For the past couple of days I have been busily thatching the remaining jungle buildings. The first stage was to cut some cheap hand towels from a pound shop into long strips of roughly equal width, then to cut the strips into shorter lengths to fit the different roofs.
The next step was to start adding the strips to the roofs, then when the initial glue had dried to soak the towel strips with dilute PVA.
I got the four small buildings done on Monday, but they weren't fully dry until today. This evening I have done the roofs of the three large buildings. The photo at the top of this post shows them before soaking with dilute PVA. I've just done the soaking and they are now drying:
I expect they won't be fully dry until Friday. Tomorrow, when they are partly dry I will give them a blast with a hairdryer to speed things up a little.
The final steps, before painting, are to trim the overhangs and to give them a coat of scenic cement (10% matte medium with a little flow aid) - I can probably airbrush that on. Then all I have to do is wait for a dry day (or even a dry morning or afternoon) so that I can take them outside to finish priming them and do the first highlights of the woods using a spray paint.
Great idea with the towels Tamsin.
ReplyDeleteI will wait to see how these look compared to my teddy bear fur rooves! I am glad you have trouble waiting for dilute PVA to dry too!
ReplyDeleteGotta love the poundshop...they have no idea they are a major supplier of wargames bits-n-bobs and building materials. đ
ReplyDelete@ Dave - I saw it being done somewhere else, but can't remember where. :)
ReplyDelete@ Herkybird - the towel should give a rougher look to the thatch than teddy bear fur. :)
@ Lee - yup, gotta love them! They have all sorts of bits and bobs for us to use. :)