Joel's Lineside Shed

Joel

Well time to dive back into some model building. I've been working on a small mining scene and wanted to build this little beauty for the foreground and hopefully upscale the bunkhouses from "essentials" for the background.

I started with preparing the stripwood. I've experimented with quite a few methods in the last year and have settled on a slightly altered version of Brett's method. Not sure if it will be to everyones tastes but I find it saves a bunch of time and yeilds pretty nice variation in colour.

First of course is the texture. Since much of the wood is only textured on one side I used double sided tape and stuck it down to a pine board.

Then I used a few wire brushes ( I use the stiffer ones made to strip paint).

First I strike the boards randomly with the stiffest brush. This causes a bunch of tiny holes which may be smaller knotholes or deterioration from other sources. Then I brush the boards and really work some of the board ends.

Then I drill many small holes up and down the board with my dremel. Usually I do a couple of sizes. The I scribe in some deeper lines with a dental pick and then I sand the surface with 400grit sandpaper. This is all really easy with the wood stuck on the board.

Then I take some asphaltum ( an aging glaze found in paint stores or Lowes) and paint it on. Sprinkle a bit of white chalk to vary the shade a bit and then wipe it all off. Pretty much the colour of 403.9. Now let it dry. BTW best with thin wood to remove from the tape now and colour both sides so there is less warping.

Now instead of drybrushing chalk or paint I take a stick of chalk (in this case 3) and rub a flattened side over the boards. if you press with minimal pressure the colour sticks to the raised portions and the "Grain" stays dark. I use a couple of browns and then a final coat of grey. then a quick spray of Fixative (less likely to disolve away the chalk than "Dullcoat").




Meanwhile I tend to precolor my toothpicks by dipping both ends into AI and the ink wicks up. saves me the trouble of colouring each later and avoids the poorly staining gluey areas.


Now I glue the toothpicks in place removing almost all the glue before inserting at various angles. I rarely make the hole as big as a toothpick but usually just big enough to get 1/2 of the bevelled part insertted. You can twist and push a bit harder and get bigger knotts.

Now I use a rail nipper but on inspection I didn't like most of the results so I used a new single edged razor and sliced off the small nubbin of toothpick so it is almost flush.

Tah duh!

Now on to the walls....

Joel

I forgot to mention. Because of the order in which I do this many of the knotholes look great without even needing a toothpick as they are filled with sawdust and paint. I would say 25% are more than acceptable.
the three in the top board and one in each of the middle and lower boards are examples.

PaulSmulders

Hi Joel, excellent tutorial on strip wood treatment and you're right ... not all knot holes have knots in them. Looking forward to the rest of your build.

Paul

Karl.A

Great work Joel and very effective results.
Looking forward to more!!

Karl.A

brownbr

Looks fantastic. I'm going to give it a try

Jerry

Joel very nice coloring. Can't say much about the knot holes will have to wait to see them on the frame.
Guess I'm just not a real big fan of that many of them.

Jerry

Joel

Fair enough Jerry. like I said this might not be to all people's taste. That said I'm trying to model the type of barn board I see up here in Canada which tends to be pine and spruce and often has tons of knots. Her's a few picks of the real thing:

MikeM

I notice on the left side of the first image an interesting effect where the knots were apparently set at right angles to the plane along which the log was sawed into boards. Have you tried to replicate this effect, perhaps just gouging the wood, then staining the scratch marks?

James

I was going to post a comment yesterday that this is a great technique for replicating aged pine, which weathers differently than cedar/ fir- but you beat me to it!

Jerry

Joel now that I see what your doing. Yes it makes sense and a fine example. I'll be following to see how this comes out.
Is this an EXPO Show Model????

Jerry

Joel

Hi Mike, I've used the toothpick technique on larger beams like this one:
In fact I might use it too often I like the effect so much. I think a woodburner or soldering iron with a fine tip would would really well. That board might better be left as one of those things that look fake when you model them even though there are real examples.

To get an idea of where this is going here's an interior shot of a wall I'm working on and an exterior shot and yes Jerry the hope is to bring this model to the Expo if it is ready. Still a lot to build but I like to show something I'm working on...

admin

Wonderful work Joel! I really love the overall feel. Great color and peeling paint...

MikeM

Amazing!

Jerry

Joel great coloring nice peel. Knots look a lot better with some paint on them.

Besides that what is inside with the gear showing????

Jerry

Joel

Thanks for the kind words. The gear is a mine winch I'm working on. The Lineside shed is a foreground model and I hope to put the Bunkhouses as backround (the big plan)

I started building the walls and glued down the siding. As a small deviation from the excellent instructions I always save the board ends and use them either where boards abut or on the bottom of walls where they might be seen. I've tried weathering the ends with brushes and knives and sandpaper but the cut end of the boards out of the box are always best. Maybe I just have to learn to be a better modeler. So when I put the strip wood guides down I then abut the chewed up board ends on the bottom of the wall, it saves time as I don't have to trim them later.

Also because my chalk application is random some boards do come out better than others so I try and sort them and use the best ones on the front of the model.



For the inside I used the same technique but no knotholes and a browner hue.

