Looks good. You might be able to rough up the first one a bit with some fine sandpaper if you don’t want to engrave the grain. Either one will look pretty good from normal viewing distance.
Thanks again guys!
Bruce, I think so too, but the grain in the second piece isn’t engraved, it’s just made with a belt sander mainly. But I’m probably missing your point(?)
I just cut and inked the remaining pieces, so here’s how they all look.
The ink didn’t want to lay into and highlight the board joints and nail holes as well as I’d hoped. Over half of the nail holes had no ink left at all (though I had worked the ink into everything with a brush before letting it set and wiping). So, before I took the above pic, I hit all the nail holes with a small paint brush dipped in more ink.
Going forward, maybe a solvent-based thinned black paint is better for this styrene, not sure. And I think I need to make the board joints deeper. But it’s ok for this building.
Oh, I thought it was engraved! Well, that’s the way to go then. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
It looks great.
BTW, if you want/need a small belt sander, the Microlux one from MicroMark works great.
This is a fantastically interesting and helpful topic. Thanks for showing all the intermediate steps and variations as you go. Looks like a super viable way to make pretty detailed structures.
Have you thought about using the laser to make wood decay? Eating into some of the boards to roughen the ends, varying the width and depth of the board joints?
Great work!
Try rubbing alcohol to get the ink to ‘lay down’. It is a wetting agent and should pull the ink into the crevasses.
Try to keep the details contained on each board, it will help fool the eye.
Maybe you could engrave some detail deeper on each than the sanding to do the above…
Looks great, but I really think you should try to get serious with your hobby!
Your concerned net bro,(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
John
Looks good. The wood grain effect is very…, effective.
Very kind of y’all, thanks very much for viewing and commenting.
Jim, thanks! And for wood details, I’m sure you could do that with actual wood and possibly acrylic – both of which vaporize in the cutting. For styrene though, it tends to melt at the edges and form a crater’s lip wherever the laser goes. Might be better to distress the styrene mechanically (file, awl, not really sure, I’m a novice here), so as to get the sharper edges involved with that effect. Still, if the rotting were serious, you could sure do the basic cuts / engraving with the laser, and hack it by hand afterward. Either way, great idea!
Hey John, always nice to hear from you. I’ll try that alcohol tip, thanks very much! But I’m not quite sure what you meant by keeping the details on the board, could you elaborate?
I decided to get the 3D printing over with, and started with the vent. This was brought up by Rooster, and confirmed as needed by others.
Tomorrow, there’s probably about 6 hours of 3d printing to go for the doors and windows. I really need to study this printer more and see if I can speed it up! In the mean time, my wife and I are clearing out the kitchen for the long-awaited refinishing of the floor project, where we can’t use the kitchen for 4 days next week.
I had some really good 3d printing news. I’ve been fretting a lot over getting ABS filament to print, and my printer nozzle just wont get hot enough. And there’s tons of special things to learn about that material. I was convinced that ABS was the way to go though for decent solvent-bonding to acrylic or styrene, and that PLA (the usual material) was no good. BUT, I just tested a PLA print and acrylic with the stuff I’ve already been using: SciGrip #16 (or #4), it seems to be working wonderfully! Sure enough, SG recommends #4 at least for PLA prints. So that’s a huge relief, and will allow me to use lower temps and a material I’m more familiar with.
Thanks for viewing!
===>Cliffy
Hi Cliff,
When the stain covers two or more boards, it will look less random and more like scribed paneling. I thought if each board had a unique pattern it would prevent that. Knot and deep grain patterns … but with a thousand boards to go … (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)could be a bit much. Perhaps better saved for fine scale accents.
John
Hey John, yeah, I get you now. Yes, both the graining and sanding are across board boundaries, not very realistic. I’ve been going fairly quickly on this and not individualizing the boards very much, but maybe in a “real” model (of one of the mines) I’ll take a little more time. Probably not too much more though, just because of the square footage involved. We’ll see. I want to improve on this technique… Maybe there are ways to use straight edges as stencils, or at least guides for a more even wiping process.
I got the 3d printing done, and here are the parts.
I’m gradually getting the hang of this 3d printer. So when the vents, door and windows printed without a hitch, I decided to use this process for the corner trim, and add a stack base & cap.
Also did a little crate,
Needs a little filing to make the joints fit, but the pieces snapped together fairly well.
CJ
After about 6 weeks (due to work, work trips, and mainly our kitchen upgrading), I was able to poke this project today.
