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I decided that I wanted to try a couple of model railroad products on the buildings for Calamity to see if I could save some time. Builders In Scale makes a product called Silverwood (and a couple of different colors as well), that can be applied to wood to create that aged silvery gray look to unpainted wood. I knew it would work on the Knuckleduster buildings because those are made from plywood. I was hoping that it would work on MDF and save me a lot of paint time. Well, it ended up just making the MDF a little darker or just soaked in a disappeared. I could kind of change the color but not in a way that achieved the result I was looking for. So on to Plan B.

One of the affects I want to achieve is that of old and peeling paint. In order to do that the wood has to be finished in the weathered wood look first. I was hoping that the Silverwood stuff would work like a charm, since it didn't I'm going to prime all of the buildings white (including the Knuckleduster buildings). Then I'm going to take black fabric dye (Rit Dye) and use that as a wash to create the silvery gray look. Since the fabric dye is still soluble at this point I can go back over it with some inks (burnt and raw Sienna) to get the look of newer wood in those places that are protected (mostly) from the elements.

After that has dried (and probably sealed as well) then I can start with the peeling paint effect. Typically western buildings are only painted on the sides that can be seen from the street and sometimes not even that so I have a lot of leeway on what I decide needs to be painted "in color". I'm still waiting from the buildings from Sarissa-Precision so I'm not in a hurry to move forward but I probably start experimenting with one of the smaller buildings and see if Plan B will actually work.

I did get to spend some time working on the Battle Flag Saloon this week. Nothing groundbreaking by any means but its certainly looking more "finished" than before. I was at Caboose Hobbies here in Denver and picked up some "O" Scale shingles to try on the roof. The first is called Truewood (covers 27 square inches for $9.98) and comes from Builders in Scale. The pack I picked up is rustic oak and they really are made from oak. The other shingles came from Wild West Scale Model Builders (Shake Shingles covers 38 square inches for $10.95). These shingles are a heavy weight paper and have also been laser cut. I ended up using the ridge cap from one of these packs to go along with the Truewood shingles I used. Hopefully I can blend these together during the weathering process. If I can't I think I have enough leftover Truewood shingles to do the cap, and I might do it anyway since the "look" is just not growing on me.

After shingling the roof I grabbed some stripwood and added some trim to the Saloon. This covered up the joint where the walls come together. I also added some trim to the roof on the back side. All of this wood was scored with my razor saw first to create a deep grain pattern. Its hard to see now but will be much more visible after the building is painted and weathered. I have tried to distress the boards on the building itself with my razor saw which mostly just leaves fuzz behind and seems to want to remove a layer from the building rather than make the deeper grain pattern that I was hoping for. My order from Micro Mart that arrived yesterday has a tool in it that I hope will let me get that distressed look that I want. Hopefully I'll get to try it tonight.

Next steps are to go through this same process on the General Store and the Photographer's studio. I won't put the shingles on the roof of the General Store though. Battle Flag said that they could get me a new roof which means I won't have to mess around with the extra work to make it look right. Great guys at Battle Flag! Of course there are pictures to show the progress so far. If you were really sharp eyed you would have picked up on the changes to the Saloon in the pictures that were in the Aetherworks review yesterday.

First up the products I used

Shingles applied to the roof







Adding some trim to the building to cover the joints. Obviously not as thick as the MDF, but I don't think you will notice after painting and weathering.