The Main Street Warehouse #206 - in O scale. Karl.A

kebmo

it looks great. really great.

Karl.A

Thanks Kevin, I appreciate that,
especially as I'm kinda hitting a sticking point, not really sure where to go next...
sitting, staring alot right now...

Definitely doing a kit build after this one, no thinking, just following the instructions.

brownbr

The deck is a well ordered mess. Looks great.

ALCO

I’m going to add these pix to my notebook that has your tutorial on painting castings. Nice natural colors with subdued splashes of color. Good stuff.

Joel

Looks great. Love the chain for the awning support. The details won't be lost because of the lighting. It'll actually be enhanced in a way - more intimate.

Wes

Id be more than happy with the result Karl.

Karl.A

Thanks so much Bryan, Alan Joel and Wes, I'm happy as it is, I always hate putting roofs on though.

I spent the last few days basically just sitting and staring as I mentioned to Kevin, this is not the part/stage of a build I relish while I'm doing it. So far it works out, but I get too tough on myself while doing it, and then, everything is fine. Eventually things just seem to come together.

I worked out and cut a new base for the diorama, which is surprisingly bigger than I thought I would need.
After that I laid out the main structure, built another mock-up for the work shed and started planning out the scrap yard. Figuring out the details and the spacing. I also made the ties and epoxied them down.



I also worked out the signage I wanted, one for the face of the brick building and I've always wanted to do a peeled, aged sign, painted onto a fence, this dio, the way I laid it out, gave me that opportunity, it took me several hours last night to figure it out but I'm fairly happy with the result.



Tonight I primed some of the details for the scrap yard scene, found the grout I needed in the garage for the base so I'm planning to get that down tonight.

Mountaingoat

This is looking great. It should come together perfectly as usual.....Rick

KCSTrains

Karl, you work faster than anyone I know ... and you get great results. Amazing. Phil

mikemettelka

What color grout do you use? Sanded?

Karl.A

Sanded
for the basic initial base a blend of 2 parts linen 1 part summer wheat mixed for a mid tone.

when going back and detailing...

light areas straight linen for pathways, roads, etc

straight summer wheat for darker areas, ie under scenery, around details, next to structures etc.

Karl.A

I hope so Rick, I'm not sure about perfect but, I'm not going to post those pics..ha

Thanks Phil, I really appreciate that.

Jerry

What a fine job you've been doing on this one Karl. You still have that magic touch when it comes to detailing.

Jerry

mikemettelka

Thank you Karl!

Karl.A

Thanks Jerry and Mike.

I laid the base layer of dirt last night and left it to dry. Structures and fence are just placed to show how much space I'm working with for the yard.
Working on the work shed right now so that I can glue it to it's foundation, then add legs to the fence and place that.


While clearing up I found some corrugated panels already etched, I cant remember what they were for so I'll use them for the work shed.


Also started putting the first layer of finish on some of the main details so I can plan the space out.


and started adding some weathering to the roof panels.



More later.

Karl.A

Mountaingoat

I swear you have a magical touch. How you do that many details that fast with such fantastic results. I would be days just trying to get close to what you do.....Rick

Karl.A

Thanks Rick, very kind of you to say so.
I just wish I could plan things out and lay them out as quick as I can paint them.

After the last pics I decided I needed to start planning things out before I started weathering anything or painting anymore. An hour or so to paint them and then 2 or 3 moving them around.

This is just my fourth pass or so to find mistakes and sightlines of the arrangement, still a few things to move around with these larger details and some to eliminate before getting to scenery and then smaller details.

A couple of things I know I'm going to change from this layout but it's closer, now I need to build a few sawhorses, a workbench and find a welding cart to start filling it out and see where I'm headed.
Visualisation is good for starting out but now I need specifics to fill out spaces and hopefully get things 'right'.

SteveCuster

Looks great Karl! Is the rust on the panels only chalk + alcohol or did you use some paint as well?

Karl.A

Thanks Steve, which panels ? The roof panels or the mack truck body panels?

I looked everywhere in my kits for a SW welding cart, I know I've got one somewhere, but, after an hour last night and another hour tonight.

I gave up looking and grabbed some brass rods/shapes and my soldering iron.

Not having that part has stopped me on further progress, laying out the yard.

