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The best stuff for doing stucco has been given to us by Karl O. The product is called Deco Art Sand stone. I buy the neutral beige stock #DSD70. If you need to do any stucco this is the stuff to use.
Before beginning construction, I soak them for up to 24 hours in a stain made from very dilute acrylic paints. To approx. 20 oz. of water in a jar, I normally add the following: 1/4-1/2 tsp. India ink, 1 tsp Polly Roof Brown, 1 tsp. Polly Grimy Black or Oily Black, 1-1/2 tsps. of Polly RR Tie Brown. (If I want the wood to take on a more reddish appearance, I cut back on the browns and add approx. 1 tsp. Apple Barrel Burnt Sienna. If I want the wood to be grayer, I cut back on the RR Tie Brown and increase the Grimy Black.) I then close the jar and shake well to thoroughly mix the pigments and water. Next, I put all of the stripwood into one or more ziplock bags and pour several ounces of the stain into the bag. The stripwood is left in the stain for up to 24 hours. I simply turn the bag (s) over every 4-6 hours to keep the pigments from settling out too much. Afterward, I remove the wood and let it dry thoroughly on newspaper and/or paper towels.
After the wood has dried, I impart texture to it by scratching it with a wire scratch "pen" that I got from MicroMark. Sometimes I also use a dull razor saw on the wood. And I randomly split boards with my knife or dig "knotholes" with the knife point.
Finally, if I want the wood to look really old and weathered, I dust it with Rembrandt Raw Umber and Gold Ochre chalks that I powder and apply with a soft brush.
Other folks may have differing opinions/experiences, and that's fine.
1. If using acrylic paint for the stain and stripwood (instead of sheetwood), I prefer to use water instead of alcohol.
Alcohol, in my experience, evaporates too quickly and causes the acrylic paint to coagulate. I mix my stain, put the wood in zipper-type bags, pour the stain in, and then turn the bags every few hours for up to 24 hours.
2. I don't think there's any real advantage to using windshield washer fluid instead of water when staining bulk quantities of stripwood. I tried it a couple of times and could see no/little difference. Windshield washer fluid might be cheap, but water is usually free. Beyond that, the paints I use to make stains mix equally well with one or the other.
3. I don't think the brand matters. Most of that stuff seems to be the same - just a different label.
4. If I'm brush staining wood with black alcohol, I generally use real India ink mixed in the alcohol. It's "permanent" and "water resistent." For stains that I'm mixing (like the recipe Jesper quoted above), I use "water soluble" black ink (Higgins is one such brand), because I'm using water for the base.
5. The longer you leave the stripwood in a water/acrylic stain, the more color it will take on. For variations in colors, I sometimes pull some of the wood from the stain after about 12-14 hours and some more after about 16-18 hours.
Most of the wood gets left in the stain for about 24 hours, though. And sometimes, after the wood has dried, I will brush black alcohol on several pieces for additional darkening. Then I mix all of the wood together and use it randomly in construction.
The truth is, I think there are as many different ways to stain/color wood in modeling as there are people who do it.
Sometimes it seems to me that we spend way too much time searching for the "perfect" way to weather wood. And I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to that. One of these days I may just go back to plain old black alcohol. It works about as well as anything I've come up with in recent years.
How to paint /weather Campbell shingles. Heres how to color your shingles.
1 Paint them with Floquil earth solvent based. Allow to dry.
2 Apply I&A wash allow to dry.
3 Drybrush with antique white and rust.
4 Thats about it. If done right they will look like a million bucks.
Karl S.
Textured rust. I make a slurry of alcohol and and 2-4 "rust" colored chalk powders. I normally used a #2 round red
sable brush to apply the slurry, although I also use other sizes and even toothpicks at times to apply it. The alcohol
evaporates quickly but "fixes" the chalk powder in place.
STAINS!
Problem : Many of the older kits I have (FSM, SSI, Master Creations, Sierra West) contain construction manuals that
specifically state to use Floquil stain (or Flo-Stain) colors. I used these stains years ago, and found them to be
excellent. Since these stains are no longer available .....
Goal : To find stains that are similar in color and properties to the old Flo-Stains: Good even coverage on wood, nice
flat finish, and doesn't cause wooden siding to warp (most of these older kits contain wooden siding).
Attempts : I've tried a few products so far, some were very close to filling my needs, but usually fell short in 1 or 2
areas (see my old message above).
Additional Product Test Report
Tandy & Fiebing Leather Dyes - I purchased 4 Tandy colors and 4 Fiebling colors from
1. www.TandyLeather.com (nice reliable source). After trying out these products, I really felt they could have
been GREAT, but I was really turned off by the colors. Many of the colors (tan, light brown, med brown) had a
strong bright-orange/bright-rust shade to them, and the Buckskin & Beige colors were almost yellow. The product
gave extremely great coverage on wood, but did leave a slight shinny finish. I'm pretty sure that somebody with
more experience in color mixing, could come up with some nice colors (maybe by mixing in various colors of inks?).
