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Comments
Brett, I appreciate your comment and thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to do this. Phil
Here is what you are going to need. The container at the top contains 90% rubbing alcohol.
I work with about 5 - 6 pieces of wood at a time on the glass surface of my workbench. I take a straight-edge razor blade and scrape the chalk onto the wood. It shouldn't make a big difference, but I find that if you scrape towards you, you have better aim on where the chalk goes. When I scrape away from me, it goes everywhere. In this step, you are applying equal amounts of Rembrandt 408.3, 408.5 (both raw umber) and 234.3 (raw sienna).
This is what it should look like when you are finished. Don't apply too much chalk!!
Taking a brush, apply liberal amounts of alcohol to the wood and brush back and forward. I use a brush that is a bit bushy and takes on a lot of alcohol. Don't worry about my fingers, I will brush any fingerprints away.
Take tweezers and flip the wood over. I don't reapply the chalk. There is plenty on the glass. I dip the brush in the alcohol, brush the surface to pick up the chalk and apply it to the other side.
As a final step, I take the tweezers to hold the wood and make a final brush over both sides of the wood to remove any excess chalk and fingerprints.
I then place the wood on two pieces of wood to dry. Once the wood dries, I look for any uneven distribution of the chalk. This can be remedy by very lightly passing the wood through my 000 steel wool. Once stained, you will clearly see your knots.
What to do with the mess I have created????
As you know, nothing is wasted in craftsman building. I take a razor blade and scrap the chalk into a pile.
I then put it into a Diet Coke cap. I can use this mixture to stain the ends of wood that I have cut or to stain a small piece of wood. Handy isn't it???
Practice Tips:
1. Use steel wool lightly to get rid of splotchy areas.
2. Use large tweezers to turn the wood to avoid fingerprints
3. Scrape towards you versus away from you to get better accuracy.
Homework:
1. Go to the Sierra West website and review the video under "University" and "Videos" entitled, "Damp Brushing."
Next time, we will do just that - damp brush all the wood we have grained and stained.
The next step is to locate the wood specified on page 9 of the instruction manual.
BTW, it may be possible that the 7 1/2" wood ended up with your 8" wood. Not to worry, just locate it and set it aside. It won't be painted. Now, just follow the directions on page 9 since you're an expert at graining and staining.
Next time, we will get to damp brushing. This ought to be fun. Phil
Here is what you will need.
Let's pause now for a practice tip before proceeding ...
Practice Tip: When you are confronted with a new technique and are just not confident in how to do it, pull out that excess wood you have and try some test batches. Go ahead and grain and stain it, put in a few knots and try the new technique. If you screw it up, no worries, it was a test batch. Get some more wood and try again. Once you feel you have the technique down, proceed to the build with your new-found confidence.
Now, back to the build ...
Pull out 5 - 7 strips that has been previously prepared. Inspect each piece and make sure you place the best side up to be painted. You didn't do all that beautiful work to have the best side facing down, never to be seen again!!
I hope you watched Brett's video on damp brushing. It involves putting a glob of the craft paint on the work surface, and using a soft brush, place as much paint as you can on both sides of the brush. Brush it out a bit and then, lightly brush the paint onto the boards as you see here. As Brett says, don't overthink it, just brush it on. I found better coverage as the paint fully covered the brush. The coverage in uneven and random.
Once you are finished painting, immediately apply a very lightly-applied coat of alcohol with a bristle brush. Don't overwork it.
This is what it looks like after drying. If I saw a glob of paint that looked too much, I knocked it down with my Micromark wire brush with an extremely light touch.
Practice Tip: Don't get in a hurry. Take your time and get the best look possible. This work will be very visible in your final product.
Next time: We'll get into preparing the walls of the main building, but most important, I'm going to give you a cutting lesson for more exact and precise cuts.
