Great information! Thanks guys!
HO-Velo farrellaa I mixed my brick color using Folkart 433 Terra Cotta with a little of the Apple Barrel white and 21469 Flag Red. Bob, Don't want to be a bother, but I'm ready to gather up some craft paint and do a little experimenting following your brick painting method and colors. Was wondering if you thinned the base color paint mixture before application? Also, did you brush it on? Your suggestion of having a batch of the base color on hand is a good idea as it seems that older brick structures in many cities and towns are pretty much of the same color brick. I have a few hydrocal casting simulated brick stucture kits to build and craft paint washes work great on them. Thanks and regards, Peter
farrellaa I mixed my brick color using Folkart 433 Terra Cotta with a little of the Apple Barrel white and 21469 Flag Red.
Bob,
Don't want to be a bother, but I'm ready to gather up some craft paint and do a little experimenting following your brick painting method and colors. Was wondering if you thinned the base color paint mixture before application? Also, did you brush it on?
Your suggestion of having a batch of the base color on hand is a good idea as it seems that older brick structures in many cities and towns are pretty much of the same color brick.
I have a few hydrocal casting simulated brick stucture kits to build and craft paint washes work great on them.
Thanks and regards, Peter
Peter,
No bother. I don't thin the acrylic paints, just brush them on with a wide (1/2") flat brush. When it is dry, I brush on the mortar color and wipe it off before it dries, ususally within 30-45 seconds, but I am sure you could wait a minute or more, just don't let it dry out. I have used a wash for the mortar but prefer using a full strenght paint. Hope this helps. Good luck with your structures.
-Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
farrellaaI mixed my brick color using Folkart 433 Terra Cotta with a little of the Apple Barrel white and 21469 Flag Red.
Bob and Wayne - Excellent modeling!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
selector Thanks for your detailed reply, Bob. As a wise Roman once quipped, "Post proellium, praemium." "After the battle, the reward." I'd say you should be highly satisfied with the outcome, the nits notwithstanding. I would be very pleased to accomplish what you have. -Crandell
Thanks for your detailed reply, Bob. As a wise Roman once quipped, "Post proellium, praemium." "After the battle, the reward." I'd say you should be highly satisfied with the outcome, the nits notwithstanding. I would be very pleased to accomplish what you have.
-Crandell
thanks Crandell, I am just letting it sit on the layout now, deciding how much and if at all I want to weather it. I sometimes sit on a model for a while before doing the final weathering to make sure I don't get over enthusiastic! I am still adjusting it's position on the real estate available. I am very pleased with how it turned out, especially considering the effort expounded.
Wayne,
I had looked at that kit (IHC Novelty Iron ) with the idea of making it a better suited structure for one part on my layout, but having built several IHC/Korber/Kibri structures, I was afraid it would be too European for me, but not lacking the quality of their molds. I now see that you can make it into a great looking model, and you certainly have made it your own. Very nice work. I may go back and try one now!
Thanks,
Bob
farrellaaThe kits do make nice finished models if you can overlook some of the mismatch detail.
The RDA kits have been around for awhile. As with many things people get nostalgic about, things weren't quite as neat and tidy as we remember. Standards have risen dramatically since CAD came along. Compared to the handwork of old, there can be vastly improved expectations in new models.
Many/most of the older kits simply don't have enough demand to warrant reworking them to present-day standards. This is a case where it's best to appreciate the fact it's available. You sure feel like you've accomplished something once they're built, which is perhaps the feeling we're actually remembering from the past, not the ordeal it took to get there.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Nice looking structure, Bob, and a nice job of finishing it, too.
farrellaa ...If I had to rate their difficulty on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 the easiest), for a plastic kit I would rate it a 8 or 9. I refer to them as 'Craftsman' plastic kits! There are several things about these kits that make it more difficult....
One of the things which annoys me about craftsman-type kits is poor quality castings. I wonder if the equally inadequate instructions are a by-product of that: after all, it wouldn't look too good if the first paragraph (or page) were to read: "Clean-up all improperly-formed parts, determine the best method to address the mismatched masonry details at the corners, alter the doors and windows (or their respective openings) to ensure a more prototypical appearance, etc., etc., etc."
To then charge an inflated price because they've slapped "craftsman kit" on the box is, to me at least, insulting. Yeah, it would likely take a craftsman to achieve a good result (and you obviously are), but it seems to me that it's not particularly good value when you could buy a more reasonably priced kit without the built-in shortcomings and use the same talents to turn it into something beyond the photo on the box.
A friend gave me this kit - he had a bunch of them bought for less than $10.00 apiece.
I wasn't, originally, at least, particularly smitten with it, but decided to see if I could make something of it to suitably express my gratitude for the gift.I built it with both long walls facing the viewer, as the layout is an around-the-room style. Other than having to trim the mating ends of those walls and re-do the mortar joints, all corners and their mortar joints matched-up perfectly. The windows (a little on the heavy side) fit precisely, and the modified kit was a pleasure to build. I added my version of craftsmanship to strengthen the elongated structure and scratchbuild a new roof, and then built the loading dock board-by-board using Evergreen strip styrene.Pretty well all of the added labour was to achieve the altered appearance, not to correct deficiencies in the kit.
