Nearing the end of two weeks staycation. Weather the first week was okay. The end of the first week and all of the second week has been hot and hotter. An unexpected repair to the utility trailer door was successfully completed, rebuilding a rotted wood frame. And lots of comics read while enjoying the backyard patio. The nice weather meant there was not a lot of time spent at the modelling bench until I hit on the idea of moving the bench outside.
After some thought, I dug up a couple of grain elevator kits. They were straight forward builds, requiring only simple tools, and most of the painting could be done once everything was fully assembled. So I gathered a knife, sanding stick and some glue, and headed outside. Two pleasant afternoons later, I had assembled two elevator kits and their accessory buildings. Overall an enjoyable experience that I will have to do again.
Well, have slowly been progressing the build over the last week. The first challenge was painting the elevators. I had decided to do one as an orange and yellow Pioneer and the other as a teal Alberta Wheat Pool. i knew that I was going to need to mix the teal, but I was sure I had an appropriate orange paint. Well, turns out I didn’t. All my railroad paints had dried up, and the only orange I had left was a single square Testors bottle I made the mistake of not priming before spraying the orange, and quickly realized that orange covered like yellow. As in very poorly. My single bottle of Testors was quickly exhausted. I made a trip to the comic book store, who sell Tamiya, to discover they had no orange in stock, but I did get what I need to mix up teal. I stopped at the gaming store on the way home, as the carry Citadel brand. As luck would have it, they had a bottle of the exact orange needed. Success!
Back home, I opened my new bottle of orange to discover the paint was like pudding. looking at the bottle more closely, I saw that it was “layer” paint. A quick internet search determine that it was more like a glaze, and wasn’t intended to be used as a base layer. I decided to thin it to a sprayable consistenay and see what happened.
What happened was a mess. The thinned paint clogged the airbrush, even though it was watery and had flow improver added. Worse, it was translucent and wouldn’t build up any coverage. The decision not to prime was chill haunting me. I went back into my paint stock and found a bottle of Scalecoat CP Rail Action Orange. With nothing to lose, I gave it a try. Two thin coats did the trick, but the paint took 5 days before the smell of dry paint was gone.
I sprayed the yellow roof pieces while waiting for the orange to dry. I had read that pink was a good undercoat for hello, amped decide to give it a try. A pink roof looked very strange, but it worked a charm as a primer. The first coat of yellow was almost enough to cover. This was quite a different experience from spraying yellow on the Buffalo.
Now, on to the teal. Matching the color proved easier than I expected, and I had soon mixed up the correct color. this time I primed with a gray, and the teal was covering nicely. But a full color cup only covered two sides of the elevator! i mixed what amounted to a full bottle of color and was able to finish. Two coats and it looked great!
Next, it was time for lettering. Eons ago, I had bought Microscale decals for the Alberta Wheat pool, but would have to make something up for the Pioneer elevator. I dug out the Microscale decals, dry fit against the elevator, and realized they would be too wide! The “wheat pool” lettering was too wide. Scratching my head, I decided to try and make my own. An hour on the computer and I had matched, the font - Franklin gothic demi cond for anyone that wants to make their own - and had everything ready, Now, the big question. Should I cut custom decals or try paint masks? I was worried about how masks would fit on the clapboard, but decided to give masks a try. Here’s the first mask ready to transfer. The centres of the “A‘s” look they are going to be a pain, but at least I know I can cut the letters.
The mask in place. I am not able to get a tight seal on the clapboard using the vinyl masking. I might be able to do it using tape. Now I know the letters are the right size and spacing, i will cut white decal sheet instead.
Cutting decals worked really well. Placing the decals was another story. The decal sheet is very thin. The first challenge is separating the letters from the “waste” sheet arond them. Once that is done, they have to be coaxed into position, with the clapboard ridges resisting every move. The only advantage is that the clapboard provides a ready guide so the letters are easy to get straight.
Here is where things are at the end of the afternoon. The white letters are cut from a white decal sheet. The yellow letters and the logo are from the Microscale decal sheet. Will need lots of decal setting solution to get the logo to bed down, but it is looking pretty good!
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