For more information, please scroll to the bottom of the page. |
MORE REFINISHING TIPS
....by Tom Hull
REPAIRS/RESTORATION
REPRODUCTION PARTS
TABLE of CONTENTS
This is how the church looks with crenellations in place and the paint and sandy
paint done. I took your advise, Ted and went out
and got some fine sand and cleaned it and used it in the tinted paint.
Below is my next project and it is worse than it looks. This was formerly an
all coconut house and appears to have come from a Pittsburgh slum. It is from
Pennsylvania and only cost $1.95 (best part of it). I like the architecture of
it and it looks a little like a Catholic Order house. Even the "windoor"
is an arched one. Wish me luck as it looks like a difficult project. Wish you
guys could come up with some coconut! ! !
This was a difficult task but not impossible. The spray "snow" that was put on
it decades ago was particularly nasty and difficult to remove. It was necessary
to remove it with a dull pocket knife as a toothbrush wouldn't touch it. When it
was thick it could be lifted off with the knife but where thin or spotty it was
difficult to remove. This was unfortunate as it also removed much of what little
coconut was left on the roof. Basically what's left is the coco imbedded in the
paint. It also proved impossible to remove it from the
three smaller windows and salvage them. So I modified and used some of Kathi's
paper mullion windows. Though not quite as large as the originals I think they
look great. I also used kathi's "biscuit" trick in restoring the fence. It was
necessary to remove all but the fences from the base floor and fog it with water
and iron it to straighten it. If you have occasion to do this, DO use a paper
towel between the ironing board AND between the iron and the base floor. This
one had a generous portion of that old horse glue smeared all over the outline
of the house ( ! ! ? ?) and it stuck to the paper towel and in pulling the paper
towel off it removed great big chunks of the old glue. This house had been
particularly sloppily constructed. Perhaps the work of a "newbie".
One thing I did have to do was go over the red and blue areas with "kids"
watercolor paints to cover the white specks the fake spray snow had left behind
as well as general soot and grime that cornstarching failed to remove. I like
these paints as they are somewhat translucent and allow the coco to shine
through. I left the back of the house untouched to preserve the
difference between the restored and unrestored.
The base presented another problem as I don't know what color it was painted.
The "lawn" was a turquoise light blue and the fence
was a lime green but I thought the lime green continuation of the fence color
into the base gave a more consistent look. I also used the sand mixed in with
the new paint to give some texture to the green paint since we lack coconut to
fix these things. This was tinted latex house paint.
Interestingly there were dribbles of blue paint on the INSIDE of the house
untouched lo these many years. They were covered with coconut and under a
magnifying glass these were fine STRIPS of cellophane. This got me to thinking
that the blender idea may not give the same type of texture BUT that the SAME
fine strips are still being used in the modern plastic versions of tinsel
garland rope. If you could find out how they do that (cut the fine strips of
plastic) then maybe you could use the same thing to make cellophane or get some
company to do it for you. My sister Connie tells me that they make some very
expensive crosscut shredders. Just an idea.
I use small sticky notes as a glue "pallet" to dip out small amounts of glue
with a toothpick for repairing broken parts and paper
windows on houses. When you are done you just tear off the note and throw it
away. This is better than using bits of scrap card or paper as the sticky
note pad holds itself down and doesn't lift. It doesn't bleed through either.
And ...
I use curved,serrated fingernail scissors to cut out curved parts such as on
"rick rack" fencing. The serrations give positive no slip cutting and the
curved blade allows for easy little curved cuts. Much easier than an "Aproximo
Knife" and more accurate.
....Tom H.
Black Grit:
Just a note about that "black stuff" specks that occurs on some of the houses.
I have purchased some black German glitter (fine grade) from
www.splintersandrags.com Which has a number of colors of the old fashioned
German glass glitter including clear in three grades. Fine, Medium and Coarse.
The black glass glitter in fine is a perfect match for these particles.
To achieve the coarse sand look I mixed a little (very little) of the black
German glass glitter with sifted white rock marble from a RR model train supply
house and a generous quantity of the fine clear German glass glitter and this
give a very good equivalent of the black spotted sandy base. I mixed it together
and dumped it on the painted surface and it works very well. Hope this helps. Tom
Hull
Here is the finished product. I took some marble "rock" chips and ground some
in the blender and mixed the sifted rock with the fine clear German glitter and
a little dab of the black fine German glitter. I then used a thinned down
"antique white" tinted white paint. And generously dumped the mixture over the
paint (in sections). I did this over a piece of paper and caught the excess to
reuse. It is pretty close in texture and size I think. The "yard" of the
house is the original finish.
The second picture illustrates a small hole in the lower left side of the base
very close to the fence. Any ideas? A piece of lycopodium (all dried up) was
included with this house. Would that have been stuck in here? There is no
indication of any other spot where a tree would have been on this base.
Tom Hull
For information about this site, please contact us at:
http://cardboardchristmas.com/papateds/contact.htm
Copyright 2000-2012 Theodore H. Althof,Jr.Except where noted, the contents of this website and all it's pages and submissions therein contained are the intellectual property of Theodore H.Althof,Jr. All rights are reserved. (Background musical selections are,of course, excepted.)