I recently built my father-in-law’s old Toadsuck Cannery. I made it out of basswood all nice and weather beaten. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get the Toadsuck graphic to look weathered enough to my satisfaction so I just sanded it thinner in a few places. Ok, but it still irked me a little so I left it alone for a bit.
What do you know I come back and one of the corners has come loose. So I foolishly mash it back in place with my thumb. I’m so impatient at the end of a project. You see I happened to be eating those gumdrop sugary orange slice candies on my break, so my thumb was nice and sticky having been in my mouth a couple of times after handling orange slices. Feeling really stupid and frustrated I just left the whole thing for the next day.
I didn’t quite make it to the next day so I crept up on the cannery late at night. I Flipped on the light real quick. GOOD LORD AND BUTTER, there was a huge roach moving into the cannery. One of those truly horrible deep south flying kind that chases you around the room when you prod it with a dowel. Anyway, after doing battle and vanquishing the mutant with a few forcefull flushes I checked on my poor violated cannery.
Apparently the roach had been muching on the orange scented, sugary paper of the thumb mashed Toadsuck decal. The roach had expertly simulated peeling paint by meticulously chewing away random spots on the decal and leaving very convincing ragged “peeling away” edges. I have not been able or willing to replicate this process but I am interested in less creepy techniques.