NOTE: I also tried the "Gray" color (with hopes of making a "Driftwood"), but the gray pigment would almost
instantly settle to the bottom of the bottle (into a big unusable glob) everytime I tried to thin down the color. I tried
using the Tandy Thinner, the Fiebing Thinner, DioSol, Alcohol and even water ... none worked, and instantly ruined
the product.
The reason I'm posting again ...........
1) I was lucky to find some bottles of old Flo-Stain from Link & Pin Hobbies ( www.linkandpinhobbies.com )
awhile back. These bottles were very old, and the color pigment has totally settled. I also have some old bottles of
regular Floquil paints (from early 80's), and their pigment had totally settled also. The little gears started rolling in
my head!
2) I measured the bottles of old paints and stains, and noted the following:
Old Flo-Stains
DioSol at top of bottle = 12/8" high.
Settled pigment at bottom of bottle = 3/8" high.
Ratio = 4 dioSol : 1 pigment
Old Floquil Paints
DioSol at top of bottle = 7/8" high.
Settled pigment at bottom of bottle = 7/8" high.
Ratio = 1 dioSol : 1 pigment
3) I decided to try using Floquil paints, thinned down with DioSol, to create my own Flo-Stains. Using the above
ratio information, I figured: 1 part Floquil Paint (1:1 ratio) + 3 parts of DioSol = 4:1 ratio of old Flo-Stains.
4) I used some small glass eye-droppers from MicroMark, and was happy to see that (40) eye-dropper "loads" filled-
up a 1oz Floquil bottle almost perfectly.
RESULTS : Can I get an AMEN please
The results were exactly what I've been searching for. I wanted to share my above findings with everybody because
I'm feeling so happy right now. I plan to upload a picture of the "color-chips" in about 1 week (I had to take the
digital camera back to work). In the meantime, here's the colors I've mixed-up so far:
Floquil Rust (1 part) + DioSol (3 parts) = Looks like cedar to me, I'm thinking it would be nice for buildings found
around a sawmill.
Floquil Oxide Red (1 part) + DioSol (3 parts) = Looks like FloStain "Mahogany".
Floquil SO Freight Car Brown (1 part) + DioSol (3 parts) = Looks like FloStain "Cherry".
Floquil Earth (1 part) + DioSol (3 parts) = Looks like thinned down Floquil Earth, maybe "Natural Pine".
Floquil Rail Brown (1 part) + DioSol (3 parts) = Nice brown with hint of green, looks like Hickory to me.
Floquil Roof Brown (1 part) + Floquil Rust (1 part) + DioSol (6 parts) = Looks like FloStain "Rosewood".
Floquil Roof Brown (1 part) + DioSol (3 parts) = Nice general brown color.
I also made 6 variations of Floquil CN Gray (with same 1:3 ratio), some with a dash of "Grime" or "Weathered
Black", which created a nice range of "Driftwood" variations.
Marker Magic, Bill Alspach, October 89 RMC, p. 93. A 3 page article on coloring and weathering stripwood using
artist's felt tip markers and Dio-sol. The methods and materials described here are very similar to those used by
Karl O. and other forum members
Here's the way I do my walls:
A: Cut all window and door openings.
1: Stain all walls with a gray stain. I use Floquil driftwood (discontinued)but grime will work almost as well.
2: Have before u the color of your chioce and clean thinner. Dip into the thinner then the paint and vice
versa going for more pait or thinner whci ever you need. The idea is to kinda apply the paint as a stain of the
gray allowing the gray to show through.
3: Now its time to do bracing. Use plenty I use 1/8 X 1/8.
4: Put in your nail holes with your pounce wheel and loosen the amout of clpboard that u want to and apply
A & I stain. If you want you can apply a heavey book on wall till dry this will minimize warping.
5: Apply all signs and advertising you want on the walls.
6: Dry brush entire wal with antique white.
7: Paint windows & doors let dry and apply A & I stain. When dry dry brush all windows and door with
antique white.
8: Apply window glass & shades and or curtains.
"Wet water" as many call it is adding a couple drops of dishwashing soap into your water.
It takes the surface tension of water away. Its usually recommended when doing your ballast so it does not
float away.
For decal signs - I'll leave that to others.
If its only paper signs, I make the sign as thin as possible, and soak it in 50:50 Elmers white glue and water.
Then I use a popsicle stick (or finger) and push it into the siding to give it the "painted-on" appearance.
DRIFTWOOD
the following recipe: to 20 oz. of water add 2 tsp. Apple Barrel "Country Gray," 1 tsp. Apple Barrel
"Dolphin Gray," 1/2 tsp. Polly "Grimy Black" or "Tarnished Black," and 1/2 tsp. Apple Barrel "Raw
Umber." This creates a stain that you can soak stripwood in for about 12-24 hours. If it's not gray-brown
enough for your tastes/requirements after having dried, lightly brush the strips with some black alcohol. I do
not recommend trying to paint or soak scribed siding with this mix, however, because of the resulting warpage
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