The East Waterville grist mill
since when have tedium and long hours stopped a dedicated (or is it “crazed”) modeler? Now it was time to use that “sag template” again. With it I drew uni- formly-spaced lines in pencil across the building side walls at quarter-inch in- tervals to serve as guides when apply- ing the stripwood. Applying the clapboard siding board by board came next. This also brought a new challenge, selecting the right ad- hesive. The glue needed to be strong enough to hold stripwood that had been forced into a shallow horizontal curve, stick wood to painted styrene, and have enough working time so the wood strips could be positioned before the glue set up. Still, it did have to dry within a reasonable time or the project would never get done.
After trying a number of glues, the
winner was Aleene’s Tacky Glue. Best known to crafters (and available at stores like Hobby Lobby and Michael’s), Tacky Glue did all that was required for this project and more. I keep finding new uses for it. The work was planned out in batch-
es. I smeared a thin coat of the glue over the building walls, enough for maybe five or six courses of boards. Starting at the bottom, the first board was applied flat against the wall. The next board overlapped the first by about 50 percent, then the next one overlapped that one, and so on. It was simpler to just “board over” the window and door openings than take the time to cut the individual wood strips to fit. While it was easy and quick to use a single piece of stripwood across the whole wall, shorter, multiple pieces were also used, since the prototype clapboards would have been different lengths. After a week or so of evenings applying the stripwood, the siding was on. Once the glue was dry, I used a sharp knife to cut away the clapboards that covered up the window and door openings. I decided to model some of the visible elements of the interior (mainly the floors and walls where doors or win- dows were open). After that it was time to add the styrene doors, windows and trim. I wanted some of the windows to be open. Although Tichy makes a num- ber of double-hung windows that open, I chose to modify Grandt Line win- dows. The lower half of the window was carefully cut out and the muntins saved. Using Evergreen styrene strips of the correct size for the sashes and the saved muntins produced “open” windows. The doors, windows and trim needed to be weathered as well, and Doan’s method proved to work on the plastic
66
With the styrene walls and foundation assembled and primed (top) the “stone” foundation walls were added. The process of “sagging” the siding board by board is in progress. Note the pencil lines drawn with the sag template. The pieces at the top received the turpentine and acrylic paint. Aleene’s Tacky Glue was used to attach the boards to the sub-wall.
castings. All the windows, doors and trim first received a gray primer. When this was thoroughly dry, I applied the turpentine, then Polly Scale Reefer White. After the paint set, I came back with blue tape, lifting the white in an irregular manner.
After everything dried, I used clear
.005″ Evergreen styrene for the win- dow glass. The windows, doors, and trim were attached to the walls with Tacky glue. I did not apply the fascia trim until the roof was installed. Because of the building sag, the roof needed to have a corresponding curve. I experimented with cardstock tem- plates for the roof halves until it looked right. What worked best was having a shallow sag at the top of the roof but keeping the bottom edges straight. I traced the templates onto .020″ sheet aluminum obtained at a home im- provement store. I prefer aluminum for sub-roofs because it is thin enough to escape notice, easy to cut with metal
shears, soft enough to bend easily where needed, and rigid enough not to deform over time.
I used epoxy to glue lengths of square .250″ styrene bracing to the alu- minum to hold everything together. The sub-roof was then painted with gray primer. The shingles were made from two sheets of Dynamodels “wood” shingle roof stock I had on hand, but more recent products or standing seam metal roofing would also work well. The finished roof was primed, painted, and dry-brush weathered, then the two chimneys were added. Tacky glue was used to attach the roof to the walls. With the roof in place, the fascia and trim pieces that abutted it were glued snug against the underside of the roof. These also covered any slight gaps that showed between the roof and the walls. The project was nearly done. All it needed was the covered loading dock and some additional details, things like the wooden stairway up to the main
JANUARY 2013
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116