Looks like the real thing to me.
Nice concrete! Nice job.
That concrete wall is awesome
It’s bookmark time on this one, Jon…nice job, and thanks for the mini-tutorial.
Thanks John. Coming from you that means a lot. I hit it again with the ink/alcohol wash tonight. Looking better. Might still give it a grey wash or mist sometime in the future.
I spent most of the evening tonight enclosing the rest of the concrete block pillar with matte black panels. The pillar was a real hack from an addition before I owned the house - just thrown together and nothing lines up. I attempted to just glue panels on but that failed. I ended up building a system to hang them on. I think the scene is as complete as it’s going to get. It got too late for pictures. I’ll set up some lighting and do my final pictures tomorrow.
I used the “extra” days to finish up the scene. Tonight I removed all the clamps and painted out the glue lines in the backdrop and I declare this year’s entry complete. I began taking my final pics and my big camera ran out of batteries. I can’t get what I did take out of the camera for an hour or so. In the mean time I took a few night shots with my pocket camera.
But first, I missed posting this pre-stain picture of the completed retaining wall…
Now some night shots of #8 departing the South Willow Hill spur where it will join the main at BOX…
A little bit longer shot…
More photos to come - probably tomorrow evening.
Photo dump from the DSLR.
And these two from my LG phone - not a great low-light camera…
What a change this build has made. Nice work Jon(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Well, I may have only spent $8.50 out of pocket for supplies, but I got the Propane bill today. One of the coldest January’s in recent memory and I spent nearly every evening and weekend in the shop with the Propane fireplace cranked. Burned 88 gallons or $306 in LPG. Ouch!!! Sure was nice and warm though (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-money-mouth.gif)
Complying with Rule #1 - Priceless.
Ouch
Jon Radder said:
Thanks all. I decided that Billy needed something to back him up. The grass mat I’ve been using (I think it’s Woodland Scenics) has a thin styrene backing that can be shaped with heat. Here is a scrap showing the back side and a little mound I made to play with forming it…
The backside of the test mound…
Here’s the stuff I mentioned.
And using a heat gun, what I came up with:
Add a little paint:
One side is glossy, the other side has a matte finish.
Backdrop buildings:
It makes good cab curtains and excellent tarps as well! Although the stuff I used had a texture (like woven ) finish to it.