A man after my own heart ...

... I too will put in a ton of effort to salvage something that seems like it still has some 'usefulness' ... something about the challenge of 'making do' adds to the sense of accomplishment.  True, may have been easier to have gone out and bought exactly what you needed ... but anyone can do that (and the tale of adventure wouldn't be nearly as interesting either).  Cheers, and thanks for sharing.  

Reusing materials

Quarter Inch Thick?

I'm thinking the post on using the water to make hardboard pliable, was used on 1/8th inch masonite. I can't imagine getting a 10 inch radius out of 1/4 inch, let alone a 7 inch radius.

Quarter Inch Thick - Yup!

Hi Ken, I think you're right, that posting was almost certainly not about the same 50-year old 1/4 inch hardboard that I'm working with. With the saw kerfs cut every 3/4 inch, the backdrop definitely complained as we pushed it into the formers, but it's in now (or was when I left it last night!). One interesting aspect was that the surface puckered a little as it bent. There will have to be some sanding and priming and sanding again to get it to look like sky. Cheers, Rene'

Next two pieces of backdrop up

Tonight Andrew and I managed to get the next two pieces of backdrop up. The curve on the right is a 3' radius, and was much easier to accomplish with the quarter inch Masonite. As with the sharper curve at the other end, we made a couple of plywood formers to support the curve.

Smoothing out

This morning, before leaving for work, I sanded the second layer of drywall mud on the backdrop. It's looking pretty good now, but I'm sure glad I hired someone to do the drywall on the rest of the basement (Amazon Contracting were excellent by the way; if you need drywall in Vancouver, look them up or contact me for their details). I can't believe my brother in law actually likes doing this!

Anyway, the mud was applied over some latex caulk on the joints. This was my friend Scott's recommendation, and as I never noticed any cracks in his backdrop over the course of 20 years, I took his advice.

I'm figuring I'll get a layer of primer on it this weekend and see how it looks. There's also a closet door to install (leaning against the wall to the left), so I'll be doing well to get the backdrop primed.

Learning as I go

It looks like the sky is going to want two coats, which is good because by the time I got to the bottom, my technique had become much better. My basic blue is "Utah Sky" (2065-40) from Benjamin Moore, but there is very little of the straight colour up there. As others have proposed before me, I started with the dark blue at the very top, and then added white as I worked down the wall.

Here, then, is what I learned along the way.

• The foam roller is the way to go. I used a four incher as my sky is not that big.
• Don't bother cutting in the bottom edge before starting to work down from the top. You'll wind up redoing it anyway because the last layer bit needs to match better.
• Start with about enough blue to paint half the sky or more. You're going to waste some anyway, and it's nice not to have to mix in the middle.
• I added about four table spoons of white for each layer. The layers mixed on the wall, and so, it all came out a little darker than intended.
• To avoid streaks, squash out the top edge of the roller against the wall before working into the layer above. Then put more pressure on the bottom edge of the roller than the top as you're rolling. Indeed, the top edge could be lifted away from the wall.
• Evaluate each layer as it goes on and correct any streaks before you go further. You don't want to be reaching back three or more layers with a lighter colour because it's really hard to blend it in.
• Use a relatively full roller, rather than squeezing it out against the tray. The tray will make a tractor tyre pattern of dry spots on the roller, and that won't look good on the sky.

The single largest changes...

...I noticed to the appearance of my layout as it was constructed occurred when:

- I added a simple, blue to white sky backdrop

- I  weathered the rolling stock

So you're half way there Rene!

md

Single Largest Changes

Tee hee, Mark.  I'm hoping that actually putting the layout in will be a bigger change!

Constable it ain't

Tonight I painted a base layer for the clouds. They're definitely going to take a second layer before the white covers over that hideous not-quite-gradient of blue that I put up there. As this is only the base layer, I didn't bother with any shadows, and so, the clouds have no form yet. So, it looks even worse than it is, which isn't very good anyway.

I started with a photo by my friend, Tom Maglieri, which I found on Flickr. Tom and I used to work together, and so, I was really happy when his awesome photo showed up on a Flickr search for sky panoramas. With Tom's permission, I'm using his photo as source for my backdrop painting. Because I know him, it really feels like a collaboration, which is extra-cool.

Here is Tom's original:

Because I need an even wider aspect ratio, I am using only the bottom third or so of his photograph. In order to copy it over to the wall, I printed it on 11x17 paper and annotated it with a grid in pencil. The grid locations on the wall were denoted with tabs of masking tape. Numbering the squares made it easier to navigate; without them, I tended to get lost in the wall.

There are two layers of clouds: a high stratus cloud, and a lower cumulus cloud. The stratus were straight forwardly painted with thinned white paint. I worked it until it stopped wanting to run down the wall.

The cumulus clouds are much more difficult, but I did get better at painting them by the end of 16 feet. The technique that works for me is as follows:

1. Talk to myself about the shape of the cloud and figure out where it goes on the wall.
2. With my two inch brush, working in a rapid X-shaped stroke, rough in the main parts of the center of the cloud.
3. Looking at the source, and continuing with the rapid X-shaped stroke, continue to refine the shape of the cloud.
4. Once the shape is pretty good, the edges will look like brush strokes, go into these with a 1/2 inch filbert and disrupt the brush strokes by adding little details. Avoid the temptation to make little blobs all along the edge of the cloud - those look terrible.
5. Step back and look at it, go back in with the 2-incher or filbert as required.

Rene

Nice that you were able to reuse the material. I also like to reuse repair items due to being thrifty. It becomes sweat equity. Although thinking you are "saving" a tree has always made me laugh. The trees grow old and die just as we do so they actually do not get saved. Most lumber and paper products come from tree farms which are in a harvest and replant cycle now adays, the difference being that instead of a seasonal crop like wheat it is now a multi seasonal crop.

Even though one can not truly save something that will die I do like the idea of not being wasteful.

Rob in Texas

Nice to Hear I'm Not the Only One

Spendthrifts Unite!

Clouds

Most of my railroad time this week was spent on painting the clouds. Like everything else, I got better at this as I went along, and so, I kind of did it about one and a half times.

I roughed the clouds in on Sunday with some plain white paint, and they looked pretty flat and lifeless. So, through the week, I added shadows to them. For the most part, the shadows are the same flat white house paint mixed with some Payne's Grey, straight from the tube; in a few cases, I mixed in some Raw Umber.

By the time I was done, some of the clouds looked pretty heavy. I always find working with light colours in acrylic especially challenging. My wife didn't like all the brush strokes, so she suggested I try using a blending sponge, and threw one downstairs to me. This worked a treat for lightening up the clouds, but now they may be too light. Certainly the camera seems to think they are pretty light.

Here's a before and after shot of one of the clouds, judge for yourself:

And here is the whole sky as it was after lightening some of the clouds.

Am I done? I think so. Tomorrow, I have a bunch of friends coming to help install the layout, after which, continuing to fuss with the clouds is going to require standing on a ladder and leaning across the layout. So, hopefully, it looks good to me when I go down and look at it after a night's rest.