| Wooden structure |
 This was the fun part – the strip-wood was blotchly stained and ‘tossed together’. A quick check with a ruller and a reasonably quick cut to size. The ‘blotchy’ stain – I didn’t pay that much attention to as the plan was for this to show through weathered paint.
The two structures were built and left loose .. that allowed me to move everything around until everything fit in the space. |
 Here the structure is completed. A note about the staining. I first stained it overall with a lighter color. The darker colors was a brown acrylic. I liked the way it came out. In the photo the pieces are still just sitting on the base and haven’t been glued down yet. I couldn’t do that easily until painted the thing .. which needed to be separate from the wall.
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| Weathered Paint |
 I painted the plastic stairs with a spritz of gray primer. Then the stairs and the wood structure were coated with hairspray. I have a can of hairspray that I’ve had since I completed this project back in Oct 2010. Heck .. that’s a good 18 months. Not too shabby from a single can of hairspray.
You let the hairspray dry. It doesn’t take that look. The important thing with the paint is that you use a water base .. in this case Poly S Acrylic flat white. I think at least an hour to dry. You don’t want to take too long .. as in overnight. The reason simply is that the next step in the ‘hairspray technique’ requires the paint to be removed with a brush and water. About an hour works pretty good I think. You should practice on some scraps to get a feeling of what works with whichever paint you use. If you don’t wait long enough you can run into a problem with the paint being rubbery. Like I said .. practice with spraying onto some scrap pieces first to get the technique down. I left off a board on the bottom platform so the stringers would show. Why goto the trouble if you can’t see them, after all. |
| Railings and Finishing up |
 The railings are also from Central Valley, their #1601 ‘Fence & Hand Railings Package”. Good stuff there. I wish they had it in O scale too. They were sprayed with a brownish primer, hairspray and then my favorite pale green from Polly S (which I can’t remember which now).
Removing a little of the green to show the ‘rust’ under completed the painting and weathering. |
 A side-view of the completed platform. A little spritz of ‘dirt’ and clutter around the base to ‘dirty up’ the scene .. some final AI wash here and there and I called it finished.
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| Installed |
 Here it is installed on Gary’s layout. Looking that car coming out of the covered bridge .. I think that a couple of nice, thick cement posts to protect that stairs wouldn’t hurt! |
Gary mentioned the other day that he has it installed. I need to get over to his house and take some photos ‘in situ’ .. as it were
Very nice work!
great job, a true inspiration.