Good evening Shop Dwellers! 51*F, calm and dark in my corner of the Mid-Atlantic region.
First off,
thank you everybody for the "likes", comments and other positive feedback on my photos of the scenery mess from Friday! Don't have the time to call out individual names as many of you do, apologies for that.
... IB-KEN - Sorry to hear that your project is balking at you! I have never seen you do anything halfway, so I figure that you are just going to keep at it until it is correct? Stay warm, Are you doing O.K. from your prior condition? How about your Spousal Unit?
...
I know,
Sherrell, sometimes [especially with modeling "natural" stuff in my case] I gotta learn from my mistakes and start over, this was one of those times. S-U is doing fine now, thanks for askin! As for me, I am able to enjoy all the activities that I did during my pre-surgical life. Sorry to hear about your daughter's ordeal, I did a few somersaults over handlebars myself during my childhood, one of those incidents cost me my two front teeth!
... Ken- Yeah that sounds like it sucks. Can you use plaster with white glue added in for hardening?
...
Curt, as a matter of fact I
did end up doing something similar to your idea, will describe it later in this post...
Garry - bummer to hear that your illness is preventing you from enjoying the social aspects of the hobby, will add you to my prayer list!
Joe -
great job on that warehouse and the pier beneath it, look forward to seeing it painted!
Chet - looks like age is getting the best of me, I was
really "slow on the uptake" when I read your earlier joke - the subsequent posts suddenly made it clear 6 hours later!
* * *
Saturday morning I decided to try a different method of applying the Mold-a-Scene for my White Castle parking lot [plus the driveway to the interlocking tower on the opposite side of the road]. First, I poured dry Mold-a-Scene straight from the carton onto the target areas and graded it into the exact shapes and contours I wanted:
...did a quick mock-up placement of the burger stand to verify the dimensions...
...then I sprayed water mist onto everything and left it undisturbed to dry for 12 hours:
During that 'intermission', I discovered a hobbyshop 45 minutes from my house that actually had Hydrocal in stock, so I dashed over and got a 2lb carton. And when I checked this morning, the parking lot was cured - but the surface was so rough it looked like it was covered with rip-rap. I sure as h*** wouldn't want to drive my 1:87 car over that! So I applied a thin top layer of Hydrocal to smooth it out, using the same method of grade-and-wet as I described above. Got summoned away so didn't get any photos of that, but I verified later that it worked (i.e., the lot is driveable).
When I went back out this afternoon, my ADHD kicked in and I felt compelled to fix something in that spot that has bugged me since Day One: the crossing flasher gantries seemed
too toy-like in their silver paint. The ones I drive past on my way to- and from work are dull and grungy. So I painted the silver surfaces in Polyscale Light Aircraft Gray; that gave me exactly the effect I wanted, to
emphasize the [black] flasher targets and DE-emphasize the supporting hardware. Here's a view of the [further] one painted, and the closer one still in its "as delivered" colors:
Next, I'll have to focus on filling in that empty corner area behind the ROW, toward the left. Because with scenery or any kind of messy work, ya gotta start from the rear and work your way forward!
Being called to supper now,
adios!
