• Welcome to Westlake Publishing Forums.
 

News:

    REGARDING MEMBERSHIP ON THIS FORUM: Due to spam, our server has disabled the forum software to gain membership. The only way to become a new member is for you to send me a private e-mail with your preferred screen name (we prefer you use your real name, or some variant there-of), and email adress you would like to have associated with the account.  -- Send the information to:  Russ at finescalerr@msn.com

Main Menu

Need Some Advice

Started by Lawton Maner, March 17, 2024, 02:01:31 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Lawton Maner

     I am in the planning stage of building a 1/48 scale flat car to represent one of the wooden ones used by the East Broad Top Railroad in the 19th century to haul among other things tan bark from the south end of the railroad to 2 tanneries in Mt. Union.  Since I cannot find the information to build exactly the car, I'm using a stand-in.

     Now for my problem.  I am looking for suggestions on how to represent the slabs of bark.  Peeling twigs to harvest their bark looks to be like making rivets (hours of work, great looking end product) and will result in my taking the "air" in a sanatorium. Any help will be appreciated.

Bill Gill

Lawton, I only found one site that had a photo that looked like what I think are the kinds of bark slabs you are talking about for tanning: https://www.warrenhistory.org/Lumber/5tanning%20leather.html

If that looks right, then my thoughts for modeling them are:
Start with a good quality 90lb watercolor paper that has some texture like cold press watercolor paper or if that's too smooth, "rough" watercolor paper has more texture. (a small pad will do plenty more than you need for a single flatcar load. You can find pads and sheets at Michael's and some Joann Fabric & Craft stores and sometimes can get coupons).

The paper is tough. Each side of the sheet will have a slightly different texture, one side will be a little rougher than the other. Use the rougher side for the exterior face of the bark.

Cut the paper into long thin strips to match the width in the photo but tear the short ends to length rather than cutting them.

Stain a batch of strips by soaking in thin Burnt Sienna acrylic paint. The paper will buckle when soaking wet. A lot of that will flatten out when it dries, but wrinkles that remain will add to the appearance.

While the paper is still wet, streak and dab the rougher side with additional shades of dark brown to look like the exterior bark.

I think a technique something like that will give you satisfactory results pretty quickly and be both more durable and less frustrating to work with than trying to use real bark.

(I made a slate face for one tunnel portal on my HO scale layout by slicing and picking at and gluing together lots of pieces of pine bark garden mulch. It looks very good, but the bark will be too stiff to look like the strips in the photo and it gets brittle and crumbly and may have blotches of dry sap that won't look right or take stain.)

Here's what ARCHES rough paper looks like (There are other brands too)

Hauk

Quote from: Lawton Maner on March 17, 2024, 02:01:31 PMNow for my problem.  I am looking for suggestions on how to represent the slabs of bark.

Interesting challenge!
Do you have some protoype photos?
Regards, Hauk
--
"Yet for better or for worse we do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them"  -Junichiro Tanizaki

Remembrance Of Trains Past

Bill Gill

Here's the photo I found online. It's from the Warren County Historical Society.

Ray Dunakin

Visit my website to see pics of the rugged and rocky In-ko-pah Railroad!

Ray Dunakin's World

Bill Gill

Thanks, Ray. That's a lot better than the one I found for Lawton

Lawton Maner

Bill:

I like your idea. Thanks for sharing it.

In the cabinet business there is the 3' rule there if you can't see it at arm's length it isn't a defect.  Making the bulk of the bark from your idea and topping it with a layer of real bark will make the job a hell of a lot easier.  It turns a truckload of beer task into a 12 pack one. 

While the East Broad Top left the trunks in the woods because they didn't have a market for it the logging operation at what is now Snow Shoe Ski Resort in West Virginia shipped the cores to the Luke's paper mill in Covington, Va.

Bill Gill

#7
I like your idea Lawton. I did something similar with this pulpwood load. The bulk of the load is a solid, hard resin casting. I added a layer of real twigs on top and the painted the ends of the casting to match. No one has ever suspected the ruse.
pulpwood load.jpeg

finescalerr

I suspect a ruse .... -- ssuR

Bill Gill

#9
Ssur,
Here's the first Penn gon with pulpwood. It's all real twigs. When the club gave me the second one I bit my tongue. The load took for ever to build up, waiting for the glue to dry every couple layers. 

For the second car (first photo) they offered a resin load to make it all go faster. Careful what you wish for. Whatever ever kind of resin it was, it was as hard as granite (maybe it was dental stone?). It took as long, maybe longer to fit that casting than it did to glue the all twig load into the other car.

I used this car as a guide for painting the ends of logs.
860006.jpeg

finescalerr


Both cars look very credible and your painted log ends look excellent. -- Russ

Hydrostat

Quote from: Bill Gill on March 21, 2024, 10:21:24 AMI like your idea Lawton. I did something similar with this pulpwood load. The bulk of the load is a solid, hard resin casting. I added a layer of real twigs on top and the painted the ends of the casting to match. No one has ever suspected the ruse. (click the photo to enlarge)
pulpwood load.jpeg

Beautyful!
I'll make it. If I have to fly the five feet like a birdie.
I'll fly it. I'll make it.

The comprehensive book about my work: "Vollendete Baukunst"

nk

I'm coming in late, but I wonder if using wood veneer is an easily accessible material to simulate scale bark. It looks like wood, it acts like wood...
You may ask yourself: "Well, how did I get here?"

http://public.fotki.com/nkhandekar/

Lawton Maner

I don't think veneer would work because the material to be modeled is the bark of the tree which never looks like the wood inside.  The suggestion for water colour paper will do quite fine.  I only need to find sheets which resemble the cambium layer inside of the bark so I only need to finish one side.  Wetting and wrapping around a dowel once dry will give the curl in a finished piece. 
The idea of using real bark from something such as azalea, crepe myrtle, or the bark of a young poplar for the top of the load will make it more realistic.