STEP 2: Breaking Out the Paint Brushes
Now that the walls are cut, it's time to
pre-paint/pre-stain the wood.
I'm sure some of you may want to do the board and batten section as
unpainted, aged wood. We'll begin with a lesson in weathering siding to
look old and unpainted.
A couple guys by the name of Mick Greenburg and Gary Nash developed a
spectacular way to age raw wood using Floquil stains back in the late
'70s. Their original article appeared in the Narrow Gauge
and Short Line Gazette,
but their fame lives on--they were mentioned in Bob Walker's column in
a recent issue of RMC (September 2004, I think).
The Greenberg/Nash technique would still be viable today if it were not
that Floquil (actually, Floquil's newest owner, Minwax) has
discontinued the Flo-Stain collection of FLoquil paints that were the
backbone of the technique: Driftwood, Natural Pine, Teak and Maple.
Since the last time I built a structure that had some exposed and aged
wood was when I was actually producing kits in the early '80s, a
current alternative for the process was needed.
Below is a comparison of the Greenburg/Nash method with a method worked
out using paint from the Model Masters military line of enamel paint,
in combination with an alcohol dye stain.
The top square of siding uses Model Masters 1704 Armor Sand enamel as a
base coat, with a black shoe dye/denatured alcohol over-stain.
The bottom has the Floquil lacquer Driftwood base coat with a Floquil
Natural Pine over-stain. The left side of each square is the base coat
only, and the right side has graining added with strokes of a single
edge razor blade, plus the over-stain. Battens have been added to show
the full effect.
Floquil's Flo-Stain Driftwood and Natural
Pine, and Model Masters Armor Sand.
Above is a section of
siding that shows the three steps involved in turning new wood into
aged and weathered siding. And since I don't have the exact
proportions of dye to alcohol in the black stain that is an essential
part of this process, the
left end of the siding also has a comparison showing the relative
strength of the shoe dye/alcohol stain to raw siding. The first three
boards on the
left are raw wood, and the next four have the alcohol stain.
| Note: some dyes are
bluish when diluted. I'm using Fiebing
leather dye, which is a
true black dye, and often available in some craft shops and many
leather working shops such as Tandy Leather.
You can also use isopropyl alcohol instead of denatured alcohol as a
vehicle. Just stay away from a water base in either paint or
stain, as the water will make the grain swell, closing up the very thin
graining that is added with the razor blade--but more on that later. |
Starting on the opposite
end of the wood is a fairly large section with
just the Armor Sand base coat. In the middle is a five board wide
section that
has the base coat, some added grain lines and the final over-stain
added.
Here's how the process
works:
The base coat provides a starting point of color on which to build.
Grain is then added with relatively straight strokes of a razor blade.
Some strokes run the entire length of the board, some start and/or stop
in different places along the board. These are not meant to be three
dimensional grain lines that are visible on their own, but very small,
lightly made
cuts in the wood surface in which the alcohol stain will collect,
making a small but perceptible difference in color from the surrounding
wood. (Be certain to allow the base coat to completely cure for a day
or two before applying the alcohol stain, so the stain doesn't soften
the paint and mix with it.)
If you want
to achieve the effect of two boards butted together, scribe a
separation line, and make the grain strokes more numerous on one side
of the scribed separation than on the other. The additional grain
strokes will absorb more stain, giving it a different appearance than
the wood on the other side of the separation, making it look like two
different boards butted together. As explained in the sidebar below for
hiding cross grain, you can vary the look of the base coat of any
individual board by using a couple of other MM paints, such as thinned
1711 Olive Drab or 1740 Dark Tan for instance, applied before adding
the grain and applying the alcohol wash. You don't need a really
distinct change in color from board to board-- a subtle change works
just fine, and is probably more believable.
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The biggest drawback to
using the MM enamel as a base coat is that it sets quite fast. This
makes it a little challenging to get a thin, even coating on the wood.
The effect you want to achieve is more of a coloring of the wood with
just a bit of the grain showing through, rather than a thick coating of
paint. The Floquil Driftwood was already a thinned stain, but the MM
Armor Sand is a paint, so either thin it 30% or so, or don't mix the
paint more than a few shakes before using it. It also pays to be
selective in choosing your siding, selecting pieces that have no
visible cross grain at all. Any grain will be enhanced with the paint
and stain, and therefore detract from the illusion that these are
individual boards. If you do end up with some minor cross graining, you
can add a bit more paint on some adjacent boards, breaking up the
continuous run of the cross grain. If you have heavier cross grain, see
the side bar below.
