The train shed: Liverpool (Cheapside) G.W.R.

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
They look good to me, Jonte - how many do you have to produce? Just the two to support the overall roof?

Steph
 

jonte

Western Thunderer
They look good to me, Jonte - how many do you have to produce? Just the two to support the overall roof?

Steph

Hi Steph and thanks for the vote of confidence!

Yes, Steph, just the two sets of columns that you see in the photos. However, they are merely aesthetic as the roof in reality will be supported by three walls to the sides and rear of the shed. That said, I’m keeping my fingers crossed as the theory is yet untested. Perhaps I should rig up an experiment.......If this proves to be my last post on the subject, you’ll know it didn’t go successfully :(

Regards,

Jonte
 

jonte

Western Thunderer
Hi Jonte,

some great work with the weathering, I'm looking forward to the next instalment.

regards

Mike

Thanks, Mike!

At the next opportunity, I’m going to remove the paint from the barge boards - probably with acetone, only because I’ve got it - to reinstate the bare wood, and then start again with my new weathered wood approach. A slight set back especially for an aspect of the model which will barely be seen, but worth it I feel in the long run.

I can then hopefully get on to sticking the interior and exterior bits and pieces to the frame and finally bring this stage of the ‘shed’ to a conclusion.

Regards,

Jonte
 

jonte

Western Thunderer
Painfully aware that I’ve started to neglect this thread, I thought I’d pen a few lines, fellow Westerners, to assure you that I’ve not quite given up on this project; not yet, anyway. Pleased also to report that my anger management therapy has paid dividends: despite testing my patience to the limit, the triangular shaped bits that represent the shed fascias have managed to avoid being chucked in’t bin, although depending on the outcome later on today, it’s T minus four hours or so and counting until launching of said shapes takes place.

Why your angst, Jonte, most won’t bother asking? Well, despite a roaring success with emulating peeling paint on my test piece a couple of posts back, try as I might, the actual bargeboards which are the target of this treatment don’t wanna know. In fact, I’ve rubbed down the paint and started again with the weathered wood substrata below acrylic top coat, that I’ve almost sanded the wooden bargeboards away; one or two having cracked in places around the edges as they’re now so thin.

So later today, I’m trying for the last time, folks, and if this doesn’t work, I’m giving up on the desired effect and just going to run with a soot stained appearance: which is what it will mostly comprise of anyway, even if the process succeeds, as this bore the brunt of all those sooty old engines. Still it would have been satisfying to have seen it in places.
I’m really not sure why it didn’t work following the initial test. I’ve tried leaving the spirit resist for longer and for shorter periods to dry; applied it thinly and plastered it on; applied the top acrylic coat in thin layers and slightly more concentrated layers; and still the stuff didn’t budge.
This time, however, I’m going to use turps as a resist and try just one ‘thick’ coat of topcoat to see if I can finally succeed.
On a final note, I’m wondering whether the type of wood used is at the root of all this vexation. I’ve since tried a second test using the same wood as the initial test (bass wood) and achieved more or less the same results as the first. However, the wood used for the bargeboards is veneer of unknown origin as it’s finer for 4mm use than the thicker basswood, so perhaps therein lies the problem? We’ll see.

Anyway enuff scribing. Here are the boards showing an umpteenth attempt at weathered wood before they’re also lost to the ether:

CB4A79C5-65AE-4B1B-BD31-93D15961EF89.jpeg


Also, here’s the interior central fascia posted to show how I tried to ‘remedy’ the above failed process on the wooden lower beam:

73CF563E-C271-4862-923A-CC88CB59E8B3.jpeg

Here, when the process didn’t work, I thought *** it! and reached for the acetone - we’ll it works on enamels why not acrylics? Once the sheen had gone from the acetone, I attacked it with parcel tape.


The beam on the left was mostly a single long length pulled off in one go, the one on the right being dabbed at in random fashion (or as random as any of us can possibly be). Not sure whether it’s worked or not really, but again, it’ll be weathered along with some more of the boarding above it before final fixing, which should hide a multitude of sins :(

Wish me luck!