Of course we all know that my SW one will show up tomorrow, now that I don't need it, but that one can wait for another project.





Another hurdle, hurdled, not weathered/finished yet, but, planning out progress can resume.

Robert.G

The rust on the corrugated roof is very well done. Not over-done. And I like the sagging of the tarpaper roof. Overall , a nice diorama Karl.. Can only get better.

SteveCuster

Karl I was referencing the rusting on the corrugated panels.

Karl.A

It’s just paint right now Steve. Burnt umber and a very little raw sienna over that.
I may put a little dry rust chalk on when it’s glued down at the end but I’m still handling it and working on it so chalk would get messed up at this point.

SteveCuster

Thanks Karl. I can never get the newer but a little rusty look on my corrugated roof. It never looks good when I do it until I keep rusting it until it’s a rusty weathered rusted out junk roof. Of course the norm in real life is straight gray or other paint or what you have here with a little sign of rust but still in tact.

Joel

Karl, fantastic details. Love the welding cart. As always looking forward to it all coming together.

Karl.A

Steve, I have a 1/2" brush with stiff bristles, it's a very cheap brush from the paint store, I very lightly put the tip of the bristles into the paint, then dab it off till I get a pattern I like, then dab it onto the panels. The result of the first step of this method with just the burnt umber is shown above. If you want pics of the full process I'll do it next time for you.

Thanks Joel, I appreciate it, I'm working on the small tedious things right now as I didnt have much model time last week, updates to follow in the next posts.

Karl.A

As noted in my last post, not much modeling time, or motivation last week, so I decided to just do one small thing most days when I could. Several sessions were also spent going through some of my drawers, organising and purging.
Anything notable, or maybe what I thought may be vaguely interesting I photo'd.

I really wanted to get to work on the diorama (which is unlike me of past) but I knew there was way too much to do first... so, I took everything off the base, went back to basics and reigned myself in.

I re-laid out the scrap scene several times over a couple of nights and finished the details for that area.
I worked out the scene between the tracks and brick building
I worked out the front wall for the brick building and planned that.
I worked out the work shed area, including roof details and porch
Made the roof details for the main barn and finished the porch roof
Made the roof for the brick building and made roof details
Detailed the yard fence in respect to the yard
Completed the scrap boilers for the yard scene
Painted/weathered/built all the details for the scenes above, including pallets, stairs, benches, etc.

I think the last thing to do before getting the base back out and pulling it all together is to finish the small things on the actual structures, ie, rafter tails, signage, door handles, touch up, etc

I started on finishing the brick structure, so here's those pic's...

Karl.A

Tonight's progress...
There are several flaws in the casting for the brick structure from before I carved it as can be seen on page one, luckily most of these were fixed or will be hidden by details so no big deal.
There are two on the front wall high up, one will be hidden by the vent, I was going to hide the other with a sign but, it was too low. My hesitance in filling this hole has been getting it to match the finished wall I did 10 years ago. Finally I took the plunge to fill this very visible hole.


I filled the hole with some spackle on a toothpick and exacto carefully, carved and shaped and cleaned off the surrounding bricks and painted as closely as I could to match, here's the result.



I removed the three metal doors from the structure as they looked crooked to me, I fixed/rebuilt/adjusted the original green metal windows and then built a new door for the front wall.





The windows were all already spaced for depth and had blinds, however several window sills were missing, so, I made, painted, added the missing window sills and then framed out the front doorway for the new door.
Next I re-glued the metal doors into the side wall and added that window.




Once all that was dry, I glued the awning frame in place, added the sign for the front wall, (which is two brick rows above the hole repair) and once dry I added the corrugated to the awning.
(I must have knocked the sign during this process as you can see it's crooked, this has been fixed since this picture.)



I guessed that the item to the right of the sign is an airduct on the original kit, so I made one from card, painted it and rusted it to look like metal and as you can see it covers that final visible flaw on the upper front wall nicely.



I think I'll probably finish out the yard shed and main barn tomorrow... pics on that tomorrow.

kebmo

looks really fantastic. i love the doors/windows.

Mountaingoat

You continue to totally amaze me. I didn't see those errors until you pointed them out and the fix to the wall brick completely blends. So much accomplished in a single evening......Rick