My main objective was to get some reddish hue on the exterior panels, but allow the gray “grain” to show through. I tried rattle can spray & wipe, but that was too destructive. After some experimenting, I ended up doing the following: drip on a few drops of acrylic barn red and tuscan red, wipe it in, wait around 10 minutes, and gently wipe it down with a paper towel. After drying, I sprayed it with clear matte Rustoleum.
Here’s the result.
I like the weathered red grain look. Unfortunately, there are two main flaws in my mind. First, the “nail holes” made by the laser have a lip to them, and that edge always wipes down to white. I should have sanded the whole thing after lasering.
Also, the board joints aren’t distinct. The black ink didn’t gather there, and an experimental wipe after this didn’t make a diff (except to damage the red). So, I should have run the “engraving” layer for this at a slower speed, to make the grooves deeper.
Clearly, more experimentation is needed… But for this test building, I need to move on and start gluing stuff together. And learning about the next batch of issues.
Thanks for viewing,
===>Cliffy
Like Jim said, this is fascinating to follow. On the board division grooves - when doing similar wash to things like flat car decks, all the way from G to HO scales, and other parts, there seems to be something about grooves with open ends where they do not retain the wash. I don’t know if it somehow capillary actions out the end or what.
Cliff Jennings said:
Also, the board joints aren’t distinct. The black ink didn’t gather there, and an experimental wipe after this didn’t make a diff (except to damage the red). So, I should have run the “engraving” layer for this at a slower speed, to make the grooves deeper.
Clearly, more experimentation is needed… But for this test building, I need to move on and start gluing stuff together. And learning about the next batch of issues.
Thanks for viewing,
===>Cliffy
I use the “cutting” laser to make the grooves. Then I drag an X-acto through the channels to make them more distinct and get rid of the residue at the bottoms where the acrylic has melted back together.
Hi Cliff,
A couple of thoughts.
Maybe try sanding the surface with a fine grit after you grove,distress, and nail hole the sheets. This will remove some/all of the raised ridges that are formed.
Might try spraying the sheet with dilute black acrylic and after it dries wipe it cross grain with a cloth or paper towel wet/damp with alcohol. Wiping across the grain will/should leave the black in the recessed areas. This would be over the top of your finish color, for color safety the finish color are done in spray enamels.
Like what your doing with the fancy machinery
Rick
Hi guys, thanks for all your kind words and further ideas. Forrest, I don’t know if it’s capillary action or what, but the stryene grooves aren’t really wanting to let the acrylic wash stick especially. Rick, I agree that sanding the surface lightly would have helped. Todd, I agree about cutting the boards more deeply. On my system that means running a little slower. Interestingly, the horizontal seams are deeper and hold the black highlight better.
This morning I messed with more dilute black (india ink) wash, and that was interesting. But the most consistent results came with powdered black ink (from a laser cartridge refill kit), worked in with a soft art brush, and stroked with the grain. Some places came out too dark, so I wiped them some with a dry paper towel. This was a dry process. Experiments with anything damp tended to eat away at the red acrylic.
The ink power almost did it’s own random thing, sticking in blotchy ways. This might be due to inconsistencies in the texturing, not sure. But I like the random effect.
Next time I’ll make deeper grooves and lightly sand before painting. For this building though, I’ll give the panels some clear coat and move into assembly.
Thanks gain guys,
Cliff
Edit: What am I talking about, assembly? I still have gobs of 3d printed parts to paint…
BTW, the color scheme for me, based on V&T and other records, will typically be barn red for walls, forest green for shingles, white for trim, and black for stacks, all weathered.
I like the V&T and approve of your shingle color.
Have several HO scale V&T loco and rolling stock projects to finish; pretty much all I have in V&T in G is Bachmann’s set and a bobber caboose numbered 4.5; plus a USA Trains boxcar. Started a couple builds to look like the outside framed box cars but they may end up for my freelance road.
The powdered refill ink is something I’ve not thought to try. Hmm …
Very convincing!
Cliff
This is very great looking coloring, something to try for graining is a wire brush in a drill, look for small wires, they are less rigid. I love it also for wood.
Your coloring looks great
Dennis
Looking good Cliffy.
Chris
Thanks gentlemen!
Forrest, I hoped you’d like that color 
Dennis, I’d used a more rigid wire wheel on an earlier siding project. It tended to dig in unpredictably; so I’ll have to try lighter wire. It was tough to do broad expanses, so I think a combination of heavy-grit belt sanding (for general grain) and light wire-wheeling (for added interest) would probably be cool.
C