The Woodstock Model Railroad Club invites you to come along with as together we build an empire. Stay tuned for progress updates, tips and techniques. All comments are welcome. Email ljbrinker@yahoo.ca

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Quick Technique for Modeling Concrete Silos

Above is Walthers Cornerstone Medusa Cement kit known on the Woodstock Model Railroad as Schell Industries Inc located at Warwick. It comes with a series of smooth styrene sections which, when glued together, form six silos. In real life, many are constructed of concrete rings placed on top of each other to a desired height and the ring segments are visible to one's eye. How, then does one easily model the segments on a smooth styrene silo to look realistic [or reasonably so].

In pondering the above question at the work table, a roll of Frog masking tape was spied off to the side and an idea formed. Why not wrap sections of Frog [or any masking] tape around the silos with each layer overlapping just a little to form a visible ring segment? The above example shows four sections of tape wrapped on a piece of ABS pipe to demonstrate the technique. With a little care, the overlapping segments can be kept to similar widths. The Frog tape has texture and takes flat acrylic paint well which gives the concrete look as shown in the first photo.

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