I’m doing some detail work on a 1950’s gas station in HO. I have an old pop machine and a small rack that used to sit next to pop machines for the glass empties. My question is how do I paint the little empties in the rack to look like empty pop bottles? I used various browns to get the rack to look wooden and that’s ok. All I can think of is to paint some of them a very light green to simulate coke bottles when they were glass - maybe make a few orange to simulate an orange Hires or something like that. Does anyone know a way to make these tiny bottles actually look like colored glass? Thanks.
Both root beer and regular beer came in brown bottles in the 50s, so that’s another color you could use. After painting them, try spraying with several coats of clear gloss lacquer. That should add a glassy look to them.
I have a number of bottles that came with a Preiser set of beer kegs, barrels and bottles.
Thanks for the suggestion. The clear gloss laquer will probably do the trick. I think I also need to look up how those bottles looked because I think you are right about the brown bottles. Thanks again.
Don’t know what color you are starting with. Many pop bottles were clear, colored only by the contents, so empties would be clear. I would think you might find a pearl or some similar color nail polish that would simulate clear bottles.
Dave H. has the right idea. Think about it … and then look at an empty bottle … carefully. The bottle is not totally clear or you couldn’t see it. The pearl should do the trick as far as giving it the look of glass.
Most of these little detail things are best solved by taking a few minutes to actually look at the object you wish to model and see it! (Most people look at things but don’t SEE them. Seeing just takes a little practice.) An empty glass refractts light and to some extent, relects that which is nearby, plus … it has thickness! The color you paint it will represent the glass color and the frosted or pearl nail polish will go a long way to indicating that the glass has thickness.
* Notes from and old, retired Industrial Designer, who had to first make the parts for the “kit” and then put the “kit” together when fabricating mock-ups or operating prototypes when he worked in a design office.
Now if you are going to all that trouble do you intend to put the bottle manufacture city on the bottom of the coke bottles? After you drank your 8 oz. coke you turned the bottle upside down to see where it was made. Those things travelled all over the country. Guess you will have to do that with individual letters since I don’t think anyone makes that decal yet.
Sounds like good practice while working up to engraving (fill in book of choice) on the head of a pin…
Seems to me that the cases only come about 1/3 up the height of the bottle, so there would be some space along the flatter part of the bottle for whatever labeling survived immersion in water…
Coke bottles were wasp-waisted. Most bottles were clear, but root beer was packaged in dark brown and ginger ale came in green.
It was common to have a stack of un-cooled soda in cases near the cooler. The ‘active’ case would have open gaps to be filled by as-yet-unsold empties.
Unless the gas station is G scale, mounted under a magnifier and/or within millimeters of the fascia line, this level of detailing is probably gross overkill.
Coke bottles never had a label. The script coca cola was in raised letters around the raised area. As I recall Pepsi bottles had a silk screened Pepsi symbol on them and were a far different shape.
“Early” I remember them being green glass in the 70’s. My friends and I would pick them up and turn them in for spending money. I have an example of almost every size Coke bottle produced displayed above my kitchen cabinets. I havent tried it, but how about using the semi transparent paint used to simulate stained glass? I used some to color the glass in my front door.
The OP says he has a 1950’s gas station. At that time, Coke bottles held just 6 ounces (that wouldn’t keep today’s “big gulp” customers satisfied for long!). 7-up had a big advantage because their bottles held a whopping 7 ounces, and iirc Pepsi was 6-1/2 ounces.
An interesting bit of history - I still remember in Hagerstown MD 1957, the local bottlers had a price war, and you could get a 24-bottle case of Coca-Cola at the local gas station for 83 cents! …plus bottle deposit, of course…