Wednesday 26 November 2014

Half hour on the 'bike shop...

Having packed the three F1s for posting tomorrow and had a big clear up, I found a spare half hour for the bike shop, so I stuck some more slates on the roof with the remaining strips from the other day and I thought, "Why not paint it?"
I found a pot of Revell matt dark red and slapped a coat on the brickwork.  I like enamels first and gouache/weathering powders after.  I only use acrylics for detailing here and there. They dry too quickly and have me running every 5 minutes for the sink or risk ruining a brush...no thanks, not a big fan, although the Vallejos are very highly pigmented, which is nice to see.
In Fenland there are as many different bricks as house styles, so the brickwork on this substantial building doesn't have to match the office of the garage, which is built with sand faced later bricks.
The bike shop has older, darker red stocks.  Naturally, these will need mortar and weathering.

The end wall showed evidence of old Evo-Stik and the brick sheet had moved, so the mortar didn't line up, something I am very particular about.  Clearly this had to be disguised, so I glued a sheet of 10 thou. styrene on it in a broken irregular shape as if it was being removed, half heartedly by the owner, leaving patches of old limewash under the render.  This was suggested by a thin application here and there of my tube filler, which some kind of epoxy filler, known as Feinesspachtel in Germany, where I got it back in '97 when I was making prototype cars for the VW group.  Still using it!

So, here we are for a wee while.

2 comments:

  1. Looks very promising indeed! I like the whole idea of a motor bike shop, or a cycle shop for that matter. I would have my shop set in the sixties, with posters of Eddy Merckx and Tommy Simpson on the wall... having a nostalgic moment :-)
    Those Vallejo paints are wonderfully dense yet flow so very well, a million miles away from the Humbrol acrylics.

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  2. This will be set in the 60's, Iain, as Tony used to race cars in the 60s, so there'll be a couple of suitable cars outside there, opposite this shop. I've downloaded some signs from the 'net and my son has compiled a sheet and printed them off ready for both buildings. A friend has presented me with a resin Galaxie and an Imp, both of which he raced. And there's a Piper and Healey 100 which are from my masters, so we're OK for "accessories". Just got to make some bike masters now!
    I should have pointed out that this model started life when we lived in a 10 foot caravan in the boat yard, so was a bit thrown together from what I had kicking around there, but some lousy weather had me looking for something to do other than cutting oak!
    Never tried Humbrol acrylics, nor would I. I have never had a printable opinion of Humbrol products.

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