Terry
EmeryJ, thanks for your comment. I'm taking the approach in this blog of simulating a crafting clinic. When doing a clinic, you try to appeal to both the beginner and advanced modeler. Some of the things I say will be too basic for the advanced modeler, but perfect for the beginner who hasn't built a kit of has little crafting experience. However, I hope I provide enough nuggets even for the advanced modeler.
Phil
Phil
Terry
If you are following my build and also are building O'Neills yourself (I highly recommend this!), then you should be finishing the preparation of all this wood. Don't worry, your efforts will be rewarded when you start building the walls of the main building.
By now, you should understand fully how to grain and stain, create knot holes, as well as damp brush paint onto stained and grained wood. I haven't counted, but there is at least 50 pieces of wood that you prepared.
Here is what I found while dealing with this amount of wood:
1. You should become more proficient and efficient in the technique in question as you go. As a result, your confidence will grow. When I started damp brushing, I was tentative because I hadn't done it before. As a result, my paint coverage was a bit on the light side. However, as I gained confidence with the method, I put on more paint and the results looked very good. I also got a better feel of the brush I was using and what it could and could not do.
2. Pay close attention to what you are doing and its effect. You may notice if you do something a certain way, you get a real cool effect. There have been more neat crafting effects discovered purely by accident.
3. The goal is not to produce identical boards. The variance you achieve from board to board is what makes stick construction so much superior to construction using laser cut walls. So, don't be afraid to vary things as you go. However, as with anything you do in SWSM construction, moderation is a must. Don't go wild on me!
4. As you build, Murphy's law will come roaring in, and stuff will happen. A stick breaks, you put on too much paint, you grain and stain the wrong piece, etc. The secret to a good craftsman is the ability to effectively deal with the problem and cover up any big mistakes.
I'll tell a story on myself. I was constructing the mine, and the instruction manual introduced me to a different peeled paint effect. The instructions call for a thin solid even coating of full strength red craft paint, which was dried for an hour and then lightly sanded to remove a majority of the paint. I thought I was following the directions, but when it came to sanding off a majority of paint, nothing came off. I had used too much paint!!! Ouch!! I thought about it and decided to use my Micromark wire brush and knock off as much paint as I could. If this didn't work, I would find more wood and start over. I was successful using this technique, but as a result, the wood was very thin and brittle. Not to worry, I continued to use it very carefully and to great results.
I received a lot of compliments on the peeled red siding despite the fact it was a major error on my part. I came out smelling like a rose. Notwithstanding, I learned a valuable lesson that I mentioned earlier. If you are not familiar with a new technique, experiment on some spare boards.
I hope this helps. Phil
Mighty fine work and dito tutorial.
Thanks for this.
I googled it and found out what bluegrass green looks like. The name also suggests what we need to get this color - blue, green and white.
I decided to go with a darker green and a vibrant blue and stick with White Wash, the color I used on the boards.
I then grabbed an artist palette that you can get at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. I use this a lot in my modeling. If you notice, you have a center area which I like to use for mixing.
I believe I captured the right color. Here's how I did it. First, I put the green paint into the center and then added the blue paint. Be sure to mix thoroughly to get the right mix. Make small changes - you can always add more paint later. When I was close to the color, I brightened it with a bit of white paint. It took more blue that I would have thought, but that's the beauty of mixing paint - you get to see the transition as you add the paint. BTW, if you overshoot and make it too blue, just add more green!!
I then painted one side of the boards and set out to dry. I then had a dilemma. What was I going to do with the mixed paint while I was waiting for the boards to dry. I decided to put the extra paint in a Diet Coke cap and cover with parafilm. This will keep it moist until I need it for the other side.
Next time: We'll finally get to the preparation of the walls of the main building and that cutting lesson I promised you. BTW, thank you for the interest. So far, there have been almost 800 views of this build. This amazing interest just spurs me on to do more.
Phil
Here is what you will need to do this. BTW, you will notice a Diet Coke bottle in most pictures. This is an essential tool for me to properly model.
I took a picture of the instruction manual to show the location of the headers. Locate the two pieces of wood from bags 2 and 4. The thicker 3" piece will go on the left wall, and the thinner 8" piece will go on the left and right walls.
