Working with wood Tools, stains and techniques/Bob Walker I
n the summer of 1957, model trains were of great interest to me, but only on rainy days when I could not
go outside. Baseball consumed my every waking moment, and the newly discovered HO scale models played a distant second fiddle. When thunder clapped and skies darkened, my moth- er wisely made me stay indoors, claim- ing “You'll be struck by lightning!” On such occasions, I headed for the base- ment to see what I could build. My budget at the time consisted of $1.00 a week allowance, pop bottle de- posits, and whatever I could earn mow- ing lawns. My lawn mowing business was of little interest to me as it inter- fered with baseball, as did digging around the neighborhood trash heaps for pop bottles, so the earnings were equally meager. The luxury of scribed wood was beyond my budget, thus my first, and almost last scratchbuilding attempt (with wood, of course) was with a much sanded down yardstick from Edward Hines Lumber Co. Mr. Hines did not own the yardstick, my father did. In hindsight, I suppose it would have been a better idea to have asked for the darned yardstick, as my father was singularly unimpressed by my “scratchbuilt” caboose made from one of his tools. He confessed, years later, that my ingenuity was im- pressive, but some life-lessons re- mained necessary and I was “too old” to get a spanking. You guessed it: I bought him a new yardstick. The quar- ter I paid for it was slipped back to dad by the counter man when I wasn’t look- ing. Those #%$& things were free. That was one crafty old Marine. I have taken issue in the past with the statement that “only wood looks like wood” and still maintain that one can render plaster, styrene, and card- stock to look like wood. It just takes the application of knowledge, ability, and the proper colorants and techniques. As I enter the curmudgeonly stage of my life (which likely started 40 or so years ago), I will add “Why bother!?!?.” If you need it to look like wood, use wood. While I freely admit the general appropriateness of other materials to represent wood, in most instances, it is just as easy to use the real thing. I am enough of a contrarian to not believe in most so-called rules; the rebel in me wants to call them perti- nent suggestions.
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Scratchbuilder’s Corner
There are indeed rules where safety is concerned, but I’m not up on that stump right now. While cutting wood, I perti- nently suggest (Heh heh!) several lighter passes of the blade rather than one heavy handed one. Likewise, the use of small amounts of adhesive, applied only where it will not show, is a better bet. Much of this sage advise is just com-
mon sense and can be skipped, knowing the intellect of this readership. Where wood shines the most as a building material is when you want to represent unpainted, and weathered surfaces. We’ve covered the india ink/alcohol routine ad nauseum, so let’s look at some other media, like leather dyes, and even woodworker’s aniline powders. I prefer to mix both with that same 91 percent isopropyl al- cohol, rather than water. Water will raise the grain on most woods in a highly unrealistic manner. Also, the al- cohol flashes off quickly, giving the wood only a small window of oppor-
Since commercial windows come in fairly standard sizes, styrene templates (top left) with a “handle” can be used to mark their sizes on walls. It is important when cutting wood parts (top right) to use to a sharp knife blade. Leave a little extra material around openings (above) to be sanded so that a nice fit is obtained for the windows and doors.
AUGUST 2013
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