Painting window frames on a kit?


Rico,

Hey nice to see you again and thank you, it is almost completed painting wise and should be by tomorrow evening. I will have a little bit of touching up to do but all in all I don't think it is turning out too bad for a first "serious attempt".
 
Look at it this way Tony, get good at this and repainting the detail stuff inside/outside your house will be a breeze (and having pleased your wife with your competence, next on the list)
 
Toot'n,

Gee thanks - as if I don't have enough "real work" to do already, not to mention my wife needing no help or excuse to find me more, but thanks for the encouragement - mate! :D
 
Looking good so far for your first attempt. I have done about two dozen DPM and Smalltown kits because I need a lot of buildings reasonably priced. I now enjoy doing them. The first one was tough, but I always used magnifiers and very small paintbrushes I got from Hobby Lobby; 5/0's I think are the size. I like the DPM's better because they are all unique, where the Smalltown kits are all the same dozen or so parts packaged differently to make different buildings. Smalltown however, includes window sheets that make detailing easier. I always add additional roof and other details to individualize each structure. I paint them but rarely paint them like the pictures show; but like montanan does, I paint the sills and in some cases the lintels a concrete color as it is more realistic. I have many duplicates that I paint differently and set on the layout on different levels or orientations to build areas more rapidly. When it becomes tiresome, I open a beer and put up the art supplies until tomorrow!
A side note about the Smalltown kits; I always take the window sheet and scan and print extras for use on other kits.
Willie
 
Willie,

Thank you and I might have to look at the small town kits for my houses and "industry". Here is the completed building:

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All I will say is it looks better in person. Some how, photo's always seem to make things look worse than they might other wise be. Also, the next buildings to be done will be shown in my:

http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/...he-wife-s-HO-Atlas-layout&p=402329#post402329

thread.
 
Hi Tony, Sorry for not checking this area out sooner. What you have done looks darn Good to me, so be proud, also you can look at the areas that didn't get covered completely, not that everything has to, as areas that were painted some time ago by the little folk and have weathered over time, so it just add some character!

I haven't done too many buildings, but do know as Chet, Garry and others have said it's tedious work especially as we get older. A Jewelers head magnifier, with glass lenses, really make viewing the work a lot easier, I use mine all the time. Also I find that by having the paint a bit on the thin side it tends to flow better to get into some of the areas. Also a bit less can be applied without getting to much extra flow but it does/has happened to me. That when some touch comes into play.

I only have one DPM building I started to build and painted the windows and doors while the walls were laying flat on the table. If your building is already built then you have a height issue to deal with and I'd suggest placing several books along side the building and about the same height to rest the edge of your hand on while doing the fine painting. Your possibly doing this as your work looks very steady to me.

With my Horseshoe Meadow Depot the window & door castings were all white metal and I used a fine tapered square jewelers file to try and clean them up from flash. I did a bit too much on a couple but those went around back where they don't show. As far as the painting I did the frames in a medium green if I remember correctly and used depot for the mullions but it got to be very tedious where the inside of the frames came down to the mullions as well as at the door inserts. It's far from perfect and I had to do some touch up here and there so don't feel like the lone stranger. I had to stop and have something to drink and get away from it for awhile. After all that was done, I used some of the glazing material from Micro-Mark to coat the back side of the windows, earlier in the year when the weather was on the cooler outside, and placed them on a 1/4" mesh screen I laided on two 1x2 boards that were on top of an oil heater set on a lower temp, to aid the glazing in drying. It requires a fair amount of this medium, indeed it seemed like it was too much which I applied with a small round stick tapered at the end, but when it dried it filled in all the openings very nicely.

But I'll have to say that the 14 windows of various sizes and the three doors plus the freight doors were quite a challenge to do even though they were separate cause I painted both front and back on all, well maybe not the freight doors.

Anyway Tony your your work is looking very good so be proud!



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David,

Thank you and I do use things, mainly the arms of my chair to "steady" my hand when trying to do the finer detail and straight lines. Thanks for the tip on thinning the paint a little too, I will try that with my next building in line to be done.

Your Depot looks good to me as well, especially as it is metal and not plastic. I imagine painting metal would be a little harder than plastic.
 
wombat457 said:
David,

Thank you and I do use things, mainly the arms of my chair to "steady" my hand when trying to do the finer detail and straight lines. Thanks for the tip on thinning the paint a little too, I will try that with my next building in line to be done.

Your Depot looks good to me as well, especially as it is metal and not plastic. I imagine painting metal would be a little harder than plastic.
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Hi Tony: Your quite welcome, not only do your painting efforts look good but so does your photography!

On my Horseshoe Meadow Depot, only the window castings are white metal, the rest of the Depot Kit, from Railway Engineering, is wood. I like working with wood as it's fairly easy to stain and tha't what I did using Floquil [Thinner Based Paint-thinned].

As far a getting the painting/staining done as you or I perceive we want it sometimes as I mentioned prior, like on the Depot I didn't get the corner trim done as completely as I pictured in my minds eye as the staining turned out on the sparse side which I now realize give me reason to have a fellow there with a paint brush applying more due to natural weathering, shall we say.
 
David,

That is the nice thing about this hobby, if something doesn't work out quite right or as you imagine it to, there is always something that can be used to make it appear as though mistake or omission or oversight is really supposed to be there and was intentional.

PS: Have started my next building and HAVE thinned the Model Master Acrylic paint a little. It dos seem to go on easier but will require (maybe) a third coat to get a "good" cover. The one thing I like is how the paint now seems to "flow" into those hard to get to places like corners, and that removes a lot of frustration and paint going where it isn't needed.
 
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The thing I find that helps me Tony , more than anything is a good set of magnifiers and a bright lite . When it appears , through the glasses that what you are painting is a 1/4 inch wide instead of a 1/16 the painting just seems easier for me . Keep at it , they look good and like it has been said before , if you just absolutely don't like it wash it off with windex and do it again.
 
Thanks for the advice Jim, appreciate and am keeping at it. I have just completed painting one more building that is posted in my Layout Thread:

My Wife's HO Layout
 
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