u.cubeupload site. They block the latter. If I understand the explanation clicking on some of pics get you a virus. It's not clear if it's just one pic on the site or multiple pics. Imgur works pretty well for me.
Strange. I don't know anything about the u.cubeupload. My account is at cubeupload.com. I just want a free site. I signed up for Imgur so will try it next time I need to post a picture
doctorwayne,
Another beautiful scene. Has there ever been a magazine article on your layout? I'm looking for a suitable gray/dulled silver/old sheet metal color.
PC101 - send me an email.
Using tape is a clever idea, I think I'll borrow that one. That's the great thing about this forum - sharing ideas.
I appreciate your kind words, Jeff, but I doubt very much that my layout as a whole would be of much interest as a magazine feature. It's intended for a single operator, and fairly low volume trains operating on point-to-point runs.
There are quite a few silver paints available, some duller than others, but an application of Dulcote should tone down any that are too shiney.You could also add weathering, either with sprays, dry brushing, or washes, and in various colours to tie the structure into the landscape and era in which it's placed.
The roof on this background structure (originally with a flat roof) was done with Campbell's corrugated aluminum sheets, weathered with various paints and artists' oil-based pastels...
Same sheet material on the roof of the Lowbanks Car Shop, but weathering (an early attempt) done using an airbrush...
...and the same material for this fence...
Weathering is mostly pastel powders, applied with a soft brush - it comes in a wide variety of colours, including several greys, and is very inexpensive. I simply rub the pastel stick on some coarse sandpaper, then dump the resultant powder into a suitable container. Simply dip the brush into it and apply to whatever you wish. The business name was airbrushed, using a home made stencil.
This is a fun structure to build. I painted mine a dull gray and weathered with some small, brown spots for rust. Another cool weathering technique is some light yellow for any grain that might fall at the bottom.
For the walls, I painted some long stryene poles white to show gutters.
Sorry that I don't have any photos--the strcture is not yet shocase ready for the new layout.
I think the corrugated metal grain elevators were pretty much left "as is" without being painted. The issue really is weathering, I like the look of the Walthers pic with the various shades of rusty red (along with the dark roof panels).
https://www.walthers.com/valley-growers-association-kit