That is because the original patterns for the kits actually come from many individual pieces of wood, metal, and plastic. The combination of rubber molds and urethane resin allows a kit manufacturer precisely to reproduce everything down to the grain in the wood. So the most difficult step you'll have is the painting.

THE BEANBLOSSOM TANK

Some manufacturers include real wood parts with their urethane castings and some even include metal castings if metal would be stronger or would better reproduce a particular kind of detail. Railway Design Associates' [now out of production] Beanblossom water tank is such a kit. The stonework, spout, counterweights, door, crates and barrels, roof, roof ornament, and water level gauge are urethane. The window, spout pulleys, light, and electrical box are metal castings. The tank former is an acrylic tube. Except for a few styrene odds and ends, the chain, and some minor hardware, the rest is wood.

The result is extremely attractive. The grain of the wood sets off the smooth surface of the plastic and metal parts. The texture of the urethane "stone" base contrasts with the "wooden" door and window castings. I will use the RDA Beanblossom tank to show you how to achieve those contrasts even if you are a rank beginner. I also will show how easy it is to finish and assemble urethane kits. Trust Uncle Russ: If you have built a plastic structure, you are ready to try one similar to the Beanblossom tank.

MAKING PLASTIC LOOK LIKE STONE

Aside from reading the plans and instructions, the first step in assembling any kit is to clean up the pieces. That means filing off any mold parting lines, removing flash, smoothing rough surfaces including all the wood, and squaring off any lopsided castings.

I glued together the four sides of the base with CA (superglue). The walls interlock the same as Lincoln Logs and a few gaps and holes exist at the joints. I filled them with common wall spackle.

Next, pre-color the parts. I used a variety of techniques on the tank and spent a lot of time developing two of them. That took time. If you read on, you'll save a couple of hours just by following my directions. The first step was to color the stonework. It turned out to be so simple to achieve an extremely realistic effect, I amazed even Larry Larsen, and nothing amazes him.

Here is what to do: Wash all the urethane parts with warm water and dish washing detergent. That removes any mold release material or oils. They may keep the paint from sticking. Then brush on a coat of ordinary flat white latex interior wall paint. (Using exterior paint on the RDA tank would have been pointless; it is too fragile to leave outdoors.) The paint should dry for at least twenty-four hours. After that, brush on, or use a pump-spray bottle to apply, the familiar dilute mixture of rubbing alcohol and India ink (about ten or fifteen drops of ink per ounce of alcohol). For variety, use a brush to highlight a few stones at random so they will be slightly darker than the others.

When the ink wash has dried for twenty-four hours, make up a very dilute earth tone wash. I used Polly-S "Dirt" but a color with more red or yellow would be equally appropriate depending on what kind of rock you want to represent. Mine resembles granite or some other gray rock, so I was very sparing with the "Dirt" wash. The idea was to tint the gray only lightly, to give it a little more "dimension".

That's it. You're done.

The effect was so outstanding, when I held up my fake rock wall to a real rock wall, the fake one looked virtually the same. I thought I had invented a brilliant new technique. Then Railway Garden, Ltd.'s Sam Muncy told me he had been using a similar process for years and was sure he had read about it somewhere. Oh, well.

MAKING PLASTIC AND METAL LOOK LIKE WOOD

Coloring urethane, styrene, and metal to resemble wood took a lot of experimentation. When I finally stumbled onto a formula the rest was easy. Here is all you do:

Paint the parts white. I used latex wall paint for the door, window, and roof and Krylon white primer for the water level gauge but I probably could have sprayed Krylon on everything.

When the paint has dried for a day or so, brush on some stain. I wanted a creosote or dark brown effect so I used ordinary oil-base walnut wood stain, full strength. If that seems too dark, you may dilute it with paint thinner, even if you apply the thinner directly to the part you just stained. There is no magic; the idea is simply to arrive at a satisfactory base color.

After a couple of days, spray the parts with Testor's Dullcote to put a barrier between the water repellent oil in the stain and the water-based stains you will apply next. Then try a wash of alcohol and India ink or Polly-S Dirt or both. The color highlights should begin to make the plastic resemble wood. It is all hit or miss. Just keep doodling with washes of various strength until you like the results.

