Hi,
I'm building a 1/35th truck & thought of having some wood beams carried on the trailer. I have several different sizes of balsa wood lengths that I thought I might be able to use but they dont look very "real" in 1/35th.
I was wondering if there was a technique to make the balsa (or any other wood) look real in 1/35th.
I have some of that "Blacken it" to "age" the wood. Is there anything else I can do?
Thanks in advance.

Joe.

Now I dunno if the balsa will be able to take it but somebody told me this....



https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/190652#1595895

Paul

Hi
In my experience balsa has too open a grain to look good as timber in 1:35 scale. Try using some of the harder, closer-grained wood that is sold for building model ships. I used a square strip of it for an unditching beam on a WW1 tank, and it looked the part. Good luck!

Very interesting, Paul. I may have to give that method a try.

Joe,
Forget the balsa and use basswood,found at better LHS,has better grain and works real well with these "aging processes"

Jake

Joe G.;

Un-ditching beams and logs...

My approach (for 1/35 stuff) is to use something like a 1/4 US inch square stock basswood - finer grain then most balsa and can, IMO, be "worked" and roughened a bit more "to-scale".

I stain mine using the various oil and sometimes acryl washes I use on the tanks... dark umber, van dyke brown oil washes, sometimes some grey or earth acryls. I rub this stuff in in a couple of coats to fill in knicks and gouges. I follow up with some light pastels during the dusting phase on the final weathering steps.

Please see the attached - a slightly off pic of 2 current beams WIP - no final dusting yet. Both are for german tanks in Russia in 1941-42 (one is for the Pz 38(t) you see in the pic, the other is for that Bronco Mk IV A-13 used by the Germans as a command tank in a flamm panzer battalion in 1941). My approach is to do these a combo of fairly new and "fresh" or somewhat new and oily - and presuming they went under those tracks, they are gnarled a little. I like a slightly satin finish over completely flat - a little natural "glint" is good and captures the nature of wood. I will be dusting and maybe mudding them a bit to finish things off this week.

I do NOT favor graying or silvering in these logs, as they probably never lasted very long and probably were pretty freshly-cut when used. So, I doubt that they aged much - more likely got chopped and gouged and maybe even shot-up during their rather short and brutish life! But that's just my opinion.



Cheers!

Bob

I used Model Master 'Wood' enamel and umber oil paint for these crates. The umber oil paint was rubbed on with a qtip.

2 things to consider, texture and color

Most important thing is to find photographic reference of the kind of wood you want to portray. Real wood can look so different: depending on size, type of tree, amount of weathering, type of finish (natural vs. varnished vs. painted, etc.)

Texture wise - look for the size of the grain of the original, as well as any chips and damage.

The thing with balsa wood is that it's ever so slightly translucent, if you use it without painting, then it will look out of scale.

I would say a combination of thinned paint and washes in the appropriate color would be the way to go.

Hi all,
I really like some of the advice given in this thread - thanks fellas!
Okay, so scrap the balsa wood idea! I've just ordered some basswood online & should expect it here next week.

I've actually used some ice lo1ly sticks cut to shape, blackened with "Blacken It" & then "washed" with W&N raw umber, & then dusted with a little pigment. I used these sticks as bites or bearers used to place a load onto the back of a truck & then a fork lift is able to get its forks under the load easily. I think they have come out quite well!

But for the actual load of timber it needs to be a lot more detailed so I'll be going with the basswood. The truck is a US truck in Vietnam & is carrying some large planks to bd bunkers, etc, on a fire base or something similar so what sort of dimensions should I be looking for?

Thanks again.

Joe.

Stirring sticks, etc. are available in the arts and crafts aisle in dollar stores. Some of the sticks won't be 100% straight, but you get at least 100 for a buck.

Joe:

Plank size...

OK - In general, the planks used by most over-seas US installations are and were in 'Nam procured to meet US building and use standards - i.e., they came in the usual formats found in your average house construction site. US bases in 'Nam actually received shipments of wood products from Georgia-Pacific and Weyerhauser - stuff you would now buy at the local Home Depot.

So... this means you could likely outfit your truck with scaled versions of commercial sizes - "2x4' come in 8 and 10-ft, 2x6 and 2x8 come in 8, 10, 12 ft, 2x8, 2x10, 2x16 come in up to 16 ft, 4x... follow similar pattern, as do 6x... and 8x... Other then baulks used for major timber braces, etc., the typical largest sizes would be those 2x12 and 8x8 things.

Scale-to-fit by the usual multiply the real measures by 1:35 or 0.029 - a 2x4 becomes a stick about 0.06 x 0.12 inch (so a small 1/16 x 1/8 US inch in cross-section). And those standard lengths become 8ft = 2.74 inch - say 2 3/4 inch. A 12ft board becomes 4 1/8, etc.

A nice, chunky 4x8 beam would be about 1/8 x 1/4 inch in cross-section...

Load 'em up!

Cheers!

Bob

Hi Bob,
Great info! Thanks mate!
Now I can really get to work!

Joe.

I used oil paints for the deck of my 1:96 USS Constitution

That's significantly more colorful than I remember her deck being when I went aboard her in Boston some years ago, but checking online, I find a much wider variation in color from picture to picture than between your example and my memory. My memory matches this picture (official Navy photo):



However, it would make a significant difference which incarnation of the USS Constitution you were modeling; particularly with a ship in active combat service, the unfinished deck planking washed down with salt water and regularly holystoned (rubbed down with a block of pumice on a handle to smooth the planks) would quickly turn grey in service, with color variation depending on how recently a plank was replaced.

Joe / all:

As a follow-up on my previous unditching beam pic (in the "clean stained-wood" state) - I completed the Panzer 38(t) with its fender-mounted beam last nite - just in time for today's show down here in Lafayette,LA.... At any rate, a first version of "complete".

Here is the dusted version of that bass-wood beam. Point here being that prepping the wood to be "wood" should, I think, be done as a first clear step in your process to your finalized wood. Once you are happy with your wood at some relatively clean and raw state, you can then move to season it and weather or dirty it up to be integrated - or not - with its circumstances and setting. In my case, a road-dusty Panzer 38(t) ausf E in Operation Barbarossa, western Russia, 1941. It was warm and dry, so no real mud need apply. It was clearly a dusty time for the Panzerwaffe as they headed east...



Cheers!

Bob