Building the C & AV, or, What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

[Bill Gill]

Beach sand around here is also very fine in some places, much finer than "sandbox" or construction sand. Rinsing it well to rid the salt and other material might work. Sprinkling baking soda, diatomaceous earth (from pool supply store), or even maybe some of your local dirt, sifted through fine screen could give a plausible texture on top of just applied paint.

[Hydrostat]

If there's a quarry nearby ask if you can have some of the dust falling down from the grinder. Sifted with various colanders you'll have a fine viarity of different grain.

[NORCALLOGGER]

Since your working in a larger scale you might try one of the stone or pebble finishes in a rattle can from RustOleum (spelling) or Krylon then over spray with your color of choice.
Rick

[Bill Gill]

The rolled roofing on this HO scale coal silo was cut from a paint sample card from Home Depot of a very finely textured paint. I can't remember the brand, but if you look at all the paint samples in the paint dept. you will fine a number of colors. The texture is very fine. A bit of that paint could work for you. If the color isn't correct, you can paint over it like Rick suggested.

[Ray Dunakin]

Liquitex makes a "ceramic stucco" acrylic texture gel that I like. It can be spread onto PVC foam board to simulate stucco. And you can mix it with latex house paint to color it before applying, or paint over it after it's dry, whichever you prefer.

I get it from the craft store (Micheal's). It helps if you have one of their coupons.

[Lawton Maner]

Ray:
Can you post a picture of the container.
Thanks,
WLM3

[Greg Hile]

Good suggestions all of them. Thanks guys!

Lawton: here is a photo of the stuff Ray was talking about, and a photo of it applied to a test piece of PVC foam board.



I also bought some colored sand from Hobby Lobby yesterday and will be testing it, the Ceramic Stucco, and the other suggestions ...

Greg

[Bill Gill]

Golden also makes several acrylic mediums with various sized grit in them. Art stores and A.C. Moore carry Golden Acrylics and almost all have displays with samples of the different gels, pastes and mediums so you can see what the finish of each looks like.
https://www.dickblick.com/products/golden-pumice-gel-mediums/

[Lawton Maner]

Thanks to both of you.  The breadth and depth of knowledge of this crowd sometimes scares me. 

[Greg Hile]

Dang! I was just at Blick last Friday ...

[Greg Hile]

Quick update: Thanks to everyone here and elsewhere who made suggestions regarding the texture issue. I tried out a number of them, including some colored sand I found at Hobby Lobby, and the best solution turned out to be Liquitex Ceramic Stucco. It achieved much the same overall visual effect as sand but it can be applied before painting rather than mixing it with or using a sifter to apply on wet paint, thereby giving me much more control over the process. In addition, the sand and other materials would rub off, whereas the stucco was far more permanent. I am sure there are other texture gels that would also do the trick. Kudos to Ray for the suggestion.

I also finally found a color sample of Southern Pacific Dark Yellow. Interestingly, I took it to Home Depot to match it and purchase a sample as some had mentioned and they were not interested. I have had attitude issues with the paint department at my local HD in the past so I didn't press it.

[Lawton Maner]

Another reason not to shop at HD.  My local Sherwin-Williams store is my go to paint store.  They will mix me a 1 cup sized sample of almost any color I take them and I find the samples very useful when I model.  They will also provide exterior oils for me to take north to work on the East Broad Top cars because the Nanny State of Pa won't allow oils anymore.  They also have an acrylic exterior paint which sticks to the PVC mouldings we are putting on the car like your skin sticks to you. 

[michael mott]

Hi Greg I see that you are working in 1/24th scale, I like this scale also, especially for narrow gauge models.

Michael

[Greg Hile]

Yes, I like the scale, too, especially for incorporating more than just trains on my layout. I am just starting on a fire station/city hall that I designed. If you have a fire station, you need a fire truck ...

[Greg Hile]

For various reasons, progress has been a bit slow but I will have an update with photos soon. One thing I have been thinking about is an incident that occurred in 1904 here in Martinez, and no doubt in countless other locales at other times, as well: fire. A good chunk of downtown Martinez caught fire and burned to the ground (only to be rebuilt with unreinforced brick and finished just a couple months before the 1906 SF earthquake, but that's another story).

My question is how to model a burned-out building? Obviously, if it burned completely to the ground there's not much to model, and I don't want to make this a dominant theme throughout the layout, but maybe a structure still in partial ruins, or perhaps one that is still under construction post-fire.

Any thoughts?