The Corey fire hydrant

[Stuart]

One of the opportunities that this forum offers is to draw closer together a community of fellow model builders who share similar interests and skills.  Sometimes that association leads to an opportunity to assist a comrade with actual hands-on help.  A few weeks ago I was asked by one of our group to see if I might be willing to provide some assistance with a project particularly meaningful to him.  His request looked interesting and offered a challenge that fit my skill set so I took him up on the offer.

I work in 1/12th scale mostly, however, his requirement was HO scale.  This would be a bit new to me so I was anxious to see the outcome.

Below is an image of the item he wanted produced.  A particular fire hydrant made by Rensselaer Valve Manufacturing Co. in Troy, New York called "The Corey". 






Fortunately there is an exact full scale version of the hydrant in his neighborhood he was able to measure and provide detailed information about.

Using SketchUp to produce my 3D images, I went to work.  It took some back and forth exchange between the two of us to resolve all the nuances of the piece but eventually a satisfactory representation resulted.  Here are renderings of the completed hydrant.

[Stuart]

The final result in 3D printed form, both HO and 1/12th scales.  Actually I was quite surprised that much of the detail came through on the HO version.

[Stuart]

The next challenge was to see if I could create a convincing representation of a cast iron finish with a touch of rusting in the crevices.  It was only on the larger scale version that I was able successfully do that.  Here's how it looks.







To begin, I airbrushed the entire piece in a very dark gray color.  Following that, I set my airbrush compressor pressure to a very low setting and mixed thin solutions of several slightly lighter shades of gray. The low pressure and thin paint creates a spatter effect.  Once the paint had dried (I use Tamiya acrylics) the end result seemed a little too light for cast iron. I resolved the problem by mixing a very thin mixture of India ink and again sprayed the piece (at normal air pressure) a number of times to once again bring back the darker hues of cast iron.  The thin India ink method was transparent enough so as to not lose the effect of the spatter but enough to darken everything just a bit.

Years ago I purchased a "Rustall" weathering kit, now no longer available. Using the #1 bottle of rusting solution I brushed small amounts of the liquid around bolt heads, in pipe junctions and seams. 

A fun project and a new learning experience for me.

Stuart

[Lawrence@NZFinescale]

Now for the dog?

[EZnKY]

Looks very convincing!

[Chuck Doan]

Love that!

[finescalerr]

I've seen worse. Nobody would guess that is HO scale. It's virtually perfect.

Are you using SketchUp's online version or a subscription?

Russ

[Hydrostat]

Stuart,

the hydrant looks VERY convincing!

Volker

[Bernhard]

Well done with the subtle weathering.

Bernhard

[Stuart]

Thank you all for the encouraging remarks.

I forgot to mention that once I was satisfied with the paint and weathering, I sprayed a protective layer of Dullcoat on the piece.

Russ -
I'm using the subscription or Pro version.  Otherwise I would not be able to convert the file  to STL format for printing.

Stuart

[Barney]

Excellent - Nice paint job to
Barney

[Bill Gill]

Here are Stuart's fantastic COREYs in place.

[Pitar]

That's amazing! It looks like a real one.

[Bill Gill]

Yeah, Stuart did fantastic work!

[fspg2]

Stuart,
Simply a beautiful hydrant and wonderfully implemented.