Miscellaneous Projects: Kato bridges, the "un-simple" skyscraper, and other stuff

The Simple Skyscraper Project That has Turned Out to be Very Complicated:

So I abandoned the spray-painted paper exterior for this so-called 'simple' skyscraper scratchbuild.  I think it would have worked fine, but the temperature and humidity changes in my 'train room' and the fact that the spray adhesive wasn't holding well enough for a nice flat surface, resulted in my removing the paper and going with good old spray paint on acyrlic as the exterior of this building.

I also wasn't thrilled with the dark gray I chose for the building color.  Too many dark gray buildings.  Need some variety.

Using the convenient 1/2" masking tape from Model Masters, I masked out all the window areas and gave several coats of black primer (to create a thick opaque surface).

A couple of coats of tan spray paint followed, resulting in the below:

After which follows the very tedious, nerve-wracking and painful process of removing said masking tape.  The problem is the spray paint, perhaps because of its thickness and the difficulty of the black primer to adhere to the acrylic, tended to come off at certain points.  It made the building look like it just went through a war!

So...another coat of paint and another round of masking are in process now, with some inevitable touch ups to cover up the boo-boos.

Weathering The Kato Bridges:

A much more enjoyable project has been weathering my Kato double track bridges.  I had two of the dark green bridges, connected to a black double track truss bridge that just looked way too shiny and "plasticky" and needed some weathering.

I actually ended up repainting all of the green to a lighter color green, and while that paint was still wet, I hit the buildings with coats of "Transparent Black Window Tint", "Cinnamon" (a rust-like color) and coats of clear dull-coat.  Overall this process worked really well.

I also added some Burnt Sienna oil paint mixed with a bit of lighter fluid to add a bit more rust to the rivets and joint areas of the girders.

I have to say...weathering is a lot of fun!  I only hope I don't get too carried away and start weathering everything!

Cathedral Lighting, Repaint, etc...

The Vollmer Cathedral was one of my first buildings that I put together, but lacked the lighting and some of the other techniques that I've learned in the past couple of years, so I added some lights (both interior, and 3 'spotlights' shooting up on the exterior), retouched the paint, and I think came out with a much better looking building.  I have to admit, Vollmer makes some really awesomely detailed kits.

"Jetson's Tower"

I was ( and still am) fascinated by the idea of getting this HO Faller "Television Tower" to fit on my layout.  I got this off eBay several months ago with the hope that it wouldn't be totally correct for HO (and I was sort of right, although the ceilings will be very generous for N Scale, I don't think they'll look totally out of proportion).  These buildings are unusual on layouts (I've never seen a layout with one of these on it) but they do seem to show up in many modern city scapes, so I think it would work well.  "Jetson's Tower" is just my working name for now, by the way!

I have the model train hobbyists version of 'writers block' with this, and haven't moved past some basic construction and initial painting.

The Kibri Kitbash

These blue and grey structures are interesting examples of ugly contemporary architecture, but I've always thought would make an interesting looking high rise.  I'm almost done with this project, and it will probably be the subject of my next post.  Hint: Yes, it involves having to do with combining both of the below buildings!