I used Pollyscale paints for the stonework and trim, and Floquil on the roof, but will definitely try those craft paints when my supply of those runs out.
Once again, very nice work, Bob.
Wayne
Bob, Much appreciate your photos, detailed painting tutorial and kit review, good stuff.
Thanks again and regards, Peter
Selector,
This is the fourth RDA kit I have built and this one was the most difficult. If I had to rate their difficulty on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 the easiest), for a plastic kit I would rate it a 8 or 9. I refer to them as 'Craftsman' plastic kits! There are several things about these kits that make it more difficult;
#1- is that the sprues are very large where they connect to the part and that leaves a lot of clean-up;
#2 - the walls sections don't match at the corners so you have to fudge them and even carve new detail around the edge of the wall that is now part of it's adjacent wall (on this kit the brick detail doesn't line up with the mating walls, I mean way off, like 1/16" or more;
#3 - the details like windows and doors don't fit the openings, some are too small and some too big? This should have been made to fit when the molds were made?
#4 - the instructions are very poor with almost no illustrations and the photos they show are poor quality:
#5 - the mold draft is severe on some parts and there is a lot of filing,sanding and scraping to get parts to meet correctly.
The kits do make nice finished models if you can overlook some of the mismatch detail. They also use the same wall sections for several models and just rearrange them to create a different building. Half of this kit is the same as two other buildings I have built from RDA; at least they are on opposite sides of the layout. This model has taken me about 3-4 days to build and paint, but I still have to add details and weather it, so another day of work; and then I plan to put some LED lights in and a couple of floors/walls to 'control' the light. I will post photos when I get it done.
Thanks for the interest.
Thanks Mike and Peter. I am learning how to use these inexpensive acrylic paints and get the results I had in my mind.
Peter, the brick building was lightly primed with the light grey primer (this is a very important step; to put a primer on first!) but I let some of the plastic red/brown (see new photo of unpainted model) show through. I mixed my brick color using Folkart 433 Terra Cotta with a little of the Apple Barrel white and 21469 Flag Red. I don't know the proportions, just added a little of each to get the shade I wanted. After that dried thoroughly I used a wash of Folkart 949 Skintone and wiped it off with the paper towel leaving the color in the mortar lines. I have to admitt that I wasn't sure of the final colors until I saw them in the mixing dish and luckily I mixed enough to finish the entire building!
Many of the paints are only $ .50 at Walmart and some are about $1.00 at Hobby Lobby. I try to pick up a couple of colors each time my wife goes there. There are some colors that rival the Polly Scale and Floquil RR colors as far as the color match goes. I may have to go back and mix a 'batch' of the brick color and keep it in an empty bottle for my other brick structures that I have waiting for me to start.
PS: I remember the bread man and the milk man and the egg man back in New York in the 1950's. What a concept! Home delivery!
Smoly Hoke, that's pretty darned impressive, Bob. Well done. Can you tell us something about the kit, the hours it took, rate it on a scale of difficulty to assemble...anything?
farrellaa The brick building is part of the kit and I used a similar method to finish it
Bob, Thanks for the photo of the entire kit. I do like the look of your brick industrial building and wondering what colors you chose and your application?
Ah, the old panel trucks, reminds me of the days when the "bread man" would come around honking his horn. And behind those back doors along with the bread products were the wooden drawers full of donuts, plain, glaze or chocolate, nickel each, jelly and custard filled a dime.
Thanks again, Peter
Gotta agree with Peter. Awesome work, your technique really highlights the stones.
HO-Velo Bob, Nice work, looks good! Refreshing to see what great effects can be acheived with skilled hands, injection molded plastic, spray bomb and craft paints. I like the Oldsmobile too! The nice looking building on the left hand side of the skyway appears to be brick, did you use the same technique? Thanks and regards, Peter
Bob, Nice work, looks good! Refreshing to see what great effects can be acheived with skilled hands, injection molded plastic, spray bomb and craft paints. I like the Oldsmobile too!
The nice looking building on the left hand side of the skyway appears to be brick, did you use the same technique?
Thanks for the kind words. These RDA kits are a lot of work but can be made into nice models. The brick building is part of the kit and I used a similar method to finish it, just didn't do any multiple colors under the wash. I did use a color similar to the brick color so there wasn't much contrast, which is what I wanted. I just added a photo of the whole model.
I bought my son a dark green Olds just like the model; very nice car.
I just finished the 'painting' of the RDA Delany's Iron Works model and had some good sucess with the stone building. I primed the entire model with a light gray primer (rattle can) and then dabbed dark grey/gray and beige acrylic craft paints all over the sides of the building. When they were set a few minutes I went back and dry blended them with the same brush. Once all was set, I brushed a light tan (actually called 'skin tone' by Apple Barrel craft paints) in small areas at a time and then wiped it off the top of the stones with a paper towel. While doing this I noticed that if I used a clean area of the towel as a final 'wipe' it gave some of the larger stones a polished look; quite realistic. I haven't finished the model yet, still have to do final assembly and weathering, but wanted to show what can be done with inexpensive paints. The RDA models are mostly New England style buildings and used a lot of stonework in them.