I am about to tackle my first MRR wood kit. I have built lot’s of wood R/C plane kit’s, including scratch designs and builds that turned into some awesome combat aircraft.
Tips on construction and painting would be great if anyone has any. Also I am not good with colours so even looking at old photo’s of these on the prairies, I can not tell what colour of white they are painted. Suggestions of shades of white and also what brands are good for wood are most welcome.
I haven’t done that one, Brent, but I did build their CPR water tank visible in the pic below. It was relatively easy, even for a a ham-fisted neophyte like me. They go together well. Just be sure to understand the instructions fully and take your time with fit and finish.
I doubt whether you will find good photos, certainly of the period if they are an older type, showing true colour fidelity. I would use a plain craft white, but mixed with the tiniest drop of either Burnt Umber or black in a much larger volume of white. Later, you can add weathering to suit your tastes.
I built the N scale elevator (sask wheat pool) last winter.
It’s actually a really nice kit. It was my first wood kit and the included instructions are great. Take your time to read them and understand how they want it built. I painted the wood first (it did curl - thin wood. HO might be thicker, but a night under a stack of text books and covered by wax paper helped straighten it out)), then used CA glue to to do the joints, and made sure to use the braces they included. It’s been solid ever since. Looks nice too.
I cannot help you with paint, as mine was of a red colour used by the local sask wheat pool elevators. Not sure about the white ones. You could always google “prairie sentinals” and the first result I got was for a page with tons of photos of elevators on the canadian prairies.
Brent, One tip if you are looking for peeling paint on an older building is to paint it with a different color first then blotch on small patches of rubber cement . When dry paint with final color after that dries take an art eraser and rub off the rubber cement it will look like the paint has peeled off. Weather as to your liking. ALWAYS test on a piece of scrap wood first to check how long you have to remove the RC.
Otto
P.S.-- you can do more than one layer of color just don’t rub off the rubber cement until final coat.
Thanks guy’s. So far so good in construction.[:)] Once all the instructions are thoroughly read, the mountain of parts becomes much less intimidating.[I]
Crandell when you say craft paint, do you mean the $2.00 a bottle Walmart Acrylic Paint? If so did you prime it first?
Otto I have tried the R/C method with great success in the past. It is a great trick.
Brent, no, I quickly painted both sides of any wood and then sandwiched them between layers of paper weighted with books/magazines on top, and left them for several hours to dry.
And, yes, that is all I ever use in the hobby, except for backdrop painting, and that is the cheapo plastic bottles of craft acrylic liquid paints from Wal Mart.
Well I’ve got the grain bin building done, it’s on the left in the pic (the one with the cupola) I need to paint the supplied tar paper roof. It comes as white sticky strips. As I have said in the past, I am not good with colours. Could someone tell me what colour black tar paper is. I am thinking a grimy black hit with dull coat. All help and suggestions greatly appreciated.
