Franksville Wisconsin N-scale modutrak module buildout

[Big4Man]

OK, so I ordered one of the Silhouette SD this week. I hope to play around with it using Adobe Illustrator. There is also a cutting mat available for this machine in order to cut thicker material
http://www.scrapbookexpress.com/sisdcumatfor.html Just wondering if anyone has used it yet....

I also am planing to use up some plain .020 plain styrene sheets I have on hand to experiment with. What type of material are you guys using for the brick sheet? It looks kinda grain-y to me in the pic. Similar to what I remember some plain sheet vinyl to be. It may actually give the bricks a little better texture than the smooth styrene.

I hope to replicate some of the stuff you guys are doing.  ;D

Someone may want to move this to a different thread......


Thanks!

Dan

[TiVoPrince]

Wondering 
if something like Evergeen .040 corregated siding can be used in the cutter?  Not like cutting though it would be the goal but scribing a pattern for my xacto to follow.  Concepting several 'signature' structures that need a shedload of identical fairly complex repeating 'bits' that I would prefer not to cut manually...

[lashedup]

I've been working on structures again and after photographing these, I see that I need to dial back some of the weathering, particularly on the Klema buildings. The Burnt Umber gauche tends to look more like a baby shat on the model than what I was looking for. With the florescent lighting it looks worse than when I when I was applying it, but still it needs to be dialed back. Luckily I can just rewet it and pull it back a bit.

Here is the Franksville depot. The india ink wash went down a bit more blotchy than normal and I don't know why. However I'm going to hit this with some weathing chaulks to blend things a bit and knock back the effect, so it should be ok. I constructed the eve brackets and installed them. I added signage to the building and attempted a screen door as the prototype had one. The screen door is sloppy thanks to my hand painting the tiny pieces. I think I'm going to try and mask vinyl over the clear plastic before I cut it so i can pull the vinyl off the part I want painted and mask the remaining sections. Then I can airbrush it and it won't look so heavy and messy. I really don't like brush painting...




On the Klema feed buildings I need to knock back the burnt umber gauche that I used as it look really yellow in these photos. I just placed a couple of the cement pillars (anchor bolt cement) under the loading dock by hand as I plan to "plant" those into the scenery when they are permanent.






It probably goes without saying that I might have wanted to try experimenting with gauche/oil acrylics on something else first. At least I can fade it out as it virtually never dries. Plus I can get out weather powders to knock things back a bit more.

-jamie

[lashedup]

So I went into the other room to look at it again and it isn't nearly as yellow as it is in the photos (at least on my monitor). I tried to color correct a bit more but I'm not sure it made a big difference.



I'm still going to dial it back a bit.

Back to the grindstone...

[wazzou]

No Jamie, it needs to be said.    Great job on the construction.

[Sokramiketes]

I have faith that you'll get the color and intensity figured out.  Also don't forget to keep everything vertical, rain will carry most rust straight down. 

[Dave Schneider]

Jamie

What do you use for screen doors and/ or window screens? Anybody have suggestions for making rain gutters?

Best wishes, Dave

[lashedup]

Dave I make screen doors out of .005 clear material and add paint to the edges of the door and then use some matte/flat clear spray on it to get the matte screen door look. If you go back to page 12 in this thread I posted a picture of some aluminum-type screen doors I made with the cutter.

Mike, I went over the buildings and toned everything down and it looks much better. I like these acrylic gauches as I can rewet them and redistribute or even remove the weathering. Raw umber turns a bit too yellow when it thins down with water, so I need to experiment mixing it with some burnt umber as well. Anyway, I'll try to take some photos this afternoon.

- j

[sirenwerks]

I like these acrylic gauches...

I was always confused by the acryla gouaches. Adding an acrylic retarder (the polymer emulsion which slows drying time) basically makes it an acrylic paint. The difference between watercolor and gouache is basically the pigment size; and the pigment size is pretty much the same between gouache and artist acrylics. So, you can use straight gouache if re-wetting is the key factor you like.

A primary issue to consider when selecting the paint type you use is that oil and acrylic paints, as acryla gouache is, form a cohesive paint layer on the surface you are working on. Watercolors and true gouaches simply disperse the pigment, because the water evaporates. You're also pushing around small amounts of filler, like chalk and zinc oxide, and some natural retarders and emulsifiers, like glycerin, sugars, gum arabic, etc. - the content of which all depends on the paint quality. But acrylics and oils have more of these types of additives, which helps build the aforementioned layer thickness, and decreases their opacity.

[lashedup]

This is why I love these discussion diversions - I learn something new all the time.

I was curious what the deal was between all the different types of paints out there. I know the oils have become more popular in recent years for weathering as Tom Mann has shown us. I figured I'd try it on this project - but maybe the better thing to do was experiment on something else first. It was a calculated risk as I read you can rewet and remove these anyway, so in the end it turned out fine.

-j

[lashedup]

Ok, it is getting better. I dulled things down a bit more using a wet paper towel to pull the color down and off. I'm going to be in Europe on business most of this week, so I won't have any updates for a while. When I get back I'm going to work on individual close up weathering stuff and get this dialed in a bit better. This still isn't photographing well which is frustrating as I can usually color correct anything. Looking at the model sitting here the weathering colors are pretty faded and not that noticeable. Soon as I shoot a photo, they stand out like crazy. Oh well...

BEFORE:



AFTER:

[pnolan48]

Just wonderful stuff. Can I buy your files for the cutter?

[Dave Schneider]

Jamie,

Here is a link to a historical aerial photo of Franksville taken in 1937.
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll290/djs_ank_ak/BeerLineAirPhotos1937/Racine7271937_14-1278_7x9.jpg

It is from the Robinson Map Library at U-Wisconsin.
http://maps.sco.wisc.edu/WHAIFinder/#

Best wishes, Dave

[lashedup]

Thanks Dave, that stuff is always great. The research part of this has been just as much fun as the modeling.

Sorry Pete, was in Europe and then got a bad flu and just saw your post. I'd be happy to upload the drawings for the buildings that I built. No need for payment if you're just using them for modeling purposes. I'll post back here once I put them up. I need to adjust a few things so they make sense to someone other than just me. Right now they are set up to print them to a laser printer and then tape that print-out over styrene so they can be cut (or printed on a Silhouette SD).

I'll upload them as PDF files, but I originally created them in Illustrator if someone would rather have that format.

-jamie

[SkipGear]

All this talk about using the cutters got me off my duff and I finished seting up my station drawings for use in my vinyl cutter. It took a little tweaking of the settings to adjust the offset to get the corners clean. They still aren't perfect but a heck of a lot better than hand cutting a couple thousand 2 1/2" x 8 3/8" bricks.