Now, it's time for that cutting lesson. I can't over-emphasize how important it is to be able to correctly measure and cut these small pieces of wood.
Be sure you have plenty of light and magnification. I can't imagine anyone doing this with the naked eye, but I'm getting to be an old man, so the younger ones just have better eyes. Notwithstanding, it is a lot easier to make more accurate cuts using a magnifying glass. As Mel Gibson said in the Patriot, "Aim small, miss small."
Step #1: Take the wood in question and square up one end of it with the true sander.
Step #2: Place the squared end of the wood on one side of the header template to be measured and using a razor blade, mark the other end of the header template. I always measure a slight bit longer, keeping in mind that I will square it up in the next step.
Step #3: Using the mark made by the razor blade, go to the chopper and finish the cut. It is easier to do this if you find the mark with the blade of the chopper first and bring the board down to the mat, then finish the cut.
Step #4: Square the cut end on the true sander. Don't overdo it or you may make the board too short.
Step #5: Take the board and place it on the header template to make sure you have the right length. The magnification distorts the picture a bit, but I have correctly cut this header to length.
You will have left over pieces of wood. I like to take these and put them in an old medicine bottle just in case I may need it later in the build.
Once you have done all the cutting, you need to grain one side and the ends and stain. I don't have to go into this because you are already experts in graining and staining.
These pieces need to be set aside for later. In order to not lose them, I put them in another old medicine bottle and label it.
Next time: We are finally going to work on the main building walls. This is where the true fun begins.
Homework: Carefully read pp. 13 - 18, which explains in detail how the pieces of wood we carefully prepared are glued to the cardboard walls.
1. Be very careful which wood you are using. It is easy to mix up the wood and use the wrong piece. Keep everything separate (3 1/2", 7 1/2", 6" square).
2. The 0.020 thick pieces are fairly fragile and can be snapped with little effort. Be careful in your handling of these pieces. I say this because that is exactly what I did.
3. Brett does a fabulous job of providing lines on the cardboard to assist you in cutting the individual pieces. Don't forget to take advantage of this great feature.
We start with removing the cardboard walls from the template using a razor blade. It's a good idea to label each piece on the back with a pencil because the labels on the template stay on the template.
Once removed, sand down the tabs that connected the walls to the template.
A word about my sanding stick. I got the idea from Ken Karns. The sanding sticks can be purchased on Amazon and they come is a variety of grits. The neat thing about these sanding sticks is that you can easily rotate the sandpaper to get fresh grit. Once you used up the sandpaper, you can put on a fresh sandpaper that comes with the sanding sticks.
We then get an overview of the application of the siding and frames on pp. 14 & 15. A few things to remember:
1. On a vertical row, never mix 1/16" and 5/64" wood.
2. Work the siding in sections, as laid out on p. 17. This involves laying out the siding on the cardboard without glue to make sure everything fits well. You may have to substitute 5/64" wood to compensate for any gaps.
3. There are lines for butting up two pieces of wood, but you have choices you can make to make it your own.
Turning to pp. 16 & 17, we start by framing the door and window. You start at the top, then the bottom (if there is a bottom), then the sides. Remember my method for cutting that was explained in the last lesson. It is very important to get accurate and square cuts. So, just cut and glue ... cut and glue.
When gluing, I use a tweezer with a long nose to make sure the wood is square.
The door and window with the initial green framing.
Installation of the frames are next with the installation of the header, followed by the shims, followed by the side pieces. This is also where you take a bit of chalk and apply to the painted wood. I tried to do this in moderation. It gives a very nice weathered look.
Sometimes, things don't exactly work out, even if you follow the instructions and cut on the lines. In the first picture, the side boards don't exactly line up with the header. In this case, the header is too small. This bothered me, so I redid it. See the second picture. It's still not perfect, but good enough for me to continue.
Here is the finished product. I'm now ready to apply the siding.
Next time: Installation of the siding using sections.