Your First Laser Kit 05 - Basic Barn Kit - Painting the Trim

Now we need to paint the trim work on the barn.

 Let's get the trim piece out and take a look at it.  All of these pieces will be painted white.  Unfortunately we can't paint them like we did the wall sections.  Since the are going to be stuck on the wall & door sections you'll be able to see the sides of the boards.  When laser cutting there is a tendency for the boards to burn slightly on the sides so this has to be covered with paint.

 These parts are VERY delicate.  I started cutting with a hobby knife and switched immediately to a razor blade because of the extremely narrow cuts.  First I try to cut out main sub assemblies, and then work them down to their smallest part.

 I've cut all of the main sub assemblies out and this leaves the wood sheet empty.  This is adhesive backed wood and we'll save it just in case we screw up a part.  Just put it aside somewhere.

 Cutting out the door cross bracing is very delicate work, so take your time.

 The hayloft door looks very boring compared to the main doors, so I'm going to leave the kit plans for a minute and carve my own brace.

 There!  One nice diagonal with adhesive on the back!  Don't be afraid to change the kit if you need to.  This door would normally have a support like this.

 All of the pieces have been cut out.  Now I need to sand the sides and remove the burrs.  For some reason I can't find my fine grit sander so I'll have to go to the hobby shop and get a new one.  It is critical for this work as the parts are so tiny.

 Meanwhile, I'll go ahead and make a paint board.  I do this by taking Scotch Brand double sided tape and laying some strips out on a sheet of foam board.

The double sided tape took the pigments out of my finger prints!  After I sand a piece I'll carefully place it on the paint board and get it ready for airbrushing.

Your First Laser Kit 04 - Basic Barn Kit - Painting the Barn Outside

The black on the back is dry, so let's flip it over and start painting the outside.

 I decided that my barn needed to be the rusty red color that is popular in the rural south.  It is old, so it will be a bit faded and brownish looking.

 I use Dr. Ben's Weathering Pigments for several reasons.  Mostly because of the variety and they are in flat, round containers that are easy to handle.  This is the Railroad Weathering Set with 27 colors.

 As you can see, this is a comprehensive set.  Rather pricey, but it will last me almost forever.  Black is the only color I may reorder in about 10 years.

 Let's add a little grain to the wood first.  This is a brass bristle brush that you can buy at any harware or DIY store.

 I take the brush and rub with the grain of the wood back and forth in a scrubbing fashion.  This adds some age to the flat plywood "boards".

 Next I'll grab a firm bristle flat brush.  You want one that is durable because you are going to scrub the pigment into the wood.

 Dr. Ben's Chicago Brick looks like just the right color of red and brown.

 I always work pigments in a tray just in case I knock something over so that you can pour the pigments back in the jar.

 The effect I want is that the barn is fading and is very water worn at the bottom.  Normally any wall is darker at the top under the eave of the building and fades as it goes toward the ground.  At the ground level water and soil eat away at the boards so they are going to be gray.  We'll not paint the end of the walls.  Load up your brush with pigments (I used no water or alcohol, just pigments) and apply them to the top of a wall in a scrubbing type action.  Gradually push the pigments down and stopping about 1/8" from the bottom.

 This wall has a little darker top, some streaks on the wall, and nothing at the very bottom.

 The door is to be cut out, so I won't stain it yet.  You can see the mottled look the pigments give the boards.

 The eave of the sides of the barn is more pronounced so it would weather less and would be darker.  We'll start at the top and grind the pigments into the board.

 Next, we'll work the pigments down and fade them out toward the bottom, again leaving the bottom unpainted.

 We want to open the doors, so we need to slice them apart now.  Figure out the center board, and using a razor blade (very thin) slice through the door.

 The area under the hayloft door will get very dirty and weathered, so we won't make it too red.  Fade the rest of the barn.

 The lean-to is newer, so the paint wouldn't have weathered as much.  I made these almost solid pigment and was sure to clean out the grooves in the wood to make it look newer.

 Tap off the rest of the loose pigments into the tray and then put them back in the jar if you like.  I throw them away because sometimes they pick up moisture and the adhesive in them activates.

 Let's grab the weathered black.  Actually I probably should use a gray like a pastel gray, but Ben doesn't make a set of white to gray highlighting and board weathering pigment set.  (HINT HINT, Dr. Ben!)

 Dark is dangerous!  Use it VERY sparingly.  Notice I have a rag handy to wipe off the excess.  A little goes a very long way.

 Notice the patch of black on the side.  I remove a lot of the pigment before I touch the brush to the model.  On the bottom ends of the walls I add a very thin swipe of black to the unpigmented areas to make it look like the paint had worn off and the boards are rotting away.

 The area under the hayloft door gets a little more weathering, as do both doors since people push them shut with their dirty hands.  The front takes a lot more wear.

Finally I give it a light coat of Testor's Dullcoat and let it dry overnight.  You will notice the pigments bleed into each other a little, which is what we want.

Your First Laser Kit 03 - Basic Barn Kit - Painting the Barn Inside

Ok, let's paint some barn!

 One thing that I thought about was the open barn doors.  I want the doors open but I really don't want people to see that there is nothing inside.  We fix that with a little black paint.

 I'm out of masking tape, so we'll use cellophane tape.  Turn the barn sides sheet over...

 ...and put tape over the doors making sure to overlap the tape.  We want the doors red on both sides, but all the rest of the interior must be flat black.

 Using a hobby knife trim the tape but cutting around the doors.

 Peel of the extra tape leaving the doors covered.

 I put the sheet on a paper towel and prepare to spray it in my shop.  Since there is only a little paint that is going to be used I'm not going outside with it.

 Using Testor's Flat Black spray paint I very lightly spray the back of the sheet being EXTRA careful not to get it too wet.  You just want to kill the wood color, not coat it.

 You can see the dark spot on the right.  That is the door section.

We remove the tape and let it dry thoroughly.

Your First Laser Kit 02 - Basic Barn Kit - Painting the Barn Thought Process

Ok, class, what is my first rule of modeling?

WHAT!  You don't remember?  Ok, one last time...

The first thing you do before starting a model is to STUDY THE PROTOTYPE.

Hey, how can you make a model of something if you haven't looked at the real thing?

Before we go further, open up another browser and go search for SMALL RED BARNS.  See what you find.  How do they look?  Are they new or old?  Red or another color?  What type of roof do they have?  What makes the barn interesting?

Now back to the kit.  A model needs a story.  The story tell us how to finish the model.  Is this barn new or old?  Red or brown?  Is it used heavily?  Are the doors opened or closed?  Is there a light inside?  Perhaps a tractor?  Is a side falling in?  You get the idea.

Take a minute and WRITE DOWN (no it won't kill you) what YOUR barn looks like in your mind.  The more you write down, the better your barn will be.

My barn:

• Is older and red, but the lean-to is a more recent addition.
• The main doors are slightly open, enough to not see in
• The side door is open too because someone is working inside
• There is a farmer near or in the barn
• The roof needs repair
• Two of the boards on one side were broken and repaired

That's enough for now.  So how do you paint this barn?  The red on the main barn is probably faded by now, and the lower edge of the barn is either covered in dirt or has been damaged by water.  The lean-to since it is newer was probably not painted with the same can of red and would be much less weathered and damaged.  The roof would be in better shape and most likely different from the main roof.

You can see now how I think this out...and the more time you spend doing this the better your model.  For this one I don't want it too complicated, so we'll stop here.  Everyone will need to build this in class.  Otherwise I'd add a stone foundation on it and detail the inside!