RDA supplies styrene strip for the ladder. Before cutting and assembling the pieces, drag a razor saw along each several times. The tooth marks will suggest wood grain. When you eventually assemble the ladder and stain the painted plastic as above, color will collect in the resulting little grooves and your plastic ladder will appear to be wood.

I painted almost all the styrene and urethane castings representing metal on my model with Krylon Semi-Flat Black. The exceptions were two of the oil barrels and the shade over the light. They are dark green. I colored all the remaining metal parts with Hobby Black.

That is everything you need to know about the basics of staining and coloring urethane, styrene, and metal parts.

MAKING NEW WOOD LOOK OLD

Have you ever noticed how most wooden water tanks tend to be lighter at the bottom than the top? That is because they are rarely completely full, virtually all leak a little, and the bottom leaks more consistently than the top. That moisture erodes the paint at the bottom more than at the top and causes the wood to bleach to a lighter color. As the water evaporates it often leaves mineral deposits and they are light, too.

It is very easy to create that effect on a tank. After you have glued the tank staves to the acrylic tube (I used Walther's Goo), stain them with the dilute alcohol and India ink solution. When that has dried for a day, brush on a dilute wash of whatever color you prefer for the wood. I used walnut stain. Use a medium sized watercolor brush such as a number 3 or 4. Avoid bringing the stain more than about two-thirds of the way down the tank and feather it down to points. As you color a few boards, go back with a heavier concentration, starting from the top of the tank, and feather the stain out as you move down. The thinner will tend to diffuse the darker stain and that is what you want. Then go back a third time with full- or almost full-strength stain and color the top inch or two of the tank, again allowing the stain to dissipate as you feather it down.

The effect will be one of color at the top fading to bleached, unpainted wood at the bottom. And the process should appear very irregular, as though some boards retain more color than others and as though water seeped from some areas more than from others. The photos show the effect more clearly than I can describe it and Figure 1 illustrates the procedure.

The rest of the wood on the model in the photos is either creosote brown or weathered gray depending on where it is.

ASSEMBLY TIPS

Have you noticed the assembly of the urethane parts consisted only of gluing together the four walls of the stone base? That is exactly how simple the construction of some kits can be. The other urethane pieces need no assembly; they are independent castings. So I will pass along a couple of tidbits to help you create a better looking Beanblossom tank.

First, the roof. I thought the hatch casting looked a little Spartan, so I added a pair of 2 x 4s to the top. I also fabricated a very short latter on the roof to bridge the distance between the edge and the roof hatch. Finally, I cut rafters from the excess tank stave material and glued them under the roof. Photo 1 shows the results.

RDA supplies stranded copper wire for the tank bands and I have no idea what prompted that decision. Real tank bands are solid and very similar to the truss rods under wooden freight and passenger cars. I replaced RDA's bands with .033 "weedeater" nylon monofilament from the garden section of my hardware store. Before I glued the tank staves to the acrylic tube, I stuck them to three strips of masking tape. I used a medium hard pencil and straightedge to mark the position of the bands on the staves. Figure 2 shows how. Then I put masking tape on the side I had just marked, removed the tape from the opposite side, and glued the staves to the acrylic former (with Walthers' Goo). The straight pencil marks then encircled the tank. I used CA to cement the nylon line over the pencil marks to keep each band straight. The fasteners RDA included seemed the wrong shape and too big. I tossed them into the spare parts box and represented the band fasteners by overlapping the ends of the nylon line.

Then I painted the bands with Pactra Acrylic Rust. It would have been much easier to do that before gluing them to the tank but I was afraid the CA would adhere to the paint instead of to the nylon; I wanted to be sure the bands were on tightly.

When I looked at the results, the bands were too bright. I airbrushed the whole assembly with a dilute mix of Floquil Grimy Black and Diosol thinner. That helped immeasurably.

CONCLUSION

As should be apparent, building the Beanblossom tank is very straightforward. I have described the only tricky step, attaching the tank bands. The rest consists mainly of cutting a few sticks, drilling a few holes, gluing together a few parts, and painting. The kit's instructions tell most of what you should know. The rest, I hope, was in this article.