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So in this installment of Sam’s Roadhouse, I went ahead and removed the four walls that make up the main structure after I stained them with my MinWax pen from their laser cut sheet. Using a small emery board, I filed down some of the wooden burrs until they were flush with the edges and placed them face up on a paper towel.
Using my 5% ink wash, I made applied a single coat to the walls and allowed them to dry. Look how well the individual boards, knot holes, and other details popped. I think it came out pretty nice, and I’m very happy with these natural looking results.
Stained walls with coat of 5% AI wash.
Next, as I do with many of my structures, I like to paint the reverse side a flat black with aerosol paint. Because I don’t have my own paint booth, I tend to make disposable ones out of paper bags. The trick is to cut out a single large side panel of a paper bag, leave the other three sides intact and still attached to the base. This way, you have somewhat of a shield to catch overspray, just in case. And after a few uses, you can just dispose of and begin again with a new one.
In my next picture you can see I have flipped the walls to their virgin side and attached them to my temporary booth using blue painters tape. I have also included the structure flooring to be painted as well. The reason I pain the insides black is just in case some day I decide I want to add an internal light source (whether if be LED or traditional bulb), and this will reduce any light bleed-through. It also help seal the wood in case adverse humidity may want to warp my walls (which I will further brace in an optional step later on).
Walls reversed in my mock spray painting booth.
Next is my painted results. Note how the bottom of the bag acted as a catch for my black paint that tried to get away?
Back sides painted flat black.
In my last picture today, I have begun to attach the windows and their frames to the individual walls. On the two longer side walls, the frames are clearly attached. I chose a pale green acrylic color which I thought would be a nice contrast or accent to the more natural looking walls. The larger floor piece (lower left corner) you can see had been masked off with the blue painters tape allowing for the scribed deck to remain unmolested. This is basically where the entrance to Sam’s will be.
As I mentioned earlier as an optional step, but I always think is a necessity, is to add some additional bracing to the back side of the walls. This extra wood is not included with the model. I went out and purchased long strips of this at my local hobby store, and I cut pieces as needed with my razor chopper and attach with regular white glue. This not only strengthens the over all model and gives it additional weight, but also combats any minor accidents (from dropping or pressing too hard) and warpage of the wood.
Finally the lower right corner show the front wall of Sam’s. Here, I have one window slightly open (right side) and have not yet added the window frames or door.
Windows attached and bracing applied.