To hide a heavier, more visible cross grain
is still fairly simple. The solution is to completely cover the grain
with the paint. The best way
to get a very thin but opaque coat is to use an airbrush, applying thin
coats until the grain is just covered. Then, run a bit of steel wool
over the paint to smooth out the very fine paint texture which is sure
to be present--but use care, as this can give the paint a satiny finish
if over done. Lastly, to
break up the completely even appearance of the base coat, add a little
variation of color to individual boards. This can be done with very
thinned Model Masters 1711 Olive Drab (very, very close to the Floquil
Natural Pine stain) and 1742 Dark Tan. Try and keep the variations very
subtle.
After applying the base color, add the
graining. Because the base coat
is opaque and none of the natural grain shows through, the added
graining should be more numerous and tighter together.
The above compares the piece of siding on the left, with a solid base
coat of Armor Sand, with the siding on the right that's had a less
dense base coat of Armor Sand. I have to confess that I didn't
follow any of the general advise I gave earlier about applying the
paint and dye stain: I hand painted the base coat, gave it a few swipes
with steel-wool to even out the finish, made a series of light grain
strokes with an Xacto blade (probably three to four times as many as
I'd do on siding that had a more "stain-like" base coat), and
immediately hit it with a couple washes of the alcohol dye stain.
Took all of about ten minutes, and five of those were waiting for the
base coat to lose its tackiness. The main difference between the
two is that
there is a bit less depth of color in the solid base coat finished
siding, and
it's a bit more gray, while the siding on the right has a warmer look.
Still, it comes off very nicely, and well within the variations one
might see in nature. Ideally, I'd still suggest waiting most of a
day for the base coat to set completely if you're not turning your
paint into a lacquer based concoction as I do.
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After adding the grain,
apply the alcohol stain. Vary the application a
little by making some boards darker than others. Then, treat the
battens the same way, and glue in place, using the vertical scribes as
guides.
I began staining the
walls of the small addition before I found the combination of paint and
stain finally settled upon, so that will explain why my walls are a bit
darker than the sample wall.
Here's where a decision must be made. If you will have solid, unworn
paint on all surfaces, you can skip staining the rest of the wood, and
proceed to painting the finish coat. However, if you plan on exposing
any bare wood under worn paint, all the wood, not just the wood that
will be exposed, should be stained with at least the Armor Sand. This
includes the rest of the board and batten siding on the lower part of
the main building, the 1x10 clapboards, the 1x4 battens and 1x6 trim.
To
just spot paint exposed areas of wood would result in an uneven
appearance. Do not add any graining, though, as the wood under the
paint would
remain in good condition. You can add distressing to the areas
remaining exposed after the finish coat of paint has been added.
An exception might be if you are doing a very worn painted surface as
below:
This is the small addition, and it is destined to have very worn paint.
To achieve this look, the siding was completely weathered, and the
bottom was masked off at the level of the board and batten siding on
the main structure. Rubber cement was dabbed on, and Model Master's
2081 Dunkelgrun RLM 71 enamel was airbrushed on. (As is my usual
practice, I thinned it with lacquer thinner.)
I then used a rubber cement eraser to remove the rubber cement. (You
can make one by letting a quarter-sized dollop of rubber cement sit on
a counter top until all the solvent evaporates. Just roll it up, and
it's ready to use.) The unpainted areas under the rubber cement were
very oval in appearance, and I wasn't very happy with the look. An
Xacto blade was then used to scrape the paint into the pattern you see
above. I tried to scrape enough around the ovals left by the rubber
cement to de-emphasize their shape and blend them into the vertical
shapes of removed paint resulting from the Xacto blade scrapings.
The scraping is best done before the paint completely sets. I painted
and scraped about five pieces, and as I got to the last piece, the
paint was more difficult to remove, and it was harder to match the
effect to the other pieces. I'd suggest painting and scraping only a
couple pieces at a time.
(Anyone want to guess how old that black styrene Grandt Line
window
might be?)
We've already begun to cross into the territory of step
3, where
we'll be adding the finish paint and weathering it.
Ron Hildebrand
August 2004
Photographs made with Nikon D1x and Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8
Copyright 2004, Ron Hildebrand
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