Now on to the battens...

Joel

Now the window frames and battens....Again I choose the ones with the chewed up ends for the batten bottoms.

davej

Joel, this is looking fantastic. I really like the knotwork. I'll have to grow some patience and have a go at the toothpick method that you have used.
cheers
Dave

Karl.A

Outstanding Joel. You really have mastered these techniques and are elevating them. Beautiful modelling for us to enjoy and aspire to.

Karl. A.

Joel

Karl, thanks so much - says the student to the teacher. If I could do a tenth the work you do I'd be happy. Thank goodness you are willing to share and help.

Wes

Hi Joel. What a pleasure to see such great work. Im looking forward to the next update.

Joel

Well Wes here it is. Sorry to disappoint but I've gone off on a tangent today. I decided I wanted to do shingles on the bunkhouses (which I haven't yet built). I realized I would need a ton of them but I decided it was worth the investment in precut stripwood. I went to my favourite hobby store and was hoping to buy 10-20 packs of 1X10 or 1X12, possible some thinner and few 2X10. Unfortunately they didn't have anything bigger than a 1X4 in stock. I'm inpatient and so stopped at a Home Depot and found an 8 foot long piece of birch veneer for $7. (probably saved more than $50) I cut off about 8" and put in grain as I did with the other wood. I had to use a stiffer brush and push harder but the "grain" didn't disappear as much as with the basswood.

Then I cut the sheet into strips with a ruler. Making varying widths.


Then the asphaltum and rubbing chalk followed by fixative


Then I used a "chopper" to cut 1/2 long pieces. I used it like Kevin described whereby I would put the blade on the surface of the wood and then bend up and snap the wood to give a rough/worn appearance.



Then I experimented gluing some on the back side of another building:


Really quite pleased with my cheap alternative. Might actually use it as the boards for the bunkhouse walls.

Jerry

Great idea and really they came out to be so nice looking shingles.

Jerry

Wes

Joel that post is no disappointment at all. Infact its very informative and a trick ill be saving for future use. Thanks for posting.

James

Funny u mention the issue of board ends- I came to the same conclusion - I really like the way the out-of-box ends stain. I guess it is how they are cut. I use a soaking method to colour the strip wood so I do some advance distressing and if possible cut to length prior to soaking - including roughing up the ends - and then more distressing afterwards. By the way I love the "Eurotool" for this work. Pre-cutting isn't always viable of course and the ends can be coloured afterwards with a number of methods - yeah but I do save those ends for the same purposes!

Karl.A

Looking great Joel, a continued pleasure to follow along with you.

Karl.A

Joel

Well I've been busy but got a few hours of modeling in. I've finished the windows and glued the walls together. I tried adding a few small knotholes with a soldering iron but they may be a bit too much. Here's the fine soldering point I found at michaels and the building as the walls near completion.

Now I'm starting on the bunkhouses. I photocopied the cardboard parts and enlarged them 181% so I got essentially O scale plans. I spray glued the back and pressed it on some cardboard and cut out the pieces.


I don't have a huge stock of stripwood so I decided to try using the birch veneer here too. It's my first scratch build ever so why not go all the way. I stained the veneer the same way except I used mostly 408.10 a very light grey chalk. Also instead of cutting random widths I used a piece of 4X10 stripwood and tried to make all the pieces similar.


It's a background building so I want less detail and so brushed the wall a bit with a wire brush (brass) which defused the grey a bit.

Jerry

Joel nice start on the bunk houses. Really like the color.

Jerry

davej

Coming along very nicely, love the shingle, I'd love to try that method but would be very fiddly for HO I think.
cheers
Dave

Karl.A

Nice colouring on that wall Joel.

I used the birch veneer extensively also when I started scratchbuilding. All of my early builds used it for clapboards and shingles. great stuff indeed. cedar sheet cigar box liners are also good for shingles. your local cigar store will just be throwing them away.

Dave check out Bills Twin mills build thread. he did individual shingles on one of the buildings, looks awesome.

Karl.A

Joel

Thanks Karl,
I should have known you would have invented it before I came along. I haven't been able to track down any cedar sheets yet but I'm hoping to hit a few cigar stores this week.

I hand shingled my shipyard in HO but I used 1x8s and 1x10s and mixed in about 1/3 paper shingles. But that's in a different post/thread.

Joel

OK a couple of days off and we're right back into it. The bunkhouse #2 walls are covered in veneer. I drilled holes at various angles and added a few knotholes with black toothpicks.

\Then snipped off and trimmed flat with a razor blade.

Now the difficult part. Another first. I'm going to make the windows. What a pain. I made a small jig out of cardboard with a small hole so I can remove the finished window pane.

Then used a dirty piece of plastic sheet (from an old overhead projector) and cut the "Glass". Then added the wooden frame (1X2) using a speck of ACC to hold it together. I

I added the mullion cut from the selfstick windowboard from the Lineside Shed kit. I cut thin strips (1X1) and stained with AI.

Then I removed it from the jig and touched the ACC to the edges and it wicked up and made the window nice and solid.

Whew, just 18 more to go....