Quotes

Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly, laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile. - Samuel Longhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)

Friday, November 9, 2012

Battle Flag Saloon - Adding some detail

I did get to spend some time working on the Battle Flag Saloon this week. Nothing groundbreaking by any means but its certainly looking more "finished" than before. I was at Caboose Hobbies here in Denver and picked up some "O" Scale shingles to try on the roof. The first is called Truewood (covers 27 square inches for $9.98) and comes from Builders in Scale. The pack I picked up is rustic oak and they really are made from oak. The other shingles came from Wild West Scale Model Builders (Shake Shingles covers 38 square inches for $10.95). These shingles are a heavy weight paper and have also been laser cut. I ended up using the ridge cap from one of these packs to go along with the Truewood shingles I used. Hopefully I can blend these together during the weathering process. If I can't I think I have enough leftover Truewood shingles to do the cap, and I might do it anyway since the "look" is just not growing on me.

After shingling the roof I grabbed some stripwood and added some trim to the Saloon. This covered up the joint where the walls come together. I also added some trim to the roof on the back side. All of this wood was scored with my razor saw first to create a deep grain pattern. Its hard to see now but will be much more visible after the building is painted and weathered. I have tried to distress the boards on the building itself with my razor saw which mostly just leaves fuzz behind and seems to want to remove a layer from the building rather than make the deeper grain pattern that I was hoping for. My order from Micro Mart that arrived yesterday has a tool in it that I hope will let me get that distressed look that I want. Hopefully I'll get to try it tonight.

Next steps are to go through this same process on the General Store and the Photographer's studio. I won't put the shingles on the roof of the General Store though. Battle Flag said that they could get me a new roof which means I won't have to mess around with the extra work to make it look right. Great guys at Battle Flag! Of course there are pictures to show the progress so far. If you were really sharp eyed you would have picked up on the changes to the Saloon in the pictures that were in the Aetherworks review yesterday.

First up the products I used

Shingles applied to the roof







Adding some trim to the building to cover the joints. Obviously not as thick as the MDF, but I don't think you will notice after painting and weathering.


4 comments:

  1. I'm really enjoying this series on the Western buildings Kris. So much work to put those shingles on, but you've an enormous amount of patience when it comes to detail.

    I just ordered this babe and will paint her up as a Thank You for all who participated in my Babe Contest. You boys will like her I think.
    http://www.darkswordminiatures.com/mainwebsite_html/gallery/e_1180_FemalePirateSword.html

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    1. Those shingles come in strips and they are self adhesive so its not nearly as much work as it looks like. There was a time when I would definitely have cut and applied individual shingles but I would rather spend my time on other things now. The ACW buildings I sculpted for Stone Mountain Miniatures back in the late 80's are examples of that kind of work. Unfortunately they don't have any pictures up on their site of those.
      I love the pirate, and I'm sure my boys would love her too.

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  2. Wow! They really make a difference, how much do the shingles cost?

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    1. The Truewood shingles were about $10 for a package that covers 27 square inches. The strips were just long enough to overhang each end of the roof by a little bit so there wasn't much cutting involved. I like the way they came out, even though I did mess up my rows a little bit, you can see that near the top. I may go this way with all of them and not bother with the other brand I bought. Will see how I feel about that later.

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