Keith Black

Thank you to all for the likes and for the support. Thank you, DA. Brother Tom, thank you. Very kind of you to say so. Thanks, Bob. You and yours feeling better? Thank you, Mark. Thank you, John. Maybe next I'll try to model a garbage scow. Thank you, Peter. Eberhard, I wish I had the time left to me take that on but alas, I'll have to pass. You're the small scale wizard, sounds like something you should tackle. You should be about ready to start a new project?

A big thank you to each of you that have followed this build for the past three months and two days. I'm not normally a speed demon but the work has flowed easily and the end for this little ugly duckling is near the finish. Today I finished the shed completing the four elements of the project, the barge, pile driver, Steam Donkey, and shed. I still have rope coils and other props that will be staged on the deck and final deck weathering. Unless someone thinks differently I'm prepared to permanently attach the shed to the barge. Thank you to all for your support. keith

Thanks guys for the likes and for being part of the journey. Thank you, Eric. I'll tone down the roof shingles some more. Thank you, Ken. Yes, the shed walls with get a heavy dose of weathering once the doors are attached. Thanks to everyone for your comments and support. Sharing your thoughts has/is helping me get this little project to the finish line. keith

John, thank you for the kind comment and for following along. It means a lot to me.

Thank you to everyone for the kind comment, the likes, and for following along. Isn't it funny how somethings from our childhood we remember clear as a bell and others not so much. I have vivid memories of certain occurrences when I was three years old, then there's last week. The shed roof is done except for maybe some minor tweaks to the weathering. I'm ready to hang doors and weather the outside of the shed. Thank you to everyone for the support; Keith

Thank you, Carson.

Were you able to feel the hammer strike in the soles of you feet? A pile driver in action is a pretty trippy experience, the noise and the violence. It's almost like some ancient war machine turned loose.

I try to respond to comments when made but the last couple of days have come fast and furious. I'm sorry that sequencing is a bit out of order. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Brian. When I opened my Wild West order I was immediately sold on the shake roof. I still want to do a review of my Wild West order, I'll go over the corrugated roofing as well. Thank you, Keith. Thank you and thank you, Brian for the tips on painting "black". I have so much to learn, we get better as a group with shared information. Hear it? I can almost feel the thud that goes through your body when standing next to the hammer as it strikes. Thank you, Tom. The "roof pops considerably brighter" was my exact thought. The gray wash did the trick but weathering is in the offing. Thank you, mcb.

Thank you, Eberhard. Absolutely agree with you about the shingle lapping. I tried doing that by half lapping the shingle strips but the shingle length was too short for scale plus it was way to busy looking, that's why I went with three quarter lapping. It lengthened the shingles and it's less busy looking, IMHO. The die cuts are not based in reality, the die cuts are random and there's no way to align them where cuts fall in the center of the shingles below. The half lap exaggerates that discrepancy, another reason for the three quarter lapping. I still need to install the waste steam exhaust pipe through the roof and once the flashing is added then I can add pastels. Now knowing I can add a light wash of color and not destroy the print below, if I were brave, I'd add a repair patch of seven or so shingles with a tan wash. I'm going to play with that idea on a test piece, we'll see. Thank you, Ken.

Thank you to everyone for all the kind comments, the likes, and for following along. I was able to salvage the existing shake roof. I had a bottle of craft acrylic gray paint that's a close match to the Wild West shingles color. With a thin gray wash I gently added a bit of gray to those shingles that were a tad too white thus reducing the pop effect of the original. It's subtle, very subtle and many may think I've lost my sweet ever lovin' but now I'm not being visually hit between the eyes as I was before. I can live with this, now I can weather for effect. I did more research on corrugated roofing last night mostly trying to determine the lengths corrugated roofing came in. A vague "5 to 10 feet" was the only answer I could find but once again I kept getting the same answer regarding usage in the early 1880's. By all accounts usage was sparse till about 1910 so I shelved the thought of going with corrugated roofing. Before tinting individual shingles with a gray wash. After Before After Before After Thank you so much to everyone for the support. Keith

It's so good to see you back at work on the Blairstown, mcb. Your work is an inspiration.

Thank you, Glen. My difficulty is trying to make the pastels show up at 1:120 scale. The pastels show up much better in a close up photo than in normal viewing.

Glen, your solution is way way much better than paint ever would have been. I've painted line before to eliminate the shine of CA or to change color but have used very thin paint. No Paintin' Manning me backside. Some of the painting you've done on your SIB builds has been absolutely remarkable.

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments, the likes, and for following along. This post contains a lot of photos but very little cast in stone work. I received my Wild West order a week after placing. I jumped all over the shingles as I was positive that was the look I wanted. But now there's something I don't quite like about the shingles and I'm be danged if I can put my finger on it. One maybe, instead of a half lap of the strips as recommended I went with a three quarter lap because the half lap looked too busy. Now, looking at the completed roof, the three quarter lap doesn't look right. Before ripping roofing 1.0 off I'm going to paint the shingles to eliminate one possible reason I'm having doubts about the shingles. I'll take photos of the painted shingles when done. Once the roof is cleared and cleaned up I'm going to put on the metal roofing to see if that satisfies my inner WA. . I finally got a chance to use the pastels. It's safe to say I'm a convert in learning. It's so easy to get heavy handed with pastels, a little goes a long way. Black is such a light sucking color. Even a single object like a cleat with out highlighting appears as a lump. A little gray sure makes black objects pop. In the case of the Donkey engine, detail was pretty lost but once a little gray was added..........I've added too much and need to remove some of the gray. Rust on the water tank looks pretty spot on. I also worked the barge deck with pastels but the engine shed needs to get permanently attached before the barge deck can be tackled properly. Too much! I'm real happy with the the ash around the firebox. Some pastels added to the pile driver. An overview of the project. A lot of fine and not so fine tuning required but I think I'm making progress. Thank you everyone for your support. Keith

Nick, welcome to MSW. Glad to have you aboard.

Following along as I enjoy viewing your work, Roel.

That's really slick, Paul.

What a fantastic looking system, Tom. Will it cook frog legs?

Glen, I just had a moment of brilliance. i often have these, just ask my wife. On a test piece of line, coat it with black acrylic paint and see if it thickens the line noticeably. By enlarging your photos and getting a close look at the line, I don't think you'll lose any twist definition.

A coat of varnish is gonna light that baby up! A thousand wows, Keith.

None of the photos of the Tennessee show netting. A lot of period ship images show no netting.

Glen, this is the netting I was referring to. I left out that key word "bowsprit". If the instructions don't call for it I certainly understand leaving it off. I've seen discussions on trying to locate netting at scale and it seems to be a pretty hard item to locate. If I remember correctly Keith Aug's wife had to weave his netting.

Glen, that looks great! Are you going to go ahead and add the netting now?

Alistair, please let us know how you like Polycrylic. Did you get satin or flat?

Very easy answer. Tom. Only half as many seeds as a two legged grasshopper.