Jonte
 

jonte

Western Thunderer
Well fellow Westerners, it’s the morning after the night before and I suppose I should I report the results of my toils yesterday evening, lest any of you were losing sleep over it.

Bottom line: the use of turps in lieu of spirit as a resist, and a thicker top acrylic coat produced negligible results. To be fair, there was some slight release of paint, but nothing to write home about.

Rather than become totally despondent, I reached for my saving grace once more: acetone. Again, if it all went you-know-what-up, then a good coating of grime would come to the rescue, so I toiled onwards, but this time I put into practise one or two little bits of knowledge picked up from my earlier experience of this method with the interior beam shown in my last post. Working in small sections at a time, and working gently as soon as the sheen on the surface of the acetone had disappeared, I more or less managed to exercise some control over what should be a naturally random process. Hopefully, it doesn’t look too contrived; see for yourselves:1BF7A519-AE2C-484A-9CA6-B5230C1D283C.jpeg1A6D08B5-594F-4A8D-9D48-24060BA2CAFE.jpeg
Overall, not too bad and an improvement on my last effort.

Of course, this was in contrast to the manhandling of the model in an attempt to remove the paint using the resist method which produced one or two casualties in the process, not least of all the breaking free of the bargeboard from its base as can be seen in the lower left of this picture:

86EA651F-12F6-48FD-82A9-43985E61823D.jpeg

A spot of glue should sort this out, but I’ll definitely think twice in future before employing this technique, which to be fair, is more suited to the larger scales. Nevertheless, with the right materials and in the hands of a competent, it still has its merits as advocated by Mr. Doan, although in future, I shall prepare several strips of whatever material I’m using, and select the best prior to fixing to the model. We live and learn.

Now, it’s time to fix the damaged board and add some weathering to.....ahem....’enhance’ all this distressing before I eventually cover it up!

Cheers for now,

Jonte

Edit, to apologise for yet more poor quality piccies. Unfortunately, my proximity to this most Irish of Seas on this rather blustery day prohibits my use of natural light, even though one or two beams of sunlight have managed to penetrate the cloud cover over the last hour or so. I’ll try again perhaps a little later when things have died down a little. Jonte.
 
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jonte

Western Thunderer
Hello



I can't speak for the Mods, but you carry right on overwhelming, chum. It's lovely work you're doing there. Very faded. Very degraded. Spot on.

Cheers

Jan

As usual, Jan, your kind words are deeply appreciated and highly valued.

I hope you enjoyed the flower show and managed to avoid the storms.

Thanks for your interest.

Jonte
 

jonte

Western Thunderer
Before I inundate you all with more of the same, my fellow Westerners, may I just place on record my humblest thanks to friends, old and new, who’ve kindly taken an interest in these feeble meanderings of mine, with their ‘likes’ and kind words of encouragement - even the odd compliment or two - that spur on this ham-fisted loner,especially when sometimes he just feels like casting it to the four winds and walking away. Actually, that sounds a bit profound for this time of the morning, but I’m sure you all understand what I mean, so thank you all.

Meanwhile, spurred on by your interest fellow Westerners, I decided to attend to that window dressing that I mentioned in my last post by giving the fascias a slightly more grubby appearance. I also gave the whole lot a thin wash of signal red just to blend it all - why red? Dunno, really - that hopefully succeeds in reducing the starkness of colour contrast between light and dark stone paints. Whether it’s worked or not is open to debate, but I think it’s tamed the appearance at least for now:

19AB36DD-8B99-4E5D-A7E5-EB0CD4C96B20.jpeg FB7A1AF8-9BD0-4A39-81FC-C531961C0661.jpeg BAC2F5CF-B64F-4D43-8E8F-5ED8686DE258.jpeg

And for now, this is as far as I dare take it as I think there’s a fine line between grubby train shed and grubby engine shed. That said, there will be more of this treatment, but for now, I think I’ll just leave it there.

In any case, I’m eager to press on with the build, so I think that at long last the time has finally arrived to start sticking some of these bits to the frame itself, so as the sun has eventually decided to show its face, I think I’ll reach for the epoxy. After watering feeding Olive, my tortoise friend, of course.

Thanks for looking.

Jonte
 
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