After the Liverpool Financial Crisis (or LFC) I was looking for a few things to do to the layout that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg. So I looked at a few options and landed on painting the base boards. It was the next logical step anyway! This was a great idea! After weeks of travelling for work, or being away catching up with old friends, it was a good reprieve to get back into it. So now you are probably reading this (if you've read my posts before) and are thinking "So what went wrong already!?!", but we'll come to that. |
The process started by setting up old rags and moving all the base boards outside. We applied the paint with rollers using matt black Dulux Interior paint. On some of the more similar modules, I wrote their location on the reverse side (which remains paint free). I purchased two rollers, a small one for the skirting and a large one for the top which we then used to paint the boards. When I say we, it turned out that my wonderful girlfriend who has helped renovate her parents house was far more skilled and faster than me at painting. (Hopefully that's enough grovelling to put the LFC behind us for now). |
We painted the side skirts first with the smaller roller and then lay the boards down flat to do the top of the base boards. To move the base board from this position we pried it up with a flat head screw drive and lifted it from underneath to the new drying location. We then set the boards in the sun to dry for two hours, though they are dry to touch in 30 minutes. For the second coat, we were able to set up a production line to make the most of my girlfriend's fantastic, wonderful skill set (apparently needed more grovelling). |
The second coat was much faster to apply and with the boards now still outside drying, they should be ready to come inside by the time I've edited this post. So What did I learn? Well I forget to putty the holes before we cracked the paint and splashed it on a few boards. But all in all, a pretty painless run. So what went well? The modules were a breeze to get through the house and were so much easier to get outside and paint than a static layout would be. Great! Something finally went a bit more my way! (see the finished product to the left) |
So what's next? Well..... I'm not sure. I'm getting pricings for the legs, but they will probably come in above the remaining $105 of my November budget. So what do we do? Bring the January budget forward? Not really. The only reason I brought the December budget forward was because we were going to be away for almost all of December. January is a different story. Hopefully a solution will present itself (I'll probably bring the January budget forward; the sooner I get the boards up the sooner I can have some track on them, put some wagons on it and stay sane! If I can do that I can then drip feed myself track month by month and wire as I go. I can then slowly buy scenery and other things later on).
Before I go, a sincere thanks to my girlfriend for all the help, there were a lot of two person jobs today, and I couldn't have done it without you. Until next time, happy modelling!
Before I go, a sincere thanks to my girlfriend for all the help, there were a lot of two person jobs today, and I couldn't have done it without you. Until next time, happy modelling!