I got up this mawnin and took my nawmal dawgwok around the neighbahood. As Usual, I stopped at the Pleasant Cove landin, just to see what was goin’ on. Good excitement this mawnin, there was a Three Mastah’ theyah’ unloadin’ Stone. I picked up one of the blocks and it said Taylah’ on it. Figyah’ it musta been my stone foah the new project I ben thinkin about.
Now I gotta find a dang Napkin to get the ball rollin…
cool
someone has already drawn somethin on all my napkins…gee I guess there are no points awarded there!
I rummaged around in the recycle to find something without too much ink already on it We dont need no stinkin napkins around here! Hows bout an old box?
Those stones are NICE and need something NICE to be made from them!..How about the Taylor Memorial Library…No Taylors need even be harmed in the making! no need to be dead to be remembered fondly! Gotta suck up a little dont you know.
based loosely on the West Gouldsboro Library built in 1907 designed by Fred L Savage. This building uses normal field stones which are cool too but as we have some fancy cut granite that is what we shall use.
That’s Olaf on the napkin.
Thought it might have been as it has his name printed on the other side…of course this is very confusing when you have your neighbor Olaf over for dinner! He was looking for the other napkin that said Eric. Don’t know why it shouldn’t say Eric anyhow, I mean Olaf is a fine upstanding guy and all but I thought I was OK too!
Eric Schade said:
Thought it might have been as it has his name printed on the other side…of course this is very confusing when you have your neighbor Olaf over for dinner!
Your moose was going to eat his nose??? (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-yell.gif)Sounds like a “Flemish” delicacy. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Beautiful building, I like it. Can’t wait to see the start.
I started!
I decided to try blue Styrofoam as a base for the project. I had some 2" thick stuff left over from the base for last year’s project section house used for display. As I wanted the walls to be somewhat scale thickenss, I had to slice the foam into thinner sheets. I used my table saw which can cut 3" deep. two passes allow me to cut 6" so I made 3/4’x 6" sheets for the sides of the building. the base has outward slanting sides, so I cut some strips with that.
I sawed out the windows and doors on the band saw and made mitered corners for assembly.
I taped the back side and squirted in some titebond III. Lets see if that works for the styrofoam, I may try something else for the blocks of stone and to add wood trim.
I made a chimney for one end, I may only do the one as this is really a pretty small building and two fireplaces seem a bit extreme! It is sawn out of styrofoam on my band saw.
I use Titebond III on styrofoam without problems. You will see the difference in color (tan-brown) until you paint it.
Well I did some more today…
I glued the entire building together yesterday. the joints are “mitered” that is to say cut at 45degrees. I just applied glue to the angled cut and taped the building together using blue masking tape. it was dry this morning so I could take the tape off. it seemed as stiff and strong as one would expect from styrofoam.
I had also cut a notch around the bottom edges of all the sides so that I could insert a plywood floor. this stiffens the whole structure and adds some heft to it so perhaps it will not blow away off into the woods!
The library in West Gouldsboro is whitewashed stucco. I thought i would try to replicate that. i tried just painting the styrofoam but that didn’t really answer. I needed something thicker with more “body” I decided to experiment. I added some titebond III to the mix, better but not yet, then I added some wood flour. Wood flour is a product we use with epoxy boat building, it is really only sanding dust say from a factory that makes doors and collects the dust from the sanding operation. It may actually be specially made as a Food additive believe it or not. I brushed it on quite libarally and left it with some texture.
that should take a while to dry…I turned up the heat a little in the shop.
So off to work on the stones. I visited my college last week, both boys are there now. the oldest school building is a stone structure from the 1860’s if memory serves. it uses cut stone just like the stuff from Taylor’s Quarry operation.
this is old granite. I love the colors and want to try to approximate the color and variations. I had made a stone train station using plastic decking planks sawn into blocks. worked well, looked like cut granite but it had no real variation in color. Mr Taylor’s product also has very little color variation so needs painting. because I want the blocks colors to vary a little I decided to paint them before application. I laid them out on a bit of cardboard and misted them with spray paint. I used several colors, dark gray, linen white, rusty primer and silver. I tried to mist them fairly uniformly with everything but the rust. the rust was misted onto areas so that some stones are quite red most are gray and some in between.
I grabbed some random stones to see how they looked. the large stones on the bottom are blocks sawn out of plastic decking.
the decking comes with grooves to accept the fastener system. I sawed off the bits making up the grooves to give me stone moldings.
Excellent progress. The stonework is looking very good, and I like your college wall you’re imitating.
Man, am I falling behind; I need to get to working!
p.s…who’s the old maid in the doorway? Ha!
that would be the librarian … Marion, one must assume!
You are off to a great start and you are solving some of my concerns.
Wood Flour. I’m still in the planning stages of building an Irish/ English pub and many Irish buildings have stucco on them. There are not enough Taylor Stones to do an entire building so that means sections of it would need to be covered with stucco and I like the look of what you have used. This wood flour might be the way to go.
Keep up the good work.
Todd Haskins said:
You are off to a great start and you are solving some of my concerns.
…
Ohhhhhhhhhh…I didn’t think of that. If I wait until the last weekend, everyone will have solved all the problems and I can cruise in on everyone else’s coat-tails!!!
John, only if you can cruise very fast.
I am thinking some kind of caulk material to stick on the stone bits…latex acrylic type maybe. cheap, flexible and weatherproof. Yacha think?
Eric Schade said:
I am thinking some kind of caulk material to stick on the stone bits…latex acrylic type maybe. cheap, flexible and weatherproof. Yacha think?
Either you are being totally honest or fishing. Rooster feathers make good flys to catch fish with if they are biting .
I used latex caulk to affix the stones (real stone) on my saw mill rebuild. I rough up the backs of these “stones” that Dave sent me, so that the Goop I use will adhere better. I would recommend the same with any adhesive, including caulk.
John Passaro said:
Todd Haskins said:
You are off to a great start and you are solving some of my concerns.
…
Ohhhhhhhhhh…I didn’t think of that. If I wait until the last weekend, everyone will have solved all the problems and I can cruise in on everyone else’s coat-tails!!!
I hope this works … the weather has prevented me from laying out my walls in connection with the roadbed AND from painting my brownstones.
The Other John
