Water Tower 04, Virgin Church 06

I'm happily back at work, so there is naturally less time for model making at the moment.  That said, I managed some good time on the water tank today.  I managed to paint the tank bands and shingles, as well as moving the siding along on the Virgin Church.

I primed the church siding with rattle can spray paint (chocolate brown), and then proceeded to streak white, Payne's gray, and umber across them, allowing the clapboards to dry between streaks.  I thinned the paint a bit so it did not cover evenly, and did not fill the nail hole and board joint details.

The tank bands got a hit of Rustoleum rust colored primer (If it would not kill me, I would drink that stuff--it sticks well and has great tooth).  I then blotted the bands randomly with sienna and umber.  Looks silly now, but the effect on the tank should be good.  I'll let them rest, then I will hit them with a close match to the tank itself, so it appears that the paint has come off rusty bands (well, at least I hope it appears that way).

The shingles got a mix of all the above colors, including the white, though I did not prime them  I liked the color of the chipboard I used.  While all that was drying, I scanned the tank, and started to lay out the base. By drawing on top of a scan of the tank body I could ensure a perfect fit. I am really (amazingly) spot on to the dimensions of the prototype tank I am following, so I continued to follow the plans of the original.  

I developed cut files for the various parts, though in the end, I decided to only cut certain parts.  Hand cutting in this case saved a lot of time, as many of the members would come out of 1/4" stock, I had to manipulate the cut order and number of passes by the laser to minimize burn out on the few parts I decided to cut, as the burn out would deform the parts.  I hit the ends of the exposed timbers with the "timber terminator", adding to the char.  The drawings were also helpful for laying out the hand cut parts.  

In the end, It was worth doing the notched parts, but I set up a jig to do the legs.  I was also very pleased with the joists.  That is a trick I will do again.  The little bits connecting the joists will be hidden by the larger timbers.  The deck, coming out of 1/16 material was a snap. 

As I got back to doing more on the church, I did not finish cutting the wood parts for the tank frame, that will have to wait for next weekend.  Probably good, since I want to do some experiments with the wood stain.  

It only seems like every scrap of space is covered by bits of model. . . . OK, every scrap of space is in fact